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Bob Dylan

No festival dates we track

Six decades of touring and a habit of rearranging his own songs until the audience only recognises them a verse in. Now mostly behind the piano.

Born in Minnesota in 1941, Dylan arrived in New York's folk clubs at the start of the 1960s and wrote songs that were picked up as protest anthems almost immediately. He went electric mid-decade and spent the years after that moving through country, gospel and blues, generally without warning. His voice has changed shape several times, and his lyrics have carried through all of it: long narrative verses, biblical imagery, jokes buried in complaint.

On record and onstage he treats his catalogue as raw material rather than repertoire, reworking melody and phrasing so that familiar songs surface slowly. He has toured near-continuously since the late 1980s, playing halls and theatres with a small band.

rockfolk rockblues rocksinger-songwritercontemporary folk