98 Fun Facts About Bob Dylan

What name was Bob Dylan given at birth?

Robert Allen Zimmerman made the new name legal only in August 1962, five months after his first album had come out under the name Bob Dylan.

Which already-famous folk singer championed the young Bob Dylan in 1963 by bringing him on stage at her concerts?

Joan Baez recorded his songs and brought the newcomer out at her own shows; the two were also a couple for about two years.

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

Hibbing was his mother's home town: the family moved there when he was six, after his father caught polio and they wanted relatives close by.

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

Woody Guthrie was in a New Jersey hospital with Huntington's disease when the 19-year-old came to see him; Dylan put a tribute, Song to Woody, on his first album.

From which traditional song did Bob Dylan partly take the melody of Blowin' in the Wind?

No More Auction Block is an old song from the days of slavery. Dylan was singing it in clubs in 1962, and his live recording of it finally came out in 1991.

Which soul star answered Blowin' in the Wind?

Sam Cooke admired the song but felt a Black writer should have written it, so he sang it on stage and then wrote A Change Is Gonna Come.

Whose cover of Blowin' in the Wind became a huge hit weeks after Bob Dylan released his own version?

Peter, Paul and Mary released it three weeks after Dylan's album came out; the trio shared his manager, which is how the new song reached them so fast.

At which festival did Bob Dylan first 'go electric' in July 1965, playing a loud rock set?

The Newport Folk Festival crowd met him with boos and cheers. He left after three songs, then came back alone to sing It's All Over Now, Baby Blue on an acoustic guitar.

How high did Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone climb on the US Billboard chart in 1965?

Number two was its peak, in September 1965: the Beatles' Help! held the top spot and kept Dylan from the summit.

Why were many US radio stations at first unwilling to play Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone?

It was over six minutes long, so promo copies split the song across two sides of the disc, until listeners' demand pushed stations to play it whole.

Which guitarist's 1968 cover of All Along the Watchtower so impressed Bob Dylan that he adopted its arrangement on stage?

Jimi Hendrix turned the quiet acoustic track into a rock classic, and Dylan has played it his way ever since; it became the song he has performed live more than any other.

Where did Rolling Stone magazine rank Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone on its 2004 and 2010 greatest songs lists?

Number one on both lists: the magazine said that with this single Dylan had transformed what a popular song could contain and attempt.

Which 1965 Bob Dylan album opens with Like a Rolling Stone?

Highway 61 Revisited is named after the road that ran from the town where he was born down to Memphis and New Orleans, the country of the blues he loved.

Which eleven-minute acoustic song closes Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited?

Desolation Row is the record's one track without electric backing. The delicate second guitar was improvised by Charlie McCoy, a Nashville session player who happened to be visiting New York.

Which disaster does Bob Dylan retell across 45 verses in the title track of his 2012 album Tempest?

The sinking of the Titanic. Dylan built the song on an old Carter Family tune, mixed fact with fiction, and even gave Leonardo DiCaprio a place in the lyric.

What happened to Bob Dylan on 29 July 1966?

He crashed his motorcycle, then spent months recovering out of public view, and he did not go back on tour until 1974.

Which presidential candidate quoted Bob Dylan in his 1976 speech accepting his party's nomination?

Jimmy Carter told the Democratic convention that America was, in Bob Dylan's phrase, busy being born, not busy dying; the line comes from It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding).

In which religion was Bob Dylan raised in small-town Minnesota?

Judaism. He had his bar mitzvah in 1954, and from the 1980s he grew close to the Lubavitch Hasidic movement, later appearing on its telethons.

What was the nickname of the house near Woodstock where Bob Dylan and the Hawks recorded in 1967?

Big Pink was a house in West Saugerties shared by three of the Hawks. When the group made a debut album of its own in 1968, it was titled Music from Big Pink.

Which album did Bob Dylan record in September 1974, filling it with songs about broken relationships?

Blood on the Tracks was finished in New York, but weeks before its release Dylan recut several songs in Minneapolis at sessions his brother set up.

Which step did Bob Dylan take in the late 1970s that reshaped his next three albums?

He became a born-again Christian, spending months in Bible classes at a Vineyard church in California before he recorded a note of the new songs.

Which guitarist played lead on Bob Dylan's 1979 album Slow Train Coming?

