Musician Portrait: Bob Dylan Essay

Bob Dylan brought the kin traditions of artists such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger to both the mainstream and beatnik culture of America, and into the leaning and roll era. His writing provided a to a greater extent thoughtful counterpart to The Beatles and the other symphonyians of the era, who were always more commercially successful, fusing popular practice of medicine with an intellectuality and social conscience. His lyrics were the first to be analysed and seriously regarded as literature and his words today represent part of the Western Canon, cited by presidents, scholars and musicians in equal measure ( cast St superstar 2001).For five decades he has been writing and performing, and his works are hugely varied in musical and lyrical content, from blues-influenced anti-war sing-alongs to ecclesiastical-funk in the rather forgettable born-again Christian years. His lyrics social definition particularly in his earlier years truly fulfils the role of folk-music in spre ading tales and ideas by oral means, which will always be a brisk memory of when the large proportion of popular strivings didnt seem to revolve around either fellatio or handguns.Biography Ethnic/Racial grow and Early Years Bob Dylan was born Robert Zimmerman into a Jewish family in Minnesota, where he grew up in the earliest years of rock and roll, and popular music as a whole. While his Jewish roots had little effect on his musicianship and career, it was the work of singers such as Elvis and Little Richard that guide the boy to copy both the piano and the electric guitar which he would later shun for many years and begin to write music performing in several(prenominal) high school bands.He also found an icon in James Dean, collecting memorabilia (Life in Hibbing 2002) and riding a motorcycle, which would al about kill him and conduct him into his longest period of seclusion in the late 60s. Though overshadowed for many years by his folk-revival status, rock and roll wa s what had the greatest influence his youth and earliest musical beginnings. Music Formative Years In his high-school yearbook, Dylan is said to have written his ambition as being to join Little Richard (No Direction stand 1998), however folk music replaced these ambitions during his brief education at the University of Minneapolis.The shift away from rock and roll can be attri barelyed to his maturity, and it is in these years that he truly becomes a poet. After dropping out of university, he began using the name Bob Dylan for the first time, and moved to New York City in explore of his idol, the folk-hero Woody Guthrie. It was his relationship with Guthrie that defined these years, and he spent a huge amount of time at the ailing mans bedside, as comfortably as growing in popularity within the Greenwich Village folk scene, performing in many small clubs around New York.It was at the age of altogether 21 that he released his eponymous debut album and his commercial career began . Performing Career Dylan has recorded thirty-three albums since 1962, and as I mentioned in the accession been through several significant phases in his music and his life. Aside from typical musical development approximately significantly going electric in 1965 and put his grassroots folk beginnings behind him his most interesting paths have been his personal ones.With a near-fatal motorcycle accident in 1966, the end of the beginning of his career was cease abruptly, and he was sent into seclusion for many years, performing rarely and releasing albums of very inconsistent quality, repudiated by many of his earlier fans. He was honored by the music industry in 1991 with a Lifetime Achievement Grammy, and at the ceremony he delivered a speech which rather epitomized his opinion of his career stating that My atomic number 91 once said to me, he said, Son, it is possible for you to become so defiled in this world that your give birth mother and father will abandon you.If th at happens, perfection will believe in your ability to mend your own ways. ( behind(predicate) The Shades 2003). Discography The Freewheelin Bob Dylan (1963) In his second studio album, Dylan for the first time performs only his own songs. In the midst of his years in the Greenwich folk scene, the songs are largely performed with only vocals and guitar, and the occasional harmonica solo, and represent the most bare and traditionally folk of Dylans works. The albums opening track Blowin in the Wind is his most well-known early song, and the classic example of the protest song which he was known for.Highway 61 Revisited (1965) Dylans sixth studio album, Highway 61 was the first he recorded with a full backing band, and represent a return his rock and roll roots. A departure from the often light-hearted grassroots folk songs of his earlier career, the album is emotionally intense and far more serious. Offending many of his folk fans, Dylan was booed off during his second performanc e of the album by the crowd Folk Festival in England, whose rage was directed symbolically at his electric guitar, seen as a