Bob Dylan’s Folkand It’s Influence

By

Tyler Schrenker

Why?

• While researching a completely different project, I came across a little piece about Dylan, and as I read on, I became steadily more interested.

Who Was He?

• Born, Robert Zimmerman, May 24, 1941

• Started in folk

• Guitar

• Harmonica

His Influence

• Innovation from the past– James Dean look– Woody Guthrie sound

• Hank Williams

• Pete SeegerPete Seeger

Hank Williams

Woody Guthrie

Why He Did It

• Year of birth allowed witness of many world events

• Technological advancements

What His Songs Represented

• Wrote about the times– Cuban Missile Crisis “A Hard Rain’s Gunna

Fall”

“Where the people are a many and their hands are all emptyWhere the pellets of poison are flooding their waters

Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison

Where the executioner's face is always well hiddenWhere hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten

Where black is the color, where none is the number”

The End of His Politics

• Came with the assassination of JFK– Had fear of his own death

• But, he actually laid down the road work for generations to come

“I'm speaking for all of us. I'm the spokesman for a generation.”

“If I wasn't Bob Dylan, I'd probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.”

"People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around - the music and the ideas.”

“I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged.”

“I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet”

What Came After

• Influenced many well known musicians today– Neil Young– Bruce Spingsteen– Patti Smith– And more…

• All Along the Watch Tower covered over 45 times– The Dead– Jimi Hendrix– Dave Matthews– The Killers– The Allman Brothers– Many, many more…

Works Cited

• Blanton, Amy. "Bob Dylan." UNC, 10 04 2001. Web. <http://www.unc.edu/~ablanton/BobDylan.pdf>.

• Dylan, Bob. “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits. CBS, 1967. CD.

• Guthrie, Woody. “Tom Joad” Dust Bowl Ballads. RCA Victor, 1940. CD.

• "Guthrie, Woody." Guthrie, Woody. International ed. 13. Danbury, CT: Grolier Incorporated, 1990. Print.

• Web. <images.google.com>.