Mark Knopfler got the call after Dylan watched his group, Dire Straits, play a Los Angeles club in 1979 and was impressed enough to hire him.

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 Bob Dylan join in 1988?

The Traveling Wilburys began by accident: George Harrison needed a B-side in a hurry, friends gathered at Dylan's California studio, and the result was judged too good to throw away.

Which 1975 Bob Dylan song did he often say took 'ten years to live and two years to write'?

Tangled Up in Blue jumps about in time and between points of view, a method Dylan credited to classes with the painter Norman Raeben.

Which member of Bob Dylan's 1988 supergroup died that December, weeks after its first album came out?

Roy Orbison died of a heart attack in the middle of a comeback. The other four chose not to replace him and made their second album as a quartet.

Whom did Bob Dylan quietly marry in November 1965, at the height of his fame?

Sara Lownds was a former model. The marriage ended in divorce in 1977, a year after he put a song called simply Sara on the album Desire.

Which Bob Dylan song, a parent's blessing for a child, appears in two versions on the same 1974 album?

Forever Young was written as a lullaby for his eldest son, Jesse. Wary of sounding too sentimental, Dylan cut it twice, once gently and once as a rocker.

For what was Bob Dylan awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature?

For creating new poetic expressions in song, within what the citation called the great American song tradition. Dylan then said nothing in public about the prize for days.

Which prize gave Bob Dylan a special citation in 2008?

The Pulitzer Prize board cited his profound impact on popular music and American culture, and lyrics it described as having extraordinary poetic power.

What nickname did the press give the heavy concert schedule Bob Dylan began in June 1988?

The Never Ending Tour opened on 7 June 1988. Dylan himself has been dismissive of the name, but reporters went on using it for the decades of concerts that followed.

Which Coen brothers comedy plays Bob Dylan's The Man in Me over its opening credits?

The Big Lebowski uses the song twice, over the titles and again in a dream sequence, and its star Jeff Bridges has since sung it on stage.

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

Al Kooper was a 21-year-old guitarist invited only to watch. He slipped onto the organ anyway, and Dylan liked the part so much that he had it turned up.

Which guitarist backed Bob Dylan at his notorious electric festival set in July 1965?

Mike Bloomfield, of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, was recruited on the spot: Dylan decided to play electric the day before, and the pickup group had one night to rehearse.

Which 1980 Bob Dylan album followed Slow Train Coming?

Saved first appeared in a sleeve showing a painted hand reaching down to other hands. Later pressings swapped the painting for a picture of Dylan on stage.

In which city was the 1978 live double album Bob Dylan at Budokan recorded?

Tokyo. The Nippon Budokan was built for the judo contests of the 1964 Olympics, and the album went on sale in Japan first, reaching other countries only later.

What is Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind widely described as?

An anthem of the civil rights movement, although the lyric never mentions race: it simply asks a string of questions about war, freedom and people who look away.

Which US president presented Bob Dylan with the Presidential Medal of Freedom?

Barack Obama said there was no bigger giant in the history of American music and called himself a really big fan. Dylan had skipped the White House ceremony for his National Medal of Arts two years earlier.

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

Rubin Carter got a prison visit from Dylan and a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden. A federal judge finally overturned his murder convictions in 1985.

What was the name of the weekly XM satellite show that Bob Dylan began hosting in 2006?

Theme Time Radio Hour built each show around one subject, such as weather or weddings. Between records Dylan read out listeners' emails, told jokes and recited poetry.

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 Bob Dylan from 1962 until 1970?

Albert Grossman was a tough dealmaker whom Dylan later called a Colonel Tom Parker figure. They split in 1970, after Dylan learned how large a share of his song publishing his manager held.

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

Wonder Boys brought him the Oscar in 2001. He was on tour in Australia that night, so he played the song and gave his thanks by satellite from Sydney.

In which city did the Bob Dylan Center, home to his personal archive, open in May 2022?

Tulsa got the archive because the foundation of a local billionaire, George Kaiser, bought it in 2016 with the city's university, for a price reported at $15 to $20 million.

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

Alias is a quiet member of Billy's gang. Dylan also wrote the film's music, and one song, Knockin' on Heaven's Door, long outlasted a film that failed at the box office.

Under which pseudonym did Bob Dylan produce his 2001 album Love and Theft?

Jack Frost stuck: having taken charge of his own sessions, Dylan kept the name as his producer credit on later albums, including Modern Times and Tempest.