particular betrayal.The albums best-known song Like A Rolling Stone was in 2004 named the great Song of All-Time by Rolling Stone magazine. Desire (1976) One of his most commercially successful albums, and the most acclaimed in the on-off period of the 70s and 80s, Desire was the most folk-influenced of the era for Dylan. The album was recorded with somewhat of a bordello of travelling musicians, with whom Dylan had toured and written with for the past year or so.The albums opening track, Hurricane is one of his later protest songs, and of the 4 songs over seven minutes on the album an almost epic ballad, and his best example of classic folk storytelling. moderne Times (2006) His second album of the new millennium, Modern Times is a blues-rock orientated album, a genre not explored extensively in his earlier career. interpret with an impossibly rough voic e, Dylan was in his mid-60s during the albums recording, yet the album was well received by critics, many of whom suggested it was among the best of his career.His rendition of Someday bungle, a blues ballad allegedly first written by Muddy Waters (Wikipedia), was awarded a Grammy for the best solo male rock song in the year after its released. Critical Commentary Like A Rolling Stone Highway 61 Revisited (1965) Music To the folk purists of Greenwich Village who Dylan had great(p) to detest, the first few seconds of Like A Rolling Stone embodied Dylans ascent into the grand musical landscapes of rock, with a single strike of the basso drum introducing the famous organ, piano and guitar melody which continues throughout the 6 minute song.Immediately fast-paced and energetic the instrumentation reflects an escape from the relative constraints of the one-man-band acoustic guitar, harmonica and voice which Dylan had brought to the mainstream in previous albums. The songs surface rhyt hm is fairly conventional and consistent, with a largely unadventurous drum kit and tambourine keeping time throughout for the guitar and organ, but beneath this, the jangly bar-room piano is moving through rag/blues improvisations and straying from the rhythm in the background.The organ which so anthematically opens the song, compliments Dylans vocals throughout, wailing the celebrated riff of the chorus, but it never approaches drowning out his voice in any way, again firmly our of the foreground. The melody is for the most part led by the organ, which plays for the songs entirety and works around several chords, without any significantly adventurous breaks. On top of this are several solos, by the lead guitar, which carries the vocals into the chorus, and the harmonica, which stands as a reminder of Dylans folk roots.Lyrics The song has been interpreted for decades in enormous detail, but we can see clearly that Dylan is recounting at result two sides of a boil down from grace directed at a princess on the steeple who to lives in a blind decadence, while warned that she is bound to fall, but who lands up scrounging around for her next meal. Many have claimed the song is directed at Dylans one time lover, actress Edie Sedgwick, whose drug habituation and early death greatly affected the singer.Each of the five stanzas follows a similar rhythmic and rhyming structure, and follows a similar content structure in beginning by referencing the subjects indulgence and ignorance, and consequentially linking it to the desolation of her current condition You said youd never compromise/With the mystery tramp, but now you realise hes not sellin any alibis In this example the bold word indicates the shift in the whole stanza and the almost implike manner in which Dylan delivers it, like the conclusion of a fable drawing a moral lesson from an unfortunate scenario.The chorus asks rhetorically and yet pleadingly, How does it feel? To be on your ownwith no direction h ome and seems to blame the subject for her position, but especially considering the last line of the quote Dylan could see some of himself in the character. After spending so long escaping his upbringing Dylan had been rejected by the community he ran away to join and heartbroken, and it is this aspect which is the songs most poignant. For more information www. bobdylanroots.com This website catalogs the musical and social bases of Dylans work, and has compiled many articles and influences relating to his influences. It also contains an extensive lyrics library which I used in analyzing Like A Rolling Stone and many audio and video files of recordings and performances. http//folkmusic. about. com This extensive catalog of articles has a particularly good section on protest songs, and the significance of folk music in the anti-war and civil rights movements.The article entitled Whos The Next Bob Dylan also provided me with some new names in folk music to pursue Citations Romanows ki et al. The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001) A Tribute to Bob Dylan Life in Hibbing. www. hibbing. org (Copyright 2002) Shelton. No Direction Home (Penguin, 1987) Heylin. Bob Dylan Behind the Shades Revisited (Harper, 2003) Wikipedia Modern Times (album). en. wikipedia. org