50 Fun Facts About Bob Dylan

What name was Bob Dylan given at birth?

He was born at St Mary's Hospital in Duluth in May 1941. He took his stage name legally some years later.

In which northern state was Bob Dylan born?

The town was Duluth, on Lake Superior. The family moved inland when he was six.

In which iron-mining town did Dylan spend most of his childhood?

The family moved there after his father contracted polio. It was his mother's home town.

Which musician did Dylan travel to New York to visit in January 1961?

His idol was in a psychiatric hospital in New Jersey by then. Dylan's early style is a direct copy of his.

From which traditional song did the melody of 'Blowin' in the Wind' partly derive?

Pete Seeger identified the source and Dylan later confirmed it. The spiritual is connected to 'We Shall Overcome'.

In which year did Dylan write 'Blowin' in the Wind'?

It appeared on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan the following year. A folk trio's cover version made it a hit.

Whose cover of the same song became a huge hit weeks after Dylan's own version?

They released it three weeks after The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan came out. It spent five weeks at the top of the Middle-Road chart.

At which 1965 event did Dylan play his first electric set since high school?

Mike Bloomfield played guitar and Al Kooper the organ. The reaction split the folk world in two.

How high did 'Like a Rolling Stone' reach on the US chart in 1965?

It ran to six minutes and thirteen seconds, which radio stations initially refused to play. Public demand forced them to relent.

Why did radio stations initially refuse to play 'Like a Rolling Stone'?

Nothing that long had been a pop single before. Listener demand eventually forced it onto air in full.

What did Dylan insist on when he heard the playback of 'Like a Rolling Stone'?

The producer objected that Al Kooper was not even an organ player. The improvised part is now the most famous thing on the record.

Where did Rolling Stone magazine place 'Like a Rolling Stone' in its 2004 and 2010 greatest songs lists?

It topped both editions of the list. The 2021 revision moved it down.

Which album did Dylan release on 30 August 1965, with rock musicians backing every track?

It closes with the eleven-minute acoustic exception 'Desolation Row'. Rolling Stone later placed it fourth on its greatest albums list.

Which track closes that 1965 album as its sole acoustic song?

It runs to eleven minutes with classical guitar flourishes. Everything else on the record is electric.

Where did Rolling Stone rank that album in its 2003 500 Greatest Albums list?

The magazine called it one of those albums that changed everything; the 2020 revision moved it to 18th. The route it is named after runs past Dylan's birthplace.

What happened to Dylan on 29 July 1966?

It happened near his home in Woodstock, New York, on a Triumph Tiger 100. He withdrew from public life for months afterwards.

What make of motorcycle was Dylan riding at the time?

The model was a Tiger 100. He said he broke several vertebrae in his neck.

Roughly how many songs did Dylan record in seclusion during 1967?

They were taped at his Woodstock home and in the basement of a house called Big Pink. A selection was finally released in 1975.

What was the nearby house where those 1967 sessions were taped called?

The Hawks, later known as The Band, lived there. Columbia released a selection as The Basement Tapes.

In which year did Columbia release The Basement Tapes?

The recordings had circulated as bootlegs for years before that. A full box set followed decades later.

Which album did Dylan record in September 1974, with songs about ruptured relationships?

It received mixed reviews on release early the next year. It is now routinely called his best album.

What did Dylan do in the late 1970s that surprised his audience?

He took a three-month discipleship course with the Association of Vineyard Churches. Three gospel albums followed.

Which guitarist played on Slow Train Coming in 1979?

Jerry Wexler produced the album. It won Dylan a Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.

Which song won Dylan a Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance?

It opens his first gospel album. Two more Christian records followed in 1980 and 1981.

Which supergroup did Dylan join in 1988?

George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty made up the rest. They pretended to be half-brothers.

What pseudonym did Dylan use in that supergroup?

Harrison was Nelson, Lynne was Otis, Orbison was Lefty and Petty was Charlie T Junior. The joke was that they were all brothers.

Which member of the 1988 supergroup died that December?

He had a heart attack weeks after the first album came out. The others carried on as a quartet.

Which Grammy did that supergroup win in 1990?

The debut album was both a critical and a commercial success. Five established stars won a group award between them.

How was Dylan's 2016 Nobel citation worded?

The citation praised new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition. He had already received a Pulitzer special citation in 2008.

What was the wording of Dylan's Nobel citation?

The committee framed it as work in the great American song tradition. He did not attend the ceremony.

In which year did Dylan receive a Pulitzer Prize special citation?

The Nobel followed eight years later. Few musicians have won either.

What is the name given to Dylan's continuous touring since the late 1980s?

He plays around a hundred shows a year on it. The name was coined by the press rather than by him.

Roughly how many records has Dylan sold worldwide?

That puts him among the best-selling musicians of all time. His commercial peak was more than fifty years ago.

How long is 'Like a Rolling Stone'?

That was unheard of for a single in 1965. Stations played it in two halves before giving in.

Who played the improvised organ part on 'Like a Rolling Stone'?

He was not an organ player and had turned up hoping to play guitar. Dylan pushed the part to the front of the mix anyway.

Which guitarist backed Dylan at the notorious 1965 electric performance?

The set lasted three songs. The audience reaction has been argued about ever since.

What was the second of Dylan's three Christian albums?

It came out in 1980 to mixed reviews. The third arrived the following year.

Which album followed Saved as Dylan's third Christian record?

It was released in 1981. After that he returned to secular songwriting.

What is 'Blowin' in the Wind' widely described as?

Sam Cooke was inspired by it to write his own protest song. Mavis Staples said she was amazed a young white man had captured that frustration.

Which US president presented Dylan with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in May 2012?

Obama called him the biggest giant in the history of American music; Clinton had given him Kennedy Center Honors in 1997.

Dylan's 1975 ballad 'Hurricane' argued the innocence of which imprisoned boxer?

Despite running over eight minutes, the single reached number 33 in the US and was played at every 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue date.

What was the name of Dylan's weekly XM Satellite show, launched in 2006?

Each show gathered songs around a theme like weather or weddings, spinning everything from Muddy Waters to L.L. Cool J.

In which Lake Superior port city was Dylan born in May 1941?

His paternal grandparents had emigrated from Odessa after the 1905 pogroms; the family later moved inland to a mining town.

Who managed Dylan from 1962 until 1970?

Dylan likened the confrontational Grossman to a Colonel Tom Parker figure: 'you could smell him coming'.

For which film did Dylan write 'Things Have Changed', winning an Oscar for Best Original Song?

The 2001 Oscar came the same year as 'Love and Theft', released on 11 September 2001.

In which city did the Bob Dylan Center, housing his 6,000-item archive, open in May 2022?

The archive was sold to the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Tulsa in 2016 for an estimated $15–20 million.

What was the name of Dylan's character in Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid?

He also supplied the soundtrack, from which 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door' became one of his most covered songs.

Under which alias did Dylan produce his 2001 album 'Love and Theft'?

He recorded it with his touring band, and critics noted him widening his musical palette.

Which BBC television play brought Dylan to Britain for the first time in December 1962?

Director Philip Saville had him sing 'Blowin' in the Wind' at the end, one of its first public performances.

Under what stage name did the teenage Dylan play piano with Bobby Vee in 1959?

His high school yearbook that year read 'Robert Zimmerman: to join Little Richard'.