The tambourine or marine (commonly called tambo) is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all. Tambourines are often used with regular percussion sets. They can be mounted, but position is largely down to preference.

Tambourines come in many different shapes with the most common being circular. It is found in many forms of music: Greek folk music, Italian folk music, classical music, Persian music, gospel music, pop music and rock music. The word tambourine finds its origins in French tambourin, which referred to a long narrow drum used in Provence, the word being a diminutive of tambour "drum," altered by influence of Arabic tunbur "drum".^[1] from the Middle Persian word tambūr "lute, drum".^[2]

According to Phil Collins it is the most important instrument in Motown.^{[citation needed]}

Playing[link]

The tambourine can be held in the hand or mounted on a stand, and can be played in numerous ways, from stroking or shaking the jingles to striking it sharply with hand or stick or using the tambourine to strike the leg or hip.

Tambourine rolls[link]

There are several ways to achieve a tambourine roll. The easiest method is to rapidly rotate the hand holding the tambourine back and forth, pivoting at the wrist.

Thumb roll[link]

An advanced playing technique is known as the thumb roll. The finger or thumb is moved over the skin or rim of the tambourine, producing a fast roll from the jingles on the instrument. This takes more skill and experience to master.

The thumb or middle finger of the hand not holding the tambourine is run around the head of the instrument approximately one centimeter from the rim with some pressure applied. If performed correctly, the thumb should bounce along the head rapidly, producing the roll. Usually, the end of the roll is articulated using the heal of the hand or another finger.

Today the thumb roll is performed with the use of wax or resin applied to the outside of the drum head. This resin allows the thumb or finger to bounce more rapidly and forcefully across the head producing an even sound. A continuous roll can be achieved by moving the thumb in a figure of 8 pattern around the head.

Ancient Greek black-figure pottery depicting a girl playing the tambourine. Bourgas Archaeology Museum.   Woman holding a mirror and a tambourine facing a winged genie with a ribbon and a branch with leaves. Ancient Greek red-figure oinochoe, ca. 320 BC, from Magna Graecia. (Notice the coloured decorative woven stripes hanging on the tambourine, which can still be seen today on "tamburello", the tambourine of Southern Italy.)   Girl playing a tambourine. Detail from Recreation (1896), by Charles Sprague Pearce. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.   Rhythm Tech tambourine

In popular music[link]

This section requires expansion.

In rock music, a tambourine is most often played:

• Lead singers Jim Morrison,Robert Plant and Liam Gallagher have both been known to use a tambourine while singing.
• Many drummers such as Larry Mullen mount a tambourine above the cymbals of their hi-hat stand; Others mount it elsewhere.

Tambourines in rock music are most often headless, a ring with jangles but no skin. The Rhythm Tech crescent shaped tambourine and its derivatives are particularly popular. The original Rhythm Tech tambourine is displayed in the Museum of Modern Art.

Pandeiro[link]

Originated in Portugal, the pandeiro was brought to Brazil by the Portuguese settlers. It is a hand percussion instrument consisting of a single tension-headed drum with jingles in the frame. It is very typical of more traditional brazilian music

Panderoa[link]

The Basque pandero is a folk instrument currently played along with the diatonic accordion in a duo most of the times. Sometimes the players, who play in festivities to enliven the atmosphere or less frequently at onstage performances, sing along. At times the pandero accompanies the alboka or txistu too. Yet this kind of duos have not always been the case. As attested in 1923, the youth gathered to dance to the rhythm of the bare pandero, with no other music instrument implicated but the player's (a woman's) voice.

Riq[link]

Arabic riq

The riq (also spelled riqq or rik) is a type of tambourine used as a traditional instrument in Arabic music. It is an important instrument in both folk and classical music throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Widely known as "Shakers".

Buben[link]

Buben (Б�?бен in Russian, Б�?бон in Ukrainian, boben in Slovenian, buben in Czech, bęben in Polish) is a musical instrument of the percussion family similar to a tambourine. A buben consists of a wooden or metal hoop with a tight membrane stretched over one of its sides (some bubens have no membrane at all). Certain kinds of bubens are equipped with clanking metal rings, plates, cymbals, or little bells. It is held in the hand and can be played in numerous ways, from stroking or shaking the jingles to striking it sharply with hand. It is used for rhythmical accompaniment during dances, soloist or choral singing. Buben is often used by some folk and professional bands, as well as orchestras.

The name is related to Greek language βόμβος (low and hollow sound) and βομβύλη (a breed of bees) and related to Indo-Aryan bambharas (bee) and English bee.

Buben is known to have existed in many countries since time immemorial, especially in the East. There are many kinds of bubens, including def, daf, or qaval (Azerbaijan), daf or khaval (Armenia), daira (Georgia), doira (Uzbekistan and Tajikistan), daire or def (Iran), bendeir (Arab countries), pandero (Spain). In Kievan Rus, drums and military timpani were referred to as buben.

Dayereh[link]

A traditional Central Asian musician from the 1860s or 1870s, holding up his dayereh.

