He quickly built a cult following and within four months was hired to play harmonica for a Harry Belafonte recording session. A survivor at heart, he relied on the generosity of various benefactors who, charmed by his performances at Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village, provided meals and shelter.
Love literature? This quiz sorts out the truth about beloved authors and stories, old and new.Īrriving in late January 1961, Dylan was greeted by a typically merciless New York City winter. Restless and determined to meet Guthrie-who was confined to a hospital in New Jersey-he relocated to the East Coast. Fascinated by Beat poetry and folksinger Woody Guthrie, he began performing folk music in coffeehouses, adopting the last name Dylan (after the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas). While attending college, he discovered the bohemian section of Minneapolis known as Dinkytown. In 1959, just before enrolling at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, he served a brief stint playing piano for rising pop star Bobby Vee.
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Taken with the music of Hank Williams, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Ray, he acquired his first guitar in 1955 at age 14 and later, as a high school student, played in a series of rock and roll bands. He grew up in the northeastern Minnesota mining town of Hibbing, where his father co-owned Zimmerman Furniture and Appliance Co.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. Hailed as the Shakespeare of his generation, Dylan sold tens of millions of albums, wrote more than 500 songs recorded by more than 2,000 artists, performed all over the world, and set the standard for lyric writing.