Discography :
These protesting standing out will make him (he did not want to) become the leader of the cons culture of the 1960s. Revered as a messiah by the folk audience and the revolutionary leftists of the early 1960s, he refuses to assume this role. He encourages his fans in some of his lyrics to think for themselves.: Do not follow leaders / Watch the parkin'meters. « If I was not Bob Dylan, I would probably think that Bob Dylan also has plenty of answers to my questions. »
Come and explore with us this artist whose influence on popular music from the 1960s to today is incalculable. Through this exhibition, just revisit this difficult time in the United States when artists with songs could still change the world.
BOB DYLAN
* 1962 : Bob Dylan * 1963 : The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (*) * 1964 : The Times They Are a-Changin' * 1964 : Another Side of Bob Dylan (*) * 1965 : Bringing It All Back Home (*) * 1965 : Highway 61 Revisited (*) * 1966 : Blonde on Blonde (*) * 1967 : John Wesley Harding (*) * 1969 : Nashville Skyline (*) * 1970 : Self Portrait * 1970 : New Morning * 1973 : Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid * 1973 : Dylan * 1974 : Planet Waves (*) * 1975 : Blood on the Tracks (*) * 1975 : The Basement Tapes * 1976 : Desire (*) * 1978 : Street Legal (*) * 1979 : Slow Train Coming (*) * 1980 : Saved * 1981 : Shot of Love * 1983 : Infidels (*) * 1985 : Empire Burlesque * 1986 : Knocked Out Loaded * 1988 : Down in the Groove * 1989 : Oh Mercy (*) * 1990 : Under the Red Sky * 1992 : Good as I Been to You * 1993 : World Gone Wrong * 1997 : Time Out of Mind * 2001 : Love and Theft * 2006 : Modern Times * 2009 : Together Through Life * 2009 : Christmas in the Heart
A Committed artist
Biography: Robert Allen Zimmerman (his real name) was born on May 24th, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota, USA. His parents moved to Hibbing, a small mining town in northern Minnesota. Around the age of 8, Robert started learning the piano and later, guitar and harmonica. In highschool, the teenager joined small music bands, then at 18 he enrolled at the University of Minnesota in order to attend art classes. At that time he discovered the folk music and started calling himself Bob Dylan. In 1961 he went to Greenwich Village (New York), a bohemian area where singers, artists and political activists live. This was when he released his 1st album that revisits the blues and folk standards. Besides, these musical styles will become his trademark and his nasal voice is highly identifiable. Since his first steps as a singer, Bob Dylan has always managed to evolve his art (to the dislike of some of his audience) with his lyrics and his changing musical styles, going from aggressive rock to jazz including ballads. Throughout the twenty-first century Dylan has traveled the world from one concert to the next and has continued to compose. He enters the new millennium with a forty-year career and as many albums. The work of Bob Dylan helped bringing traditional American music: blues, folk, country ... in the modern era and helped to raise it to the status of genuine art. Thanks to his talent, he also influenced generations of artists in the world.
1962-1964: birth of his commitment: I chose this period because it marks the time when he committed the most. It was then that Dylan became the voice of a generation exasperated by injustice and conservatism prevailing then. Dylan composed many committed songs which attest the difficulties encountered in the USA, such as A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall written during the missile crisis in Cuba, or Master of War and Oxford Town. On August 28, 1963, Dylan, as Joan Baez among others, participated in the march on Washington D.C. and more than 200,000 peace activists gathered to protest the inequality of civil rights suffered by black people. After Mr. Luther King's speech, he interpreted Only a Pawn in Their Game.
His text: Dylan wrote in the moment, which reflected its ability to call on all subjects, from the Communist hunt to the disgust he felt after the summary execution of a 14-years-old black boy and the release of his white murderers. Dylan imposed a completely unique way of writing to his time, which has very seldom be equalled since. Drawing his inspiration from literature, surrealist poetry, but also from realistic "folksongs" of the great American tradition, his lyrics draw a universe within a staggering wealth.
HURRICANE (1975) ALBUM : "DESIRE". - 1976
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This song is a model of the type of protest songs that Bob Dylan could make/write. It is one of the best known in France and after 10 years of absence of protest song, you can see that he has lost none of his verve. The song tells about the trial of the boxer Hurricane Carter who was put in prison for murder and that Dylan is committed to get free. Extract:
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Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall. ●She sees the bartender in a pool of blood, ●Cries out, "My God, they killed them all!" ●Here comes the story of the Hurricane, ●The man the authorities came to blame ●For somethin' that he never done. ●Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been ●The champion of the world. ●[...] All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance ●The trial was a pig-circus, he never had a chance. ●The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums ●To the white folks who watched he was a ●revolutionary bum ●And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger. ●No one doubted that he pulled the trigger. ●And though they could not produce the gun, ●The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed ●And the all-white jury agreed. ● ●
Rubin Carter was falsely tried. The crime was murder "one," guess who testified? ●Bello and Bradley and they both boldly lied ●And the newspapers, they all went along for the ride. ●How can the life of such a man ●Be in the palm of some fool's hand? ●To see him obviously framed ●Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land ●Where justice is a game. [...] ●