Which broadcaster brought the little-known Bob Dylan to London in late 1962 to act in a television play?

The BBC cast him in Madhouse on Castle Street, where he sang Blowin' in the Wind. Five years later the corporation destroyed its only copy, and no film of the play has been found.

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

Elston Gunnn, spelt with three n's, lasted only a few shows as Vee's pianist. That autumn he enrolled at the University of Minnesota and soon turned to folk music.

For which brand did Bob Dylan appear in a 2004 TV advert, startling fans of the protest singer?

Victoria's Secret cast him in a lingerie commercial that baffled viewers who knew his history. Three years later he was fronting a campaign for the Cadillac Escalade.

Which annual benefit concert was inspired by a remark Bob Dylan made on stage at Live Aid in 1985?

Farm Aid grew from his suggestion that a little of the money raised for Africa might pay American growers' mortgages. Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp staged the first show that September.

Which holiday is the theme of the 2009 album whose royalties Bob Dylan gave to hunger charities forever?

Christmas in the Heart sets his gravelly late voice to carols and seasonal standards. Its royalties go in perpetuity to Feeding America, Crisis in Britain and the World Food Programme.

What one-word insult did a heckler shout at Bob Dylan in Manchester in 1966 for playing electric?

Judas was the cry from the audience at the Free Trade Hall, and Dylan answered by ordering his musicians to play loud. The tape circulated for years mislabelled as a Royal Albert Hall show.

Which British event did Bob Dylan headline in August 1969 after snubbing Woodstock, held near his home?

The Isle of Wight Festival ended three years of semi-retirement before a crowd of about 150,000. Organisers won him over with a film about the island's ties to the poet Tennyson.

Which actress earned an Oscar nomination for playing a version of Bob Dylan in the 2007 film I'm Not There?

Cate Blanchett played the wiry mid-1960s star, one of six actors who shared the part. Heath Ledger, Richard Gere and Ben Whishaw were among the others.

Which British singer put a cover of Bob Dylan's Make You Feel My Love on her debut album, 19?

Adele made it the only cover on the record, after worrying that borrowing a song would suggest she could not write enough of her own.

Which country legend sings a duet with Bob Dylan on his 1969 album Nashville Skyline?

Johnny Cash had urged him as early as 1965 to make a country record in Tennessee. Dylan returned the favour that June by promoting the album on his friend's new television series.

Which Sunday-night TV institution did Bob Dylan walk out of in 1963 when censors vetoed his chosen song?

The Ed Sullivan Show's host liked the satirical number about the John Birch Society, but CBS feared a defamation suit. Dylan refused to sing anything else and left before the broadcast.

Whose assassination is the subject of Murder Most Foul, the longest song Bob Dylan has ever released?

John F. Kennedy's killing in Dallas frames a ramble through American music lasting almost 17 minutes. Released without warning, it became the first Dylan track to top any Billboard chart.

Which British group did Bob Dylan introduce to cannabis in a New York hotel suite in August 1964?

The Beatles met him through the journalist Al Aronowitz, and the evening bridged two fan bases then seen as separate worlds: bohemian college folk fans and pop-mad teenagers.

In which Manhattan neighbourhood's folk clubs and coffeehouses did Bob Dylan make his name from early 1961?

Greenwich Village gave him stages and teachers alike: he picked up material there from Dave Van Ronk, Odetta and the Clancy Brothers. Within the year a recording contract had followed.

Which actor both starred as the young Bob Dylan and served as a producer on the 2024 biopic A Complete Unknown?

Timothée Chalamet stayed so firmly in character that the set's call sheet listed him as Bob Dylan. The story stops in 1965, with the uproar over the switch to electric instruments.

Which Oscar-winning director made No Direction Home, the 2005 documentary about Bob Dylan's rise to fame?

Martin Scorsese came aboard in 2001 to shape years of gathered interviews and footage into a film that stops at the 1966 retreat from touring. It won him a Grammy for long-form video.

Which crooner had already recorded every song on Bob Dylan's 2015 album Shadows in the Night?

Frank Sinatra cut all ten ballads in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and Dylan taped his versions in the Capitol studio the older singer favoured. Dylan said he was not covering the songs but uncovering them.

Which Los Angeles group topped the US and UK charts in 1965 with Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man?

