Becoming Dylan: Bob Dylan’s Rise to Fame in Pictures

Inarguably one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Bob Dylan reshaped popular music by “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” according to the Swedish Academy, which presented him with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. “I contain multitudes,” Dylan first sang in 2020, echoing Walt Whitman, and the journey from Bob Zimmerman of Hibbing, Minnesota, to Bob Dylan of Greenwich Village, New York, “voice of his generation,” was informed by an abundance of varied influences. Coming of age as McCarthyism was losing its grip on America, Dylan was energized by actor James Dean, country singer-songwriter Hank Williams (the “Hillbilly Shakespeare”), and rock and rollers Buddy Holly and Little Richard. Dylan became enamored of the songs and persona of Dust Bowl bard Woody Guthrie and enthralled with the mystery of the Anthology of American Folk Music (1952). Having authored a string of poignant “protest songs,” he reigned with Joan Baez as the king and queen of the folk revival. Later, in 1965–66, during a concentrated period of prolific creativity, when remarkable songs poured out of him as if he were channeling the oversoul, Dylan borrowed from Arthur Rimbaud, William Blake, and the Beats to wildly expand the poetic possibilities for song lyrics. In our feature follow Dylan’s rise to fame in pictures as he breaks out in Greenwich Village “basket houses,” shocks the folk world by “going electric,” and withdraws to Woodstock, New York, after a mysterious motorcycle accident.