Bob Dylan, Ralph Ueltzhoeffer TEXT PORTRAIT (2010)

Bob Dylan, (2009) Biografie/Biography by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer. Text: Wikipedia: Bob Dylan. Text-photo-Bob Dylan - copyrights by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer. Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, author, poet, and painter, who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. Much of Dylan's most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when he became an informal chronicler and a reluctant figurehead of American unrest. A number of his songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'",[2] became anthems of the civil rights movements. His most recent studio album, Modern Times, released on August 29, 2006, entered the U.S. album chart at number one, and that same year was named Album of the Year by Rolling Stone magazine.[3] Dylan's early lyrics incorporated political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defying existing pop music conventions and appealing widely to the counterculture. While expanding and personalizing musical styles, he has explored many traditions of American song, from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll and rockabilly to English, Scottish and Irish folk music, and even jazz and swing.[4] Dylan performs with the guitar, piano and harmonica. Backed by a changing line-up of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the "Never Ending Tour". Although his accomplishments as performer and recording artist have been central to his career, his songwriting is generally regarded as his greatest contribution.[5] Throughout his career, Dylan has won many awards for his songwriting, performing, and recording. His records have earned Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards, and he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2008, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."[6] Life and career [edit] Origins and musical beginnings Robert Allen Zimmerman (Hebrew name Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham)[7][8] was born in St. Mary's Hospital on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota,[9] and raised there and in Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Iron Range west of Lake Superior. Research by Dylan’s biographers has shown that his paternal grandparents, Zigman and Anna Zimmerman, emigrated from Odessa in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine) to the United States following the antisemitic pogroms of 1905.[10] His mother's grandparents, Benjamin and Lybba Edelstein, were Lithuanian Jews who arrived in America in 1902.[10] In his autobiography Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan writes that his paternal grandmother's maiden name was Kirghiz and her family originated from Istanbul.[11] His parents, Abram Zimmerman and Beatrice "Beatty" Stone, were part of the area's small but close-knit Jewish community. Zimmerman lived in Duluth until age six. When his father was stricken with polio, the family returned to his mother's home town, Hibbing, where Zimmerman spent the rest of his childhood.[12] Robert Zimmerman spent much of his youth listening to the radio—first to blues and country stations broadcasting from Shreveport, Louisiana and, later, to early rock and roll.[13] He formed several bands in high school: The Shadow Blasters was short lived, but his next, The Golden Chords,[14] lasted longer and played covers of popular songs. Their performance of Danny and the Juniors' "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay" at their high school talent show was so loud that the principal cut the microphone off.[15] In his 1959 school yearbook, Robert Zimmerman listed as his ambition "To join Little Richard."[16] The same year, using the name Elston Gunnn, he performed two dates with Bobby Vee, playing piano and providing handclaps.[1][17][18] Zimmerman moved to Minneapolis in September 1959 and enrolled at the University of Minnesota. His early focus on rock and roll gave way to an interest in American folk music. In 1985 Dylan explained the attraction that folk music had exerted on him: "The thing about rock'n'roll is that for me anyway it wasn't enough ... There were great catch-phrases and driving pulse rhythms ... but the songs weren't serious or didn't reflect life in a realistic way. I knew that when I got into folk music, it was more of a serious type of thing. The songs are filled with more despair, more sadness, more triumph, more faith in the supernatural, much deeper feelings."[19] He soon began to perform at the 10 O'clock Scholar, a coffee house a few blocks from campus, and became actively involved in the local Dinkytown folk music circuit.[20][21] During his Dinkytown days, Zimmerman began introducing himself as "Bob Dylan".[14] Dylan recalled: "What I was going to do as soon as I left home was just call myself Robert Allen ... It sounded like a Scottish king and I liked it." However, in reading Down Beat magazine, he discovered there was a saxophonist named David Allyn. Dylan adds, "I'd seen some poems by Dylan Thomas. Dylan and Allyn sounded similar. Robert Dylan. Robert Allyn. The letter D came on stronger."[22] [edit] Relocation to New York and record deal Dylan dropped out of college at the end of his freshman year. In January 1961, he moved to New York City, hoping to perform there and visit his musical idol Woody Guthrie, who was seriously ill with Huntington's Disease in Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital.[23] Guthrie had been a revelation to Dylan and was the biggest influence on his early performances. Dylan would later say of Guthrie's work, "You could listen to his songs and actually learn how to live."