The Byrds made it their debut single, and its jangling electric sound set off the folk rock boom of the next two years. Dylan had dropped by the studio to hear them rehearse it.

What does Bob Dylan make from wrought iron as a sculptor, as first shown at London's Halcyon Gallery in 2013?

Gates appeal to him, he has said, because of the negative space they allow. He had been making metal pieces for family and friends for thirty years before the exhibition, titled Mood Swings.

At which huge 1963 civil rights demonstration did the 22-year-old Bob Dylan sing two of his protest songs?

The March on Washington heard him on the day of Dr King's most famous speech. One song was a provocative choice, arguing that the poor white killer of Medgar Evers was not chiefly to blame.

Which hard rock group took a cover of Bob Dylan's Knockin' on Heaven's Door into the UK top three?

Guns N' Roses had been playing it on stage since 1987 before their studio version became a hit. Dylan wrote it for the western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, in which he also acted.

Which rock group, known for the 1990s hit One Headlight, is fronted by Bob Dylan's son Jakob?

The Wallflowers were formed by Jakob in 1989, and their second album went platinum. He has said he avoided writing about his personal life until their third record.

What kind of product does Bob Dylan co-create and sell under the brand name Heaven's Door?

Whiskey is a passion he turned into a business whose name echoes one of his most covered songs. Special editions come in handmade ceramic bottles that carry his own paintings.

Which rock star inducted Bob Dylan into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January 1988 with a celebrated speech?

Bruce Springsteen has said the opening snare shot of Like a Rolling Stone sounded like somebody kicking open the door to your mind. Both men had been signed by the same talent scout.

Which punk poet sang A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall at the 2016 Nobel ceremony in Bob Dylan's absence?

Patti Smith fluffed a verse, stopped, apologised that she was nervous and began again to jubilant applause. Dylan had stayed away, citing commitments made before the award.

At which 1971 New York benefit, organised by George Harrison, did Bob Dylan make a surprise appearance?

The Concert for Bangladesh was the first benefit show of its size, and his unannounced set caused a sensation because his live appearances had become so rare.

Which mid-1970s Bob Dylan tour favoured small halls, with the star often performing in white face paint?

Rolling Thunder Revue dates were booked into intimate New England theatres and gymnasiums so that he could be closer to his audiences. Dozens of friends and fellow performers joined the travelling cast.

Which 1997 Bob Dylan album, his first set of original songs since 1990, won the Grammy for Album of the Year?

Time Out of Mind was recorded and mixed before a near-fatal infection, histoplasmosis, put him in hospital that year. It collected three Grammys in all.

Which Columbia talent scout signed Bob Dylan in 1961, decades after arranging Billie Holiday's recording debut?

John Hammond first heard him as a hired sideman on another folk singer's session. He kept him on the label over the protests of executives, who called the signing Hammond's folly.

Which girlfriend huddles against Bob Dylan on the snowy cover of his 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan?

Suze Rotolo worked as a civil rights activist, and her politics are widely regarded as having shaped his topical songwriting. She later wrote of wanting to be more than a string on his guitar.

Which Beat poet loiters in the background of Bob Dylan's cue-card film for Subterranean Homesick Blues?

Allen Ginsberg also helped to letter the cards, along with the singer Donovan. Shot in an alley beside London's Savoy Hotel, the clip is regarded as a forerunner of the music video.

Bob Dylan's bestselling 2004 memoir Chronicles carries which subtitle, implying that further instalments were planned?

Volume One was announced as the first of three books, and it skips his most famous years to linger on 1961, 1970 and 1989. It was a hardcover bestseller for 19 weeks.

Which 1966 Bob Dylan release, recorded largely in Nashville, was one of rock's first double albums?

Blonde on Blonde gives the whole of its last side to one ballad, whose words Dylan wrote in the Tennessee studio for hours while the session players waited. Sessions had begun in New York and stalled.

Which Bob Dylan hit was written for the film Midnight Cowboy but delivered too late to be used?

Lay Lady Lay instead became the final US top ten single of his career. He had sung parts of it to the Everly Brothers while still writing it, and they were unsure whether he was offering it to them.

Which group, formerly the Hawks, backed Bob Dylan on his electric 1966 world tour and again in 1974?

The Band took their plain name from years of being called just that by the frontmen they played behind. Dylan was among the guests at their farewell show in San Francisco in 1976.