A dayereh (or doyra, dojra, dajre, doira, daire) is a medium-sized frame drum with jingles used to accompany both popular and classical music in Iran (Persia), the Balkans, and many central Asian countries such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is a percussion instrument, and is something intermediate between a drum and a tambourine.

Daf[link]

An Iranian woman playing a frame drum, from a painting on the walls of Chehel-sotoon palace, Isfahan, 17th century, Iran.

A daf is a large-sized tambourine used to accompany both popular and classical music in Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkey (where it is called tef), Uzbekistan (where it's called childirma), India (where it is known as the Dafli) Turkmenistan, and Iranian Kurdistan. Daf typically indicates the beat and tempo of the music being played, thus acts like the conductor in the monophonic oriental music. The Persian poet Rudaki, who widely used names of the musical instruments in his poems, mentions the daf and the tambourine (taboorak) in a Ruba'i:

Kanjira[link]

Kanjira drums

The kanjira or ganjira is a South Indian frame drum of the tambourine family. It is mostly used in Carnatic music concerts (South Indian classical music) as a supporting instrument for the mridangam.

Timbrel[link]

Deff - Tambourine, Palestine, picture p. 579 in W. M. Thomson: The Land and the Book; or Biblical Illustrations Drawn from the Manners and Customs, the Scenes and Scenery of the Holy Land. Vol. II. New York, 1859.

Timbrel or tabret (the tof of the ancient Hebrews, the deff of Islam, the adufe of the Moors of Spain), the principal musical instrument of percussion of the Israelites, similar to the modern tambourine.

Rabana[link]

A Rabana (plural Raban) is a one-sided traditional tambourine played with the hands, used in Sri Lanka.

Rebana[link]

Rebana is a Malay tambourine that is used in Islamic devotional music in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore.

See also[link]

• Frame drum
• Dayereh
• Bendir
• Daf
• Riq
• Timbrel
• Tamborim
• Ravanne
• Bodhrán

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tambourine

	Modern Tambourine Half moon tambourine rhythms
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Tambourine". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

v t e Greek musical instruments String Instruments Bowed instruments Byzantine lyra Contrabass Cretan lyra Pontian lyra Violin Plucked instruments Baglamas Bouzouki Karantouzeni Kanonaki Kithara (modern) Laouto Lavta Lute Mandola Mandolin Oud Piano Psaltery Tambouras Thaboura Tzouras Struck instruments Santouri Aerophones Woodwind instruments Aulos Askomandoura Dankiyo Gaida Tsampouna Floghera Flute Karamuza Klarino Lalitsa Mantura Souravli Brass instruments Trumpet Free reed Accordion Harmonica Percussion instruments Membranophones Daouli Tambourine Toubeleki Tympano Idiophones Cochilia Crotalum Koudounia Metallophone Spoon Trigono Zilia See also Music of Greece Greek folk music Byzantine music Rebetiko Laïko Greek dances

v t e Iranian musical instruments Stringed (S�?zh�?y-e Zehī) Bowed Ghazhak Kam�?ncheh Sor�?hi Plucked Barbat Chang Dot�?r Q�?nūn Rob�?b Sall�?neh S�?z Set�?r Tanbūr T�?r Ūd Shurangiz Shahrud Rud Mugni Struck Santur Woodwind (S�?zh�?y-e B�?dī) Exposed Sorn�? Zurna Karnay Shehnai Narmeh-ney Dozaleh Ney anban End-blown Haft Band N�?y (Ney) Sheypur Zurna Pisha Percussion (S�?zh�?y-e Kūbeheyī/Zarbī) Auxiliary Dar�?y Daf Dohol D�?vūl D�?yereh Zangī Naq�?reh Tonbak (Dombak) Kūs Sanj Dammam Zarbang Udu Persian traditional music

William Shatner
William Shatner in 2005
Born	William Alan Shatner (1931-03-22) March 22, 1931 (age 81) Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Residence	Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California
Nationality	Canadian
Other names	Bill Shatner
Education	Baron Byng High School Westhill High School
Alma mater	McGill University
Occupation	Actor, musician, novelist, spokesman, film director
Years active	1950–present
Known for	James T. Kirk, Sergeant T. J. Hooker, Denny Crane, Priceline Negotiator
Home town	Westmount, Quebec, Canada
Television	Star Trek, T. J. Hooker, Boston Legal
Religion	Judaism
Spouse	Gloria Rand (1956–1969) Marcy Lafferty Shatner (1973–1994) Nerine Kidd-Shatner (1997–1999; her death) Elizabeth Martin (2001–present)
Children	3 (with Rand)
Awards	People's Choice Award, Emmy Awards, Golden Globe Award
Website
williamshatner.com

William Alan Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, author and film director. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T. Kirk, captain of the USS Enterprise, in the science fiction television series Star Trek from 1966 to 1969, Star Trek: The Animated Series from 1973 to 1974, and in seven of the subsequent Star Trek feature films from 1979 to 1994. He has written a series of books chronicling his experiences playing Captain Kirk and being a part of Star Trek, and has co-written several novels set in the Star Trek universe. He has also authored a series of science fiction novels called TekWar that were adapted for television.

