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Bob Dylan Fast Facts

May 17, 2013

(CNN) โ€” Hereโ€™s a look at the life of singer-songwriter and Nobel laureate Bob Dylan.

Personal

Birth date: May 24, 1941

Birth place: Duluth, Minnesota

Birth name: Robert Allen Zimmerman

Father: Abraham Zimmerman, a furniture and appliance salesman

Mother: Beatty (Stone) Zimmerman, a former model and housewife

Marriages: Carol Dennis (1986-1992, divorced); Sara Lowndes (1965-1977, divorced)

Children: with Carol Dennis: Desiree; with Sara Lowndes: Jesse, Jakob, Samuel, and Anna

Education: Attended University of Minnesota, 1959-1960

Other Facts

Has won 10 Grammy Awards out of 38 nominations. Also received a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Has won an Academy Award out of one nomination.

Early musical influences include Hank Williams, Muddy Waters and Howlinโ€™ Wolf.

Known in his early career for playing the guitar and the harmonica, and for his distinctive vocal phrasing.

Many cities worldwide celebrate Dylanโ€™s birthday with Dylanfest or the Bob Dylan Birthday Bash.

Timeline

1960-1961 - Drops out of college and goes to New York, hoping to meet his idol, Woody Guthrie, and begins performing in the folk scene in Greenwich Village.

1962 - His first album, โ€œBob Dylan,โ€ debuts. It consists mostly of old folk songs redone by Dylan. He legally changes his last name to Dylan in August.

1963 - His second album, โ€œThe Freewheelinโ€™ Bob Dylan,โ€ is released. It contains original songs written by Dylan, such as โ€œA Hard Rainโ€™s Gonna Fallโ€ and โ€œBlowinโ€™ in the Wind.โ€

1965 - Album โ€œBringing It All Back Homeโ€ is released, containing the songs โ€œSubterranean Homesick Bluesโ€ and โ€œMaggieโ€™s Farm.โ€ Later that year, Dylan is booed at the Newport Folk Festival when he performs with an electric guitar.

1965 - Album โ€œHighway 61 Revisitedโ€ is released. It contains โ€œLike a Rolling Stoneโ€ which goes to No. 2 on US charts.

July 29, 1966 - Suffers a broken neck in a motorcycle accident.

December 1967 - Album โ€œJohn Wesley Hardingโ€ is released, containing the song โ€œAll Along the Watchtower.โ€

1971 - His book โ€œTarantulaโ€ is published.

March 3, 1973 - Wins the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for โ€œThe Concert For Bangladesh.โ€ The award is shared with Billy Preston, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Klaus Voormann, Leon Russell, Ravi Shankar and Ringo Starr.

1973 - Dylan signs with Asylum after his contract with Columbia expires and releases two new albums, โ€œPlanet Wavesโ€ and โ€œBefore the Flood.โ€

1973 - Appears in the movie, โ€œPat Garrett and Billy the Kid.โ€

1975 - Re-signs with Columbia and releases โ€œBlood on the Tracks.โ€

1978 - Directs and stars in the film โ€œRenaldo and Clara.โ€

1979 - Studies Christianity at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship school in California.

1979-1981 - The next three album releases, โ€œSlow Train Coming,โ€ โ€œSavedโ€ and โ€œShot of Love,โ€ reflect his new Christian beliefs.

February 27, 1980 - Wins a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for โ€œGotta Serve Somebody.โ€

1980s - Tours with Tom Petty and the Grateful Dead.

1988 - Is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Traveling Wilburys album โ€œVolume 1โ€ is released with Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and George Harrison.

February 21, 1990 - Wins a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal - The Traveling Wilburys, for โ€œTraveling Wilburys Volume 1.โ€

May 1997 - Is hospitalized for a fungal infection called histoplasmosis.

1997 - Performs for Pope John Paul II in Bologna, Italy.

December 1997 - Becomes the first rock musician to receive the Kennedy Center honors, which recognize a lifetime achievement in the performing arts.

February 28, 1998 - Wins three Grammy Awards: Best Contemporary Folk Album for โ€œTime Out of Mind,โ€ Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for โ€œCold Irons Boundโ€ and Album of the Year for โ€œTime Out of Mind.โ€

March 25, 2001 - Wins an Academy Award for Best Original Song, for โ€œThings Have Changedโ€ from โ€œWonder Boys.โ€

2003 - Writes and stars in the film โ€œMasked and Anonymous.โ€

October 2004 - โ€œChronicles: Volume One,โ€ Dylanโ€™s autobiography, is published.

April 28, 2006 - Kicks off the first Jazz Fest in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

May 3, 2006 - Dylan begins a weekly show on XM satellite radio called โ€œTheme Time Radio Hour.โ€

February 11, 2007 - Wins two Grammy Awards: Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance for โ€œSomeday Babyโ€ and Contemporary Folk/Americana Album for โ€œModern Times.โ€

April 7, 2008 - Wins a Pulitzer Prize special citation for โ€œhis profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.โ€

February 9, 2010 - Performs โ€œThe Times, They Are a Changinโ€ at the White House in honor of Black History month, as part of a celebration of music from the Civil Rights Movement.

January 2011 - Signs a six-book deal with Simon & Schuster.

April 2011 - Performs for the first time in Vietnam and mainland China.

May 29, 2012 - Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.

February 3, 2015 - His 36th studio album, โ€œShadows in the Night,โ€ is released. Dylan gives away 50,000 copies to seniors who subscribe to AARPโ€™s magazine.

October 13, 2016 - Is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

April 1, 2017 - Belatedly accepts the Nobel Prize during a private ceremony in Stockholm.

May 2018 - Releases a collection of whiskeys called โ€œHeavenโ€™s Door.โ€

March 27, 2020 - Releases โ€œMurder Most Foul,โ€ the first single from his upcoming album, โ€œRough and Rowdy Ways.โ€

June 19, 2020 - Album โ€œRough and Rowdy Waysโ€ is released, his first original recorded material in eight years.

November 20, 2020 - Auctioneers announce that a collection of Dylan memorabilia including letters, unpublished lyrics and handwritten lyrics to โ€œBlowinโ€™ in the Windโ€ have sold for nearly half a million dollars.

December 7, 2020 - It is announced that Dylan has sold his entire catalog of songs to Universal Music Publishing Group.

August 13, 2021 - A woman claims that Dylan sexually abused her when she was a 12-year-old girl in 1965, according to a New York lawsuit. On July 28, 2022, a judge dismisses the lawsuit after the plaintiff voluntarily drops the case.

May 10, 2022 - The Bob Dylan Center, with a permanent exhibit of his life and work, opens in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

November 1, 2022 - Dylanโ€™s book โ€œThe Philosphy of Modern Songโ€ is published.

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