Which country singer sang harmony on several tracks of Desire, the album Bob Dylan released in 1976?

Emmylou Harris was the only musician at the sessions dissatisfied with the results. Her vocal on one song was redone a day later, one of the few overdubs on the record.

Which San Francisco group toured stadiums with Bob Dylan in the summer of 1987, yielding a joint live album?

The Grateful Dead backed him for six shows that summer. The live album drawn from them holds seven tracks, every one written and sung by Dylan.

For which pope did Bob Dylan perform at a Catholic congress in Bologna, before a vast open-air crowd?

John Paul II responded with a homily built on Blowin' in the Wind. Dylan had returned to the road only months after a life-threatening illness.

Which singer was booed at Bob Dylan's 30th anniversary tribute concert in 1992, soon after a notorious TV protest?

Sinéad O'Connor faced a hostile Madison Square Garden two weeks after her protest on Saturday Night Live. Kris Kristofferson came out, put an arm around her and offered encouragement.

Which 1985 famine-relief single, sung by dozens of stars, gave Bob Dylan his only US Hot 100 chart-topper?

We Are the World put him at the top of the singles chart as one voice in USA for Africa, something none of his own records managed. He was one of seven singers pictured on Life magazine's cover story about the session.

Which rock and roll star's 1966 cover of Tomorrow Is a Long Time did Bob Dylan call the recording he treasured most?

Elvis Presley cut it during sessions for a gospel album, after a Nashville session player introduced him to the tune on a record of Odetta singing Dylan.

Which Irish playwright was the first person to win both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar, a double Bob Dylan later matched?

George Bernard Shaw won his Oscar for the screenplay of the 1938 film of Pygmalion and called the award an insult, coming from Hollywood. Dylan completed the same pair with his Nobel in 2016.

Which 1967 documentary follows Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour of England?

Dont Look Back, its title deliberately left without an apostrophe, was shot in fly-on-the-wall style by D. A. Pennebaker. Its opening sequence of discarded cue cards has been imitated in music videos and adverts ever since.

Which newspaper's rave review of a Bob Dylan club set in 1961 helped to win him a recording contract?

The New York Times critic Robert Shelton caught him opening for a bluegrass act, the Greenbriar Boys, and singled out the newcomer. Shelton later spent 20 years writing a Dylan biography.

Which 1974 studio album, made for David Geffen's Asylum label, gave Bob Dylan his first US chart-topping LP?

Planet Waves reached the top on advance orders, lifted by his first tour since 1966. Its release slipped two weeks when he changed the title from Ceremonies of the Horsemen at the last minute.

Which gospel and soul star has said that Bob Dylan once asked her father for her hand in marriage?

Mavis Staples confirmed the story on a radio quiz, adding that the two had been good friends. Decades later they shared a Grammy nomination for a duet and went on tour together.

Which British group took Bob Dylan's song about Quinn the Eskimo to the top of the UK chart in 1968?

Manfred Mann retitled it Mighty Quinn and reached the summit that February. Dylan is widely believed to have drawn the character from Anthony Quinn's Arctic hunter in a 1960 film.

Which Bob Dylan song title did Conor McPherson borrow for his 2017 musical built on Dylan's songs?

Girl from the North Country opened at the Old Vic in London before moving to the West End. McPherson, who also directed, set it in the winter of 1934, in the depths of the Great Depression.

Which 1965 Bob Dylan album opens with Subterranean Homesick Blues and devotes its second half to acoustic songs?

Bringing It All Back Home puts an electric rock and roll outfit behind him for the whole of side one. That half is considered instrumental in the birth of folk rock.

Which Canadian producer, recommended to Bob Dylan by Bono, made the 1989 album Oh Mercy with him?

Daniel Lanois had produced The Joshua Tree for U2, and he returned for a second Dylan album eight years later. Dylan's memoir calls their working relationship contentious but rewarding.

What two-word phrase was painted on the bare chest of the dancer who disrupted Bob Dylan's 1998 Grammy performance?

Soy Bomb was the work of Michael Portnoy, hired as a background dancer to give the singer a good vibe. The Grammys pressed no charges, but he never received his $200 fee.

What nickname was given to the 1969 collection of unreleased Bob Dylan recordings, the first notable rock bootleg?

Great White Wonder took its name from the plain white sleeve of the original pressing. Its success may have prompted the wave of illicit albums that followed later the same year.