Shatner also played the eponymous veteran police sergeant in T. J. Hooker from 1982 to 1986. Afterwards, he hosted the reality-based television series, Rescue 911 from 1989 to 1996, which won a People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Dramatic Series. He has since worked as a musician, author, producer, director and celebrity pitchman. From 2004 to 2008 he starred as attorney Denny Crane in the television dramas The Practice and its spin-off Boston Legal for which he won two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.

Early life, and education[link]

Shatner was born on March 22, 1931, in the Côte Saint-Luc neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec, the son of Anne (née Garmaise) and Joseph Shatner, a clothing manufacturer.^[1][2] He has two sisters, Joy and Farla.^[3] His paternal grandfather, Wolf Schattner, anglicized the family name to "Shatner".^[4] All of Shatner's grandparents were Jewish immigrants (from Austria, Poland, Hungary, and Ukraine),^[5][6] and Shatner was raised in Conservative Judaism.^[7] He attended Willingdon Elementary School,^[8] in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG-Montreal) and Baron Byng High School, in Montreal, as well as West Hill High School in NDG. He is an alumnus of the Montreal Children's Theatre.^[9] He also attended McGill University in Montreal, where he studied economics and graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree.^[10] In June 2011, McGill awarded him with an honorary doctorate of letters.^[11] The Students' Society of McGill University building on McTavish Street is popularly (though not officially) named "Shatner".

Shatner has said that he faced anti-semitism while growing up in Montreal.^[12]

Acting career[link]

Early stage, film, and television work[link]

After graduating from McGill University in 1952 Shatner became business manager for the Mountain Playhouse in Montréal before joining the Canadian National Repertory Theatre in Ottawa. Trained as a classical Shakespearean actor, Shatner began performing at the Shakespearean Stratford Festival of Canada in Stratford, Ontario beginning in 1954. He played a range of roles at the Stratford Festival in productions that included a minor role in the opening scene of a renowned and nationally televised production of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex directed by Tyrone Guthrie, Shakespeare's Henry V, and Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great. Shatner made his Broadway debut in the latter, in 1956.^[13] In 1954, he was cast as Ranger Bob on The Canadian Howdy Doody Show.^[14] Shatner was understudy to Christopher Plummer; the two would later star as adversaries in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Though his official movie debut was in the 1951 Canadian film The Butler's Night Off, Shatner's first feature role came in the 1958 MGM film The Brothers Karamazov with Yul Brynner, in which he starred as the youngest of the Karamazov brothers, Alexei. In December of the same year, he appeared opposite Ralph Bellamy playing Roman tax collectors in Bethlehem on the day of Jesus' birth in a vignette of a Hallmark Hall of Fame live television production entitled The Christmas Tree directed by Kirk Browning, which featured in other vignettes such stars as Jessica Tandy, Margaret Hamilton, Bernadette Peters, Richard Thomas, Cyril Ritchard and Carol Channing. Shatner had a leading role in an Alfred Hitchcock Presents third-season (1957–1958) episode titled "The Glass Eye", one of his first appearances on American television.

In 1959, he received decent reviews when he took on the role of Lomax in the Broadway production of The World of Suzie Wong. In March 1959, while performing on stage in Suzie Wong, Shatner was also playing detective Archie Goodwin in what would have been television's first Nero Wolfe series had it not been aborted by CBS after shooting a pilot and a few episodes.^[15]

In 1960, he appeared twice as Wayne Gorham in NBC's The Outlaws Western series with Barton MacLane, and then in another Alfred Hitchcock Presents fifth-season episode titled "Mother, may I go out to swim?". In 1961, he starred in the Broadway play A Shot in the Dark with Julie Harris and directed by Harold Clurman. Walter Matthau (who won a Tony Award for his performance) and Gene Saks were also featured in this play. Shatner also starred in two episodes of the NBC television series Thriller, "Grim Reaper" and "The Hungry Glass".

Guthrie had called the young Shatner the Stratford Festival's most promising actor, and he was seen as a peer to contemporaries like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, and Robert Redford. Shatner was not as successful as the others, however, and during the 1960s he "became a working actor who showed up on time, knew his lines, worked cheap and always answered his phone." His motto was "Work equals work", but Shatner's willingness to take any role, no matter how "forgettable", likely hurt his career.^[13] In 1962, he starred in Roger Corman's movie The Intruder. He also appeared in the Stanley Kramer film Judgment at Nuremberg and two episodes, "Nick of Time" and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", of the science fiction anthology series The Twilight Zone. In the 1963–1964 season, he appeared in episodes of two ABC series, Channing and The Outer Limits ("Cold Hands, Warm Heart"). In 1963, he starred in the Family Theater production called "The Soldier" and received credits in other programs of The Psalms series. That same year he guest starred in Route 66, in the episode, "Build Your Houses with Their Backs to the Sea". In 1964, he guest starred in the episode "He Stuck in His Thumb" of the CBS drama The Reporter.Also in 1964 he co-starred with Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom, Paul Newman and Edward G Robinson in the western "The Outrage"

