Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in the iron range town of Duluth, Minnesota, and raised in nearby Hibbing. Growing up in a working-class Jewish family, Dylan was captivated by the sounds coming through his radio - blues, country, early rock & roll, and folk music. He taught himself guitar and harmonica, and as a teenager, fronted high school rock bands that covered Little Richard and Elvis Presley. In 1959, Dylan left Minnesota for the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where he immersed himself in the local folk scene. Around this time, he adopted the stage name “Bob Dylan”, inspired in part by poet Dylan Thomas. Drawn to the music of Woody Guthrie, he began writing his own songs that mixed protest, poetry, and Americana. In January 1961, Dylan arrived in New York City, hoping to meet Guthrie, who was in a New Jersey hospital. He soon became a fixture in Greenwich Village’s vibrant folk revival, playing coffeehouses and absorbing influences from fellow musicians and Beat poets. Signed to Columbia Records in late 1961, Dylan released his self-titled debut in 1962 - featuring "Song To Woody" and covers of folk and blues standards. But it was his second album, “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” (1963), that established him as a major voice, featuring classics like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”. These songs became anthems of the civil rights and anti-war movements, cementing Dylan’s reputation as the era’s protest bard. By 1965, Dylan had grown restless with the “protest singer” label. At the Newport Folk Festival that summer, he famously “went electric”, performing with a rock band and unleashing the snarling “Like a Rolling Stone”. Many folk purists booed, but the move transformed Dylan into a rock poet for the new age. Albums like “Highway 61 Revisited” (1965) and “Blonde on Blonde” (1966) fused surreal, stream-of-consciousness lyrics with bluesy, electric rock, influencing The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and countless others. In 1966, at the height of his fame, Dylan was injured in a motorcycle accident and retreated from public life. He resurfaced with “John Wesley Harding” (1967) and “Nashville Skyline” (1969), embracing a simpler, country-tinged sound. This pattern of reinvention became a hallmark of his career - Dylan never stayed in one place creatively for long. The 1970s saw Dylan experimenting with styles and personas. Albums like “Blood on the Tracks” (1975) revealed raw, emotional songwriting, while his Rolling Thunder Revue tour blended music with theatrical spectacle. In the late 1970s, Dylan underwent a Christian conversion, releasing gospel-influenced albums like “Slow Train Coming” (1979), which earned him a Grammy. Through the 1980s and 1990s, Dylan’s output fluctuated, but he remained a touring force, earning the nickname “Never Ending Tour” for his relentless schedule. In the late 1990s and 2000s, he experienced a critical resurgence with albums like “Time Out of Mind” (1997), “Love and Theft” (2001), and “Modern Times” (2006). In 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”, the first musician to receive the honour.