[21] As well as visiting Guthrie in the hospital, Dylan befriended Guthrie's acolyte Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Much of Guthrie's repertoire was actually channeled through Elliott, and Dylan paid tribute to Elliott in Chronicles (2004).[24] From February 1961, Dylan played at various clubs around Greenwich Village. In September, he eventually gained public recognition when Robert Shelton wrote a positive review in The New York Times of a show at Gerde's Folk City.[25] The same month Dylan played harmonica on folk singer Carolyn Hester's eponymous third album, which brought his talents to the attention of the album's producer John Hammond.[26] Hammond signed Dylan to Columbia Records in October. The performances on his first Columbia album, Bob Dylan (1962), consisted of familiar folk, blues and gospel material combined with two original compositions. The album made little impact, selling only 5,000 copies in its first year, just enough to break even.[27] Within Columbia Records, some referred to the singer as "Hammond's Folly" and suggested dropping his contract. Hammond defended Dylan vigorously, and Johnny Cash was also a powerful ally of Dylan.[27] While working for Columbia, Dylan also recorded several songs under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt, for Broadside Magazine, a folk music magazine and record label.[28] With Joan Baez during the Civil Rights March in Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963Dylan made two important career moves in August 1962. He legally changed his name to Robert Dylan, and signed a management contract with Albert Grossman. Grossman remained Dylan's manager until 1970, and was notable both for his sometimes confrontational personality, and for the fiercely protective loyalty he displayed towards his principal client.[29] Dylan would subsequently describe Grossman thus: "He was kind of like a Colonel Tom Parker figure ... you could smell him coming."[21] Tensions between Grossman and John Hammond led to Hammond being replaced as the producer of Dylan's second album by the young African American jazz producer Tom Wilson.[30] By the time Dylan's second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, was released in May 1963, he had begun making his name as both a singer and a songwriter. Many of the songs on this album were labelled protest songs, inspired partly by Guthrie and influenced by Pete Seeger's passion for topical songs.[31] "Oxford Town", for example, was a sardonic account of James Meredith's ordeal as the first black student to risk enrollment at the University of Mississippi.[32] His most famous song of the time, "Blowin' in the Wind", partially derived its melody from the traditional slave song "No More Auction Block", while its lyrics questioned the social and political status quo.[33] The song was widely recorded and became an international hit for Peter, Paul and Mary, setting a precedent for many other artists who would have hits with Dylan's songs. "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" was based on the tune of the folk ballad "Lord Randall". With its veiled references to nuclear apocalypse, it gained even more resonance when the Cuban missile crisis developed only a few weeks after Dylan began performing it.[34] Like "Blowin' in the Wind", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" marked an important new direction in modern songwriting, blending a stream-of-consciousness, imagist lyrical attack with a traditional folk form.[35] Bob Dylan - "Blowin' in the Wind" Blowin' in the Wind was, according to critic Andy Gill, "the song with which Dylan's name is most inextricably linked, and safeguarded his reputation as a civil libertarian through any number of changes in style and attitude."[36] Problems listening to this file? See media help. While Dylan's topical songs solidified his early reputation, Freewheelin' also included a mixture of love songs and jokey, surreal talking blues. Humor was a large part of Dylan's persona,[37] and the range of material on the album impressed many listeners, including The Beatles. George Harrison said, "We just played it, just wore it out. The content of the song lyrics and just the attitude—it was incredibly original and wonderful."[38] The rough edge of Dylan's singing was unsettling to some early listeners but an attraction to others. Describing the impact that Dylan had on her and her husband, Joyce Carol Oates wrote: "When we first heard this raw, very young, and seemingly untrained voice, frankly nasal, as if sandpaper could sing, the effect was dramatic and electrifying."[39] Many of his most famous early songs first reached the public through more immediately palatable versions by other performers, such as Joan Baez, who became Dylan's advocate, as well as his lover.[14] Baez was influential in bringing Dylan to national and international prominence by recording several of his early songs and inviting him onstage during her own concerts.[40] Others who recorded and had hits with Dylan's songs in the early and mid-1960s included The Byrds, Sonny and Cher, The Hollies, Peter, Paul and Mary, Manfred Mann, and The Turtles. Most attempted to impart a pop feel and rhythm to the songs, while Dylan and Baez performed them mostly as sparse folk pieces. The cover versions became so ubiquitous that CBS started to promote him with the tag "Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan."[41] "Mixed Up Confusion", recorded during the Freewheelin' sessions with a backing band, was released as a single and then quickly withdrawn. In contrast to the mostly solo acoustic performances on the album, the single showed a willingness to experiment with a rockabilly sound. Cameron Crowe described it as "a fascinating look at a folk artist with his mind wandering towards Elvis Presley and Sun Records."