In 1965, Shatner guest-starred as Major Curt Brown in second season episode 9, "I Am The Enemy" of 12 O-Clock High. He guest-starred in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in an episode that also featured Leonard Nimoy,^[16] with whom Shatner would soon be paired in Star Trek. He also starred in the critically acclaimed drama For the People in 1965, as an assistant district attorney, costarring with Jessica Walter. The program lasted for only thirteen episodes. Shatner starred in the 1966 gothic horror film Incubus, the second feature-length movie ever made with all dialogue spoken in Esperanto. He also starred in an episode of Gunsmoke in 1966 as the character Fred Bateman. In 1967 he starred in the little known film White Comanche starring as two characters: Johnny Moon and his twin brother Notah.

William Shatner as Kirk in a promotional photograph

[edit] Star Trek

Shatner was first cast as Captain James T. Kirk for the second pilot of Star Trek, titled "Where No Man Has Gone Before". He was then contracted to play Kirk for the Star Trek series and held the role from 1966 to 1969. In 1973, he returned to the role of Captain Kirk, albeit only in voice, in the animated Star Trek series.

In his role as Kirk, Shatner famously kissed African American actress Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura) in the November 22, 1968, Star Trek episode "Plato's Stepchildren". The episode is popularly cited as the first example of an interracial kiss on scripted television in the United States.^[17][18][19]

1970s[link]

Shatner's wife Gloria Rand divorced him in March 1969.^[20] After Star Trek was cancelled that year, Shatner experienced difficulty in finding work in the early 1970s. With very little money and few acting prospects, he lived in a truck bed camper in the San Fernando Valley^[21] until small roles turned into higher-paying jobs. Shatner refers to this part of his life as "that period", a humbling one during which he would take any odd job, including small party appearances, to support his family.

Shatner again appeared in "schlock" films, such as the horror film The Devil's Rain, Corman's Big Bad Mama,^[13] and the TV movie The Horror at 37,000 Feet, which many fans believe is his worst work.^[21] Shatner received good reviews as the lead prosecutor in a 1971 PBS adaptation of Saul Levitt's play The Andersonville Trial. Other television appearances included a starring role in the western-themed secret agent series Barbary Coast during 1975 and 1976, and guest roles on many 1970s series such as The Six Million Dollar Man, Columbo, The Rookies, Kung Fu, and Mission: Impossible.

Shatner was an occasional celebrity guest on The $10,000 Pyramid and The $20,000 Pyramid in the 1970s, once appearing opposite Nimoy in a week-long matchup billed as "Kirk vs. Spock". His appearances became far less frequent after a 1977 appearance in which, after giving an illegal clue ("the blessed" for Things That Are Blessed) at the top of the pyramid ($200) which deprived the contestant of a big money win, he threw his chair out of the Winner's Circle.^[22] Other shows included The Hollywood Squares, Celebrity Bowling,^[13] Beat the Clock and Match Game.

Shatner did a number of television commercials for Ontario-based Loblaws and British Columbia-based SuperValu supermarket chains in the 1970s,^[23] and finished the Loblaws ad spots by saying, "At Loblaws, more than the price is right. But, by Gosh, the price is right."^[24] He also did a number of television commercials for General Motors, endorsing the Oldsmobile brand, and Promise margarine.

A return to Kirk, and to work[link]

After its cancellation, Star Trek unexpectedly gained a cult following during the 1970s from syndicated reruns, and Captain Kirk became a cultural icon.^[13] Shatner began appearing at Star Trek conventions organized by Trekkies.^[25] In the mid-1970s Paramount began pre-production for a revised Star Trek television series, tentatively titled Star Trek: Phase II. However, the phenomenal success of Star Wars led the studio to instead consider developing a Star Trek motion picture. Shatner and the other original Star Trek cast members returned to their roles when Paramount produced Star Trek: The Motion Picture, released in 1979. It re-established Shatner as an actor, and he played Kirk in the next six Star Trek films, ending with the character's death in 1994's Star Trek Generations. His final appearances in the role are in the movie sequences of the video game Starfleet Academy (1997), and briefly for a DirecTV advertisement using footage from Star Trek VI running from late summer 2006.

Although Trekkies had resurrected Star Trek after cancellation, in a 1986 Saturday Night Live skit about a Star Trek convention Shatner advised a room full of fans to "Get a life".^[26][13] The "much-discussed sketch" accurately portrayed his feelings about Trekkies, which the actor had previously discussed in interviews.^[26] Shatner had been the unwilling subject of adoration by them for decades; as early as April 1968, a group attempted to rip his clothes off as the actor left 30 Rockefeller Plaza,^[27] and he stopped attending conventions for more than a decade during the 1970s and 1980s.^[28] Shatner also appeared in the film Free Enterprise in 1998, in which he played himself and tried to dispel the Kirk image of himself from the view of the film's two lead characters. He also has found an outlet in spoofing the cavalier, almost superhuman, character persona of Captain Kirk in films such as Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) and National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon (1993).

