Content area
Full Text
The big question
Why are we asking this now?
Because, like God, Dylan is everywhere. His ubiquity is extraordinary. His 33rd studio album Together Through Life will shortly be released, the fourth in an extraordinary late flowering of bluesy songs that kicked off with the brilliant Time Out of Mind in 1997. His Theme Time Radio Hour, available here on BBC6, has logged 100 hours of quirkily eclectic music from a slew of genres, even if it may be coming to a close (his most recent song "theme" was "Goodbye"). His recent exhibition of paintings, the Drawn Blank Series, in London's Mayfair may be followed by a travelling sculpture exhibition in Europe next year. This Sunday's one-off concert at the Roundhouse is a stroll in the park for a man who routinely performs 150 concerts a year. And if anyone ever mentions the world's most prestigious writing award, the Nobel Prize for Literature, somebody will tap his nose and sagely assure you that Bob Dylan has been "on the shortlist" for the last four years. Oh and Barack Obama brags about having Dylan's songs on his iPod. Like I say, ubiquitous.
Remind me: who is Bob Dylan?
Born Robert Zimmerman in May 1941. Family descended from Russian and Lithuanian Jews. Raised in Duluth and Hibbing, Minnesota, where formed bands in high school. Dropped out of University of Minnesota, determined to infuse US folk music with new seriousness. Went to New York, discovered art and books, sat at hospital bedside of his hero, Woody Guthrie. Began to perform songs in Greenwich Village. First album of cover versions from Columbia, 1962. Made reputation with second and third albums, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and The Times They Are A-Changin', as musical seer and prophet of social breakdown and political apocalypse in songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind", "Hard Rain's Gonna Fall", "Masters of War", "Chimes of Freedom", etc. His sandpaper rasp and unmelodious whine put off some listeners,...