411 Music Hall Of Fame Class of 2009: Bob Dylan

Posted by Mitch Michaels on 02.26.2009

Recording Artist
Folk, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Country, Pop
Inducted On: 02.26.09

Rock’s greatest poet rounds out the Class of 2009…



BOB DYLAN'S MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

• One of Time Magazine's 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century
• #2 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Artists of All-Time list
• Defined folk music in the 1960's
• Multiple nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature
• Twelve Top 40 singles
• Eighteen Top 10 albums, including four #1s
• Eleven Grammy Awards, including two for Album of the Year
• Three albums and three singles in the Grammy Hall of Fame
• Academy Award Winner – Best Original Song ("Things Have Changed")
• Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1982)
• Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (1988)
• Honored as a Commander in the French Order of Arts & Letters
• Kennedy Center Honors Recipient (1997)
• Awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation "for his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."
• The most influential and pivotal figure in popular music

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How do you even begin to talk about Bob Dylan's career?

The truth is, I'm not a Dylan biographer, but there are several. Men who have made their own career just chronicling the twisting, often puzzling, always brilliant career of the man who has revolutionized music more often than any other singer or band. I'm just a fan – a person who knows Bob Dylan through the music. That's how he's touched me.

And he's touched several others. Why not let them talk about it?

"There are giant figures in art who are sublimely good—Mozart, Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright, Shakespeare, Dickens. Dylan ranks alongside these artists." – Dylan biographer Howard Sounes.

"[Dylan's] early songs were very rich ... with strong melodies. ‘Blowin' in the Wind' has a really strong melody. He so enlarged himself through the folk background that he incorporated it for a while. He defined the genre for a while." – Paul Simon

"Between late 1964 and the summer of 1966, Dylan created a body of work that remains unique. Drawing on folk, blues, country, R&B, rock'n'roll, gospel, British beat, symbolist, modernist and Beat poetry, surrealism and Dada, advertising jargon and social commentary, Fellini and Mad magazine, he forged a coherent and original artistic voice and vision. The beauty of these albums retains the power to shock and console." - Mike Marqusee, writer

"…from now on, it's not going to be about how pretty the voice is. It's going to be about believing that the voice is telling the truth." – Sam Cooke in the early 60's

"Dylan's musical DNA has informed nearly every simple twist of pop since 1962." – Edna Gundersen, USA Today

"[Dylan] laid down the template for lyric, tune, seriousness, spirituality, depth of rock music." – Joe Strummer

With that kind of praise, what am I going to do? Call him awesome? Call him the greatest of all time?

But Bob Dylan has never been about the praise. In fact, he's shunned it. Every time the masses or just the critics started digging what he was doing, Dylan changed it up. Even the strange Dylan biopic I'm Not There suggested that Dylan's life was, ultimately, in the music somewhere. Which maybe means the Dylan story is this:

"Blowin' in the Wind"
"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"
"Masters of War"
"The Times They Are A-Changin'"
"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll"
"It Ain't Me Babe"
"Subterranean Homesick Blues"
"Mr. Tambourine Man"
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"
"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"
"Maggie's Farm"
"Like a Rolling Stone"
"Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"
"I Want You"
"Just Like a Woman"
"One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)"
"All Along the Watchtower"
"I'll Be Your Baby Tonight"
"Lay Lady Lay"
"The Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo)"
"If Not for You"
"I Shall Be Released"
"You Ain't Going Nowhere"
"Knockin' on Heaven's Door"
"Idiot Wind"
"Tangled Up in Blue"
"Gotta Serve Somebody"
"Shooting Star"
"Everything Is Broken"
"Not Dark Yet"
"Cold Irons Bound"
"Things Have Changed"
"Someday Baby"

Not a list of greatest hits, but a sprint race through Dylan's many rich songs and subjects – being lovesick, living in a political world, being saved, waking up knocked out loaded, and ultimately embracing your own mortality. But that's just skating the surface. To really get it, you gotta break the ice and fall in, sink to the bottom, die of hypothermia and eventually be spit out of the drain pipe on the other side of the city, the tracks or the whole earth.

But a quick biography for you to read? OK – how about this.

Bob Dylan was born in Minnesota in 1941. He loved music. He met John Fuller and learned harmonica and guitar. He moved to New York City to meet his idol Woody Guthrie. He signed a deal with Columbia Records. He revolutionized the world of folk music with his protest songs. He got an electric guitar and started singing about other stuff, pissing off his fans. He made new ones and revolutionized rock in the process. The world fell in love with him. He got into a motorcycle accident (or not). He got divorced. He came back and wrote Blood On The Tracks. He found Jesus. He had a rough patch in the 80's. He came back and wrote Time Out Of Mind. He won an Oscar. He became the oldest guy ever to score a #1 album in 2006. He will never quit touring.

Why Bob Dylan Was Selected:

Bob Dylan is an American icon. He's been the voice of the working class. He's been the face of the rock star. He's been music's greatest genius. He's been a man on a mission from God. And he's been praised by everyone from the unemployed everyman to the President of the United States.

But it's not all just hype – Dylan is a constant, profound presence in music. He's recorded on the fringe and took that fringe to the center. He's had his ups and downs but has never once done anything but build on his own legacy. More than a legacy – a mythology.

There is simply no greater figure in the world of rock and no greater songwriter ever than Bob Dylan. And that's why he's been chosen for the 411 Music Hall of Fame.