Tim Allen's role in Galaxy Quest as Captain Peter Quincy Taggart / Jason Nesmith is an analogue of James T. Kirk / William Shatner as seen by the public at large. Taggart has a reputation for taking off his shirt at the flimsiest excuse, rolling on the ground during combat, and making pithy speeches, while Nesmith is an egomaniac who regards himself as the core of Galaxy Quest and tells fans to "get a life". Poking fun at himself, Shatner professed to have no idea whom Allen was parodying.^[29]

Besides the Star Trek films, Shatner gained a new starring role on television as a police officer in T. J. Hooker, which ran from 1982 to 1986. He then hosted the popular dramatic reenactment series Rescue 911 from 1989 to 1996. During the 1980s Shatner also began directing film and television, directing numerous episodes of T. J. Hooker and the feature film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

Subsequent acting career[link]

Shatner has appeared in advertisements for many companies and products, and for most of the 14 years ending in 2012, he has done a series of commercials for the travel web site Priceline, in which Shatner plays a pompous, fictionalized version of himself.^[13][30] Although he received stock options for the commercials, Shatner insists that reports that they are now worth hundreds of millions of dollars are exaggerated.^[31][32] Shatner was also the CEO of the Toronto, Ontario-based C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, a special effects studio that operated from 1994 to 2010.^[33]

Shatner has enjoyed success with a series of science fiction novels published under his name, though most are widely believed to have been written by uncredited co-writers such as William T. Quick and Ron Goulart.^[34] The first, published in 1990, was TekWar. This popular series of books led to a Marvel Comics series, to a number of television movies, in which Shatner played a role, and to a short-lived television series in which Shatner made several appearances; he also directed some episodes. In 1995, a first-person shooter game named William Shatner's TekWar was released, and was the first game to use the Build engine. He also played as a narrator in 1995 American documentary film Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie directed by Peter Kuran.

In the television series 3rd Rock from the Sun, Shatner appeared in several episodes as the "Big Giant Head", a womanizing party-animal and high-ranking officer from the same alien planet as the Solomon family. The role earned Shatner a nomination for an Emmy.^[35]

In 2001, Shatner starred in the animated film Osmosis Jones as the character Mayor Phlegmming, the self-centered head of the "City of Frank", a community comprising all the cells and microorganisms of a man's body. In the movie, the pompous Phlegmming is constantly preoccupied with his reelection and his own convenience, even to the detriment of his "city" and constituents.

In 2003, Shatner appeared in Brad Paisley's "Celebrity" and "Online" music videos along with Little Jimmy Dickens, Jason Alexander, and Trista Rehn.

Star Trek: Enterprise producer Manny Coto stated in Star Trek Communicator's October 2004 issue that he was preparing a three-episode story arc for Shatner. Shortly thereafter, Enterprise was cancelled.

After David E. Kelley saw Shatner's commercials,^[13] he joined the final season of the legal drama The Practice. His Emmy-award winning role, the eccentric but highly capable attorney Denny Crane, was essentially "William Shatner the man . . . playing William Shatner the character playing the character Denny Crane, who was playing the character William Shatner."^[13] Shatner took the Crane role to Boston Legal, and won a Golden Globe, an Emmy in 2005, and was nominated again in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 for his work. With the 2005 Emmy win, Shatner became one of the few actors (along with co-star James Spader as Alan Shore) to win an Emmy award while playing the same character in two different series. Even rarer, Shatner and Spader each won a second consecutive Emmy while playing the same character in two different series. Shatner remained with the series until its end in 2008.

Shatner made several guest appearances on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, including cameos reciting Sarah Palin's resignation speech, Twitter posts, and autobiography. He has also recited Twitter posts by Levi Johnston, father of Palin's grandson. He also appears in the opening graphics of the occasional feature "In the Year 3000", with his disembodied head floating through space, announcing, "And so we take a cosmic ride into that new millennium; that far off reality that is the year 3000," followed by the tag line, "It's the future, man."

Shatner also played the voice of Ozzie the opossum in DreamWorks' 2006 feature Over the Hedge.

Shatner's star on the Canadian Walk of Fame

In January 2007, Shatner launched a series of daily vlogs on his life called ShatnerVision^[36] on the LiveUniverse.com website. In 2008, he launched his video blogs on YouTube in a project renamed "The Shatner Project".^[37] Shatner also starred as the voice of Don Salmonella Gavone on the 2009 YouTube animated series The Gavones.^[38]

Shatner was not "offered or suggested" a role in the 2009 film Star Trek.^[39][40] Director J.J. Abrams said in July 2007, that the production was "desperately trying to figure out a way to put him in" but that to "shove him in . . . would be a disaster."^[41] an opinion echoed by Shatner in several interviews. At a convention held in 2010, Shatner commented on the film by saying "I've seen that wonderful film." Shatner had invented his own idea about the beginning of Star Trek with his latest novel, Star Trek: Academy — Collision Course.^[42]

Shatner's autobiography Up Till Now was released in 2008. He was assisted in writing it by David Fisher. Shatner has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (for Television work) at 6901 Hollywood Boulevard. He also has a star on the Canadian Walk of Fame. Shatner was the first Canadian actor to star in three successful television series on three different major networks (NBC, CBS, and ABC).

