Q: What influenced Bob Dylan to pursue a life in music?
A: Dylan had come from a musically inclined family. Dylan’s father played the violin with his brothers Jack and Marion who played the violin and piano respectively. In addition, Dylan’s mother played the piano. Dylan became involved with performing since he was four years old. He sang popular radio tunes for the entertainment of his relatives at a party. Soon after that, his family requested that he sing again at his aunt’s wedding. Dylan also wrote poetically when he was around ten years old. He wrote a poem for his mother on mother’s day, a poem for his father on father’s day, and many more poems after that. When Dylan was around eleven years old, his parents acquired a Gulbranson spinet piano in hopes that their two children would become interested. Dylan and his younger brother were tutored by their cousin Harriet Rutstein. Dylan’s younger brother played the piano better than he did. Dylan became frustrated with his cousin’s tutoring, and decided to teach himself the piano. He was also encouraged to pick up another instrument, and he taught himself the guitar as well (Sounes 12-20).
In an interview with Ed Bradley, Dylan said: “I listened to the radio a lot. I hung out in the record stores, and slam-banged around on the guitar, and played the piano, and learned songs from a world that didn’t exist around me.” Dylan’s first great musical influence was Hank Williams. Dylan bought most of Williams’s records. “Bob [spent] hours listening to Gatemouth Page, a disk jockey on a Little Rock, Arkansas, radio station who played Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and B. B. King and Jimmy Reed.” Dylan’s next prominent influence was Little Richard. Dylan imitated Richard’s style, but most...
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Bob Dylan was considered one of the greatest influences on popular culture of all time, and though influential, Bob Dylan’s rise to idol status in popular culture was more brought about by historical factors, his life was affected by many historical events including, The Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam War, the Kennedy assassination and the civil rights movement, to name a few. His songs became known as protest songs, despite Bob Dylan’s apparent lack of understanding for the meanings the public attached to his writing.
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Regardless of the achievements of great men like William Blake, the particular of situation of Bob Dylan isn’t comparable because of the great headway
Beyond this, an influential figure stepped into the light in his life. Woody Guthrie, a dieing folksinger emerged, consuming Dyaln's attention. After Guthries death in 1967 Dyaln adopted his styles of: a rough, hagard voice with guitar accompaniment in a folk music orientation. By the end of 1960 Bob Zimmerman made his final step into becoming Bob Dylan, the last stage in his early life. He decided to move to New York, to try to make it "big".
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