Bob Dylan

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Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman) is one of the most important singer-songwriters of the era of recorded, commercially available music. His lyrics are a yardstick against which aspiring young singer-songwriters measure themselves. He broke seemingly unbreakable rules, and he did so with stalwart passion and uncompromising honesty. He incorporated musical traditions from a diverse range of genres, from blues, country and gospel to jazz, swing and musical theatre, as well as integrating rock & roll and rockabilly with traditional celtic folk music.

In a career that has so far spanned nearly fifty years, Dylan has released more than 30 studio albums (11 achieving platinum status and 11 gold). He became a reluctant spokesperson for a disaffected baby-boomer/protest generation, a world renowned poet/lyricist, and a pop-culture icon representing social justice, peaceful protest, and worn denim. Dylan was named by Time magazine as one of the "100 most influential people of the 20th century"; he won Grammys, Oscars and Golden Globe awards for his music; Rolling Stone magazine ranked him No.2 on its list of "Greatest Artists of All Time" (behind the Beatles); and he has even been nominated many times for the Nobel Prize in Literature and received an honorary Pulitzer Prize for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."

Bruce Springsteen said of Dylan: "Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. He showed us that just because music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual".

His songwriting has seen him inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Because of his lyrical renown he has been asked to collaborate with many acclaimed artists, including The Grateful Dead, U2, Joni Mitchell, The Rolling Stones, and Jack White. He worked with rock & roll legends Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and George Harrison as one fifth of the Traveling Wilburys, as well as country/western legends Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris.

Of his more than 30 studio albums, several are considered by rock critics to be among the all-time best, including Highway 61 Revisited and Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Blonde on Blonde (1966), and Blood on the Tracks (1975). With these albums Dylan united folk and rock seamlessly - something thought impossible until Dylan did it - reminding rock & roll that it had folk roots and introducing the electric guitar to both country and folk music.

In 2007 director Todd Haynes made an interpretative film of Dylan's life, I'm Not There, using six different actors (Marcus Carl Franklin, Ben Whishaw, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, and Cate Blanchett) to depict different aspects of Dylan's life and persona. Meanwhile, Dylan continued on his Never Ending Tour, with dates in Australia, New Zealand and Europe in the summer, and the USA in the autumn.