May 24
BOBBY ZIMMERMAN DAY
You know the songs, Like a Rolling Stone; Lay Lady Lay; Positively 4th Street; Rainy Day Women #12 & 35; Hurricane [Part 1], (the latter dedicated to imprisoned boxer Rubin Hurricane Carter, a convicted murderer); and you’re familiar with the nasal tones of Bob Dylan, the voice that made his words famous. Bob Dylan was born Robert Zimmerman on this day in 1941. One of Zimmerman’s many stories as to why the name change says he borrowed it from poet Dylan Thomas. Bobby Zimmerman legally changed his name to Bob Dylan in 1962.
One story (some doubt its validity) is that Bobby Zimmerman was a piano player for a 1960s singer who had him fired for “not having a future in the music business.” That singer was Bobby Vee. Luckily, Dylan didn’t listen and moved from the Iron Range of Minnesota, near Duluth, to New York City where he played folk clubs in Greenwich Village. It was there, in 1961, that his talents were recognized and he was signed to CBS Records. His electric folk/rock sound soon became a trademark and put him miles ahead of his contemporaries. Yet folk purists booed him off the stage at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1965.
Dylan retired for a short time following a 1966 motorcycle accident; received an honorary doctorate degree from Princeton University in 1970; then performed for George Harrison’s Concert for Bangla Desh in 1971. Two years later, he made his acting debut in the film, Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid; then made the four-hour film, Renaldo and Clara with Joan Baez in 1978. That same year, Dylan announced that he had become a born-again Christian; his newly-found faith apparent in his recordings of that time: Precious Angel, When He Returns and Gotta Serve Somebody, which won him his first Grammy in 1980.
Bob Dylan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and earned the Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1991. Ten years later he added a Golden Globe and an Academy Award to his collection for the song, Things Have Changed from the 2000 film, Wonder Boys. Little Bobby Zimmerman definitely made a name for himself in the history books of rock ’n’ roll. If you want to know what it’s like to ride the waves of success and defeat, ask Bob Dylan. He knows how it feels...
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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