[42] [edit] Protest and Another Side In May 1963, Dylan's political profile was raised when he walked out of The Ed Sullivan Show. During rehearsals, Dylan had been informed by CBS Television's "head of program practices" that the song he was planning to perform, "Talkin' John Birch Society Blues", was potentially libelous to the John Birch Society. Rather than comply with the censorship, Dylan refused to appear on the program.[43] By this time, Dylan and Baez were both prominent in the civil rights movement, singing together at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.[44] Dylan's third album, The Times They Are a-Changin', reflected a more politicized and cynical Dylan.[45] The songs often took as their subject matter contemporary, real life stories, with "Only A Pawn In Their Game" addressing the murder of civil rights worker Medgar Evers; and the Brechtian "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" the death of black hotel barmaid Hattie Carroll, at the hands of young white socialite William Zantzinger. [Textportraitproject by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer, Textportrait] On a more general theme, "Ballad of Hollis Brown" and "North Country Blues" address the despair engendered by the breakdown of farming and mining communities. This political material was accompanied by two personal love songs, "Boots of Spanish Leather" and "One Too Many Mornings".[47] Bob Dylan - "The Times They Are a-Changin'" Dylan said of "The Times They Are a-Changin'": "This was definitely a song with a purpose. I wanted to write a big song, some kind of theme song, with short concise verses that piled up on each other in a hypnotic way. The civil rights movement and the folk music movement were pretty close and allied together at that time."[19] Problems listening to this file? See media help. By the end of 1963, Dylan felt both manipulated and constrained by the folk and protest movements.[48] These tensions were publicly displayed when, accepting the "Tom Paine Award" from the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a drunken, rambling Dylan questioned the role of the committee, insulted its members as old and balding, and claimed to see something of himself (and of every man) in Kennedy's alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.[49] Bob Dylan performing at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York, 1963.Another Side of Bob Dylan, recorded on a single June evening in 1964,[14] had a lighter mood than its predecessor. The surreal, humorous Dylan reemerged on "I Shall Be Free #10" and "Motorpsycho Nightmare". "Spanish Harlem Incident" and "To Ramona" are romantic and passionate love songs, while "Black Crow Blues" and "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)" suggest the rock and roll soon to dominate Dylan's music. "It Ain't Me Babe", on the surface a song about spurned love, has been described as a rejection of the role his reputation had thrust at him.[50] His newest direction was signaled by two lengthy songs: the impressionistic "Chimes of Freedom", which sets elements of social commentary against a denser metaphorical landscape in a style later characterized by Allen Ginsberg as "chains of flashing images,"[51] and "My Back Pages", which attacks the simplistic and arch seriousness of his own earlier topical songs and seems to predict the backlash he was about to encounter from his former champions as he took a new direction.[52] In the latter half of 1964 and 1965, Dylan’s appearance and musical style changed rapidly, as he made his move from leading contemporary songwriter of the folk scene to Folk-Rock pop-music star. His scruffy jeans and work shirts were replaced by a Carnaby Street wardrobe, sunglasses day or night, and pointy "Beatle boots". A London reporter wrote: "Hair that would set the teeth of a comb on edge. A loud shirt that would dim the neon lights of Leicester Square. He looks like an undernourished cockatoo."[53] Dylan also began to spar in increasingly surreal ways with his interviewers. Appearing on the Les Crane TV show and asked about a movie he was planning to make, he told Crane it would be a cowboy horror movie. Asked if he played the cowboy, Dylan replied, "No, I play my mother."[54] [edit] Going electric Main article: Electric Dylan controversy His March 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home was yet another stylistic leap.[55] The album featured his first recordings made with electric instruments. The first single, "Subterranean Homesick Blues", owed much to Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business" and was provided with an early music video courtesy of D. A. Pennebaker's cinéma vérité presentation of Dylan's 1965 tour of England, Dont Look Back.[56] Its free association lyrics both harked back to the manic energy of Beat poetry and were a forerunner of rap and hip-hop.[57] By contrast, the B side of the album was interpreted by some folk fans as a conciliatory gesture: four long songs where Dylan accompanied himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica.[58] "Mr. Tambourine Man" had already been a hit for The Byrds, and would become one of his best known songs; while "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" would be acclaimed as two of Dylan's most important compositions. [...] Web-art-project TEXTPORTRAIT: Bob Dylan, Ralph Ueltzhoeffer, Balazs Kicsiny, Andy Warhol, Tracey Emin, Maurizio Cattelan, Robert Kusmirowski, James Rosenquist, Nam June Paik.
Ralph Ueltzhoeffer: Installation (Works).