Shatner starred in the CBS sitcom $#*! My Dad Says, which is based on the Twitter feed Shit My Dad Says created by Justin Halpern. The series premiered in late 2010 and was canceled May 2011.^[43] Shatner is also the host of the interview show Shatner's Raw Nerve on The Biography Channel, and the Discovery Channel television series Weird or What?^[44] Also in 2011, Shatner appeared in the episode of Psych titled, "In For a Penny" on the USA Network as the estranged father of Junior Detective Juliet O'Hara (Maggie Lawson). He has signed on to continue the role into the 2012 season.

In 2011, Shatner starred in The Captains, a feature length documentary which he also wrote and directed. The film follows Shatner as he interviews the other actors who have portrayed starship captains within the Star Trek franchise. Shatner's interviewees included Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Bakula, and Chris Pine. In the film, Shatner also interviews Christopher Plummer, who is an old friend and colleague from Shatner's days with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario.^[45]

In February 2012, Shatner performed in a new one-man show on Broadway, called Shatner's World: We Just Live in It. After a 3-week run at the Music Box Theater,^[46] the show is currently touring throughout the United States.

In May 2012 Shatner was the guest presenter on the British satirical television quiz show Have I Got News For You.^[47][48]

Music and spoken-word work[link]

Shatner began his musical career with the spoken-word 1968 album The Transformed Man, delivering exaggerated, interpretive recitations of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". He performed a reading of the Elton John song "Rocket Man" during the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards that has been widely parodied. Ben Folds, who has worked with him several times, produced and co-wrote Shatner's well-received second studio album, Has Been, in 2004. His third studio album, Seeking Major Tom, was released October 11, 2011.

[edit] Space Shuttle Discovery

Shatner recorded a wake-up call that was played for the crew of STS-133 in the Space Shuttle Discovery on March 7, 2011, its final day docked to the International Space Station. Backed by the musical theme from Star Trek, it featured a voice-over based on his spoken introduction from the series' opening credits: "Space, the final frontier. These have been the voyages of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Her 30 year mission: To seek out new science. To build new outposts. To bring nations together on the final frontier. To boldly go, and do, what no spacecraft has done before."^[49]

Personal life[link]

Shatner with Brent Spiner and LeVar Burton in July 2010

Shatner dislikes watching himself perform, and claims that he has "never watched Star Trek . . . not even any of the Star Trek movies"—except the dailies from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, which he directed—or Boston Legal.^[50]

Family[link]

Shatner has been married four times. His first marriage was to Gloria Rand, from 1956 to 1969. His second marriage lasted 21 years and was to Marcy Lafferty; the couple were married in 1973 and divorced in 1994.

His third marriage was to Nerine Kidd-Shatner, from 1997 until her death in 1999. On August 9, 1999, Shatner returned home around 10 pm to discover Nerine's body at the bottom of their back yard swimming pool. She was 40 years old. An autopsy detected alcohol and Valium in her blood, but the coroner ruled the cause of her death as an accidental drowning. The LAPD ruled out foul play and the case was closed. Speaking to the press shortly after his wife's death, a clearly shaken and emotional Shatner said that she "meant everything" to him and called her his "beautiful soulmate."^[51] Shatner urged the public to support Friendly House, a non-profit organization that helps women re-establish themselves in the community after suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction.^[52] He later told Larry King in an interview that ". . . my wife, whom I loved dearly and who loved me, was suffering with a disease that we don't like to talk about, alcoholism. And she met a tragic ending because of it."^[51] In his 2008 book Up Till Now: The Autobiography, Shatner discusses how Leonard Nimoy helped take Nerine for treatment of her alcoholism. Shatner writes in an excerpt from his book:

Leonard Nimoy's personal experience of alcoholism now came to play a central role in my life and it helped us bond together in a way I never could have imagined in the early days of Star Trek. After Nerine [Kidd] and I had been to dinner with Leonard and Susan Nimoy one evening, Leonard called and said: "Bill, you know she's an alcoholic?" I said I did. I married Nerine in 1997, against the advice of many and my own good sense. But I thought she would give up alcohol for me. We had a celebration in Pasadena, and Leonard was my best man. I woke up about eight o'clock the next morning and Nerine was drunk. She was in rehab for 30 days three different times. Twice she almost drank herself to death. Leonard took Nerine to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but she did not want to quit.^[53]

In 2000, a Reuters story reported that Shatner was planning to write and direct The Shiva Club, a dark comedy about the grieving process inspired by his wife's death.^[54] Shatner's 2004 album Has Been included a spoken word piece titled "What Have You Done" that describes his anguish upon discovering his wife's body in the pool. "What Have You Done" was also sampled in the Concord Dawn and Chris Su Drum and Bass track "Scream to the Stars".

