Fifty years ago on March 19, Bob Dylan released his first album. Modest, self-titled, recorded in two days and largely filled with traditional material like “House of the Rising Sun” and “Man of Constant Sorrow,” it initially sold only 2,500 copies, according to singalong star Mitch Miller, then Columbia Records’ head of A&R.
Not exactly a commercially promising start. Yet it was the first step for a new maverick talent who a mere year later, with his second album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, would already contribute anthems like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” and who two years after that would turn both folk music and rock ‘n’ roll on their ears while crafting some of the most adventurous and imaginative lyrics ever penned.
To commemorate such an auspicious anniversary, we’ve compiled a fairly mammoth, 90-pic look at the former Robert Zimmerman’s life, from skinny upstart to iconic voice of a generation to elder statesman of American music. We’ve tried to avoid the cliché of exalting the virtues of all the obvious totems: Yes, Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks are essential masterworks, and we reiterate why in our captions. But there have been many more changes Dylan has put himself through during the past half-century.
Click here or on the photo above to dive in and rediscover every phase.
Photos by The Associated Press.
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