Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Considered one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his 60-year career. With an estimated figure of more than 125 million records sold worldwide, he is one of the best-selling musicians of all-time. Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 1960s, infusing it "with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry". His lyrics incorporated political, social and philosophical influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture. Dylan was born and raised in St. Louis County, Minnesota, and at 20 years old he moved to New York City to pursue music. Following his 1962 self-titled debut album of traditional folk songs, he released his breakthrough album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963) which featured "Girl from the North Country" and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", adapting the tunes and phrasing of older folk songs. His songs "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (1964) became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements. In 1965 and 1966, Dylan drew controversy among folk purists when he adopted electrically amplified rock instrumentation, recording the rock albums Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited (both 1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966). His six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" (1965) expanded commercial and creative boundaries in popular music. In July 1966, a motorcycle crash led Dylan to cease touring for seven years. During this period, he recorded a large body of songs with members of the Band which produced the album The Basement Tapes (1975). Dylan explored country music and rural themes on the albums John Wesley Harding (1967), Nashville Skyline (1969) and New Morning (1970). He gained critical attention for Blood on the Tracks (1975), and Time Out of Mind (1997), the latter of which earned him the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Dylan still releases music and has toured continuously since the late 1980s on what has become known as the Never Ending Tour. Since 1994, Dylan has published nine books of paintings and drawings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. His life has been profiled in several documentaries and the biopic A Complete Unknown (2024). Dylan has received numerous accolades throughout his career, including an Academy Award, ten Grammy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. He was honored with the Kennedy Center Honors in 1997, National Medal of Arts in 2009, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He has also been awarded a Pulitzer Prize special citation in 2008, and the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."

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