Since 2001, Shatner has been married to Elizabeth Martin. In 2004, she co-wrote the song "Together" on Shatner's album Has Been.^[55]

Relationships with other actors[link]

Star Trek co-star Grace Lee Whitney wears a pair of platform boots with Shatner's face on them to a science fiction convention in the 1970s

Shatner first appeared on screen with Leonard Nimoy in 1964, when both actors guest-starred in an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., entitled: "The Project Strigas Affair". However, Shatner states in his autobiography that he does not recall meeting Nimoy at that time. As co-stars on Star Trek, they interacted socially both on and off the set. After Star Trek's cancellation in 1969, Shatner and Nimoy reunited in the production of Star Trek: The Animated Series, as well as The $20,000 Pyramid, where "Kirk vs. Spock" appeared on two different tables. Nimoy also guest-starred on T. J. Hooker for a few episodes. Shatner starred in the title role of the show.

The 1999 death of Shatner's third wife, Nerine, served to strengthen the friendship of Shatner and Nimoy, as Nimoy had mourned over the loss of his best friend's wife. Nimoy also appeared alongside Shatner at the TV Land Awards (hosted by John Ritter) and was one of the many people to serve as a celebrity "roaster" of Shatner. Nimoy summarized his four decade friendship with Shatner by remarking, "Bill's energy was good for my performance, 'cause Spock could be the cool individual, our chemistry was successful, right from the start." Nimoy has spoken about their mutual rivalry during the Star Trek years: "Very competitive, sibling rivalry up to here. After the show had been on the air a few weeks and they started getting so much mail for Spock, then the dictum came down from NBC: 'Give us more of that guy, they love that guy, you know?' Well, that can be . . . that can be a problem for the leading man who was hired as the star of the show; and suddenly, here's this guy with ears – 'What's this, you know?'" said Nimoy. Shatner has similarly described their Star Trek relationship, stating that they only became close friends while attending fan conventions together.^[21] On an episode of the A&E Network series Biography, Nimoy remarked, "Bill Shatner hogging the stage? No. Not the Bill Shatner I know."

Shatner has been a friend of actress Heather Locklear since 1982, when Locklear began co-starring with him on T. J. Hooker as Officer Stacy Sheridan. Locklear was asked by Entertainment Tonight whether it was hard to work on two weekly TV shows at the same time. (During the four years Locklear was in Hooker, she was also appearing in a semi-regular role in a fellow Aaron Spelling production, Dynasty). She replied ". . . I'd get really nervous and want to be prepared . . ." for Shatner and for the experienced cast of Dynasty. After Hooker ended Shatner helped Locklear get other roles. Locklear supported a grieving Shatner in 1999 when he was mourning the death of his wife, Nerine. In 2005, Locklear appeared in two episodes of Shatner's Boston Legal as Kelly Nolan, an attractive, youthful woman being tried for killing her much older, wealthy husband. Shatner plays Denny Crane, a founding partner of a large law firm, and a legendary litigator. Crane is attracted to Nolan and tries to insert himself into her defense. He is about the same age as Nolan's deceased husband, so Crane courts death by pursuing her. Locklear was asked how she came to appear on Boston Legal. She explained "I love the show, it's my favorite show; and I sorta kind of said, 'Shouldn't I be William Shatner's illegitimate daughter, or his love interest?'"

For years, Shatner was accused of being difficult to work with by some of his Star Trek co-stars, most notably James Doohan and George Takei. In the 2004 Star Trek DVD sets, Shatner seemed to have made up with Takei, but their differences continue to resurface. In the 1990s, Shatner made numerous attempts to patch things up with Doohan, but was unsuccessful for some time; however, an Associated Press article published at the time of Doohan's final convention appearance in late August 2004 stated that Doohan had forgiven his fellow Canadian Shatner and they had mended their relationship.

Takei continues to speak negatively about Shatner. In a 2008 television interview, he stated "he has a big, shiny, demanding ego."^[56] Shatner, in turn, recorded videos for YouTube, saying that Takei had some sort of "psychosis".^[57]

Takei has repeatedly asserted (most recently on the December 26, 2009, episode of the NPR radio program Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me) that he invited Shatner (along with other Star Trek cast members) to his 2008 wedding to Brad Altman, but Shatner never responded to the invitation. Shatner has repeatedly counter-asserted (most recently in the January 2010 issue of GQ) that he never received an invitation.^[58][59]

In 1995, when Shatner interviewed his Star Trek costars for his memoir Star Trek Movie Memories, Nichelle Nichols (who played Uhura on the show) told him, "Now let me tell you why I hate you,"^[60] explaining that, despite the few lines she had in the show, he would sometimes argue with the director that an Uhura dialog line was unnecessary.^[61] She then "gave Shatner an earful about how she and the rest of the other four felt, which prompted Shatner to wake up and set about making things right with his former costars." He and Nichols patched up their differences sufficiently that she appeared on his August 20, 2006 Friars Club roast, telling the Comedy Central audience, "Bill Shatner would crap on the last piece of pizza just so no one else could enjoy it."^[62]

Health problems[link]

Shatner suffers from tinnitus as a result of an accident on the set while shooting the Star Trek episode "Arena" and is involved in the American Tinnitus Association. His treatment for this condition involved wearing a small electronic device that generated a low-level, broadband sound (white noise) that "helped his brain put the tinnitus in the background".^[63]

Charity work[link]

In 2006, Shatner sold his kidney stone for US$25,000 to GoldenPalace.com.^[64] In an appearance on The View on May 16, 2006, Shatner said the $25,000 and an additional $20,000 raised from the cast and crew of Boston Legal paid for the building of a house by Habitat for Humanity.

In his spare time, Shatner enjoys breeding and showing American Saddlebreds^[13] and Quarter Horses. Shatner has a 150 hectare (360 acre) farm near Versailles, Kentucky, named Belle Reve (from the French beau rève, "Beautiful Dream," -- Belle Reve was the name of Blanche Dubois and her sister Stella's family home in A Streetcar Named Desire), where he raises American Saddlebreds. His champion American Saddlebreds include Call Me Ringo, Revival, and Sultan's Great Day. The farm's activities help benefit the Central Kentucky Riding for Hope "Horses For Heroes" program.

Shatner also plays on the World Poker Tour in the Hollywood Home Games, where celebrities play for their favorite charities. Since 1990, he has been a leading force behind the Hollywood Charity Horse Show, which raises money for children's charities.

Nominations and awards[link]

In 2004, Shatner won his first Emmy Award for his role as "Denny Crane" on The Practice. In 2005, he won his first Golden Globe award and a second Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his work on Boston Legal. In 2009, Shatner won a Streamy Award in the category of Best Reality Web Series.

In May 2011, he was honoured with the Governor General of Canada's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, recording a humorous short film William Shatner Sings O Canada for the occasion.^[65][66] On June 2, 2011, Shatner received an honorary Doctor of Letters from McGill University, his alma mater.^[67]

See also[link]

• Works by William Shatner

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: William Shatner

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: William Shatner

• Official website
• Works by William Shatner on Open Library at the Internet Archive
• William Shatner at the Internet Movie Database
• William Shatner at TV Tropes
• William Shatner's verified Twitter account
• Works by or about William Shatner in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• William Shatner collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• William Shatner talks about 'Star Trek: The Tour' in Long Beach
• William Shatner at the LA Art Show
• William Shatner has made around 40 short interview films on Videojug "Ask the Expert – William Shatner"
• Shatner at Amazon Reviews
• William Shatner Interview at Slashdot
• Shatner at Fame Tracker
• The Times (London), January 26, 2008. "Man of Enterprise. As a new series of Boston Legal begins, our critic salutes the many facets of its veteran star William Shatner" by Sophie Davies
• Shatner turns down real offer to go into space "I do want to go up but I need guarantees I'll definitely come back.", accessed 2010-07-21
• William Shatner Issues Urgent Plea in Animals' Behalf
• William Shatner for animal rights
• William Shatner interview at Archive of American Television January 22, 2009 and September 15, 1999
• William Shatner In Conversation (video) with The Big Bang Theory creator and show runner Bill Prady at 2010 Banff World TV Festival
• William Shatner at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

Glen Velez, Luca Recupero and Alfio Antico playing at the Marranzano World Festival of Catania (Sicily) in 2007

Glen Velez is an American percussionist, vocalist, and composer, specializing in frame drums from around the world. He is largely responsible for the increasing popularity of frame drums in the United States and around the world.

Of Mexican American ancestry, Velez grew up in Texas but relocated to New York City in 1967 or 1968.[1] He began by playing jazz on the drum set but soon gravitated to hand drums from around the world (frame drums in particular), seeking out teachers from many different musical traditions. Among the many instruments Velez favors in his work are the Irish bodhrán, the Brazilian pandeiro, the Arabic riq, the North African bendir, and the Azerbaijani ghaval. Although these instruments are similar in construction they all have their own characteristic playing techniques. Velez has studied each instrument traditionally, but has also developed his own cross-cultural musical vocabulary, mixing and adapting techniques from various cultures and developing new ones (such as playing the bodhrán with brushes). Velez has been influential in the growing international interest in frame drums and many younger players now use his techniques.

He also plays other percussion instruments such as the Venezuelan maracas and steel drum, and is skilled at overtone singing.

Velez's compositions are frequently composed for cross-cultural ensembles in which he himself also performs; he is particularly fond of polyrhythm--superimposing different meters simultaneously.

Velez is a longtime member of the Paul Winter Consort and Steve Reich and Musicians. He has also worked with Layne Redmond, Howard Levy, Steve Gorn, Rabih Abou-Khalil and Malcolm Dalglish.

Velez's students include Layne Redmond, Yousif Sheronick, Shane Shanahan, Glen Fittin, Randy Crafton and N. Scott Robinson.

Discography[link]

• 1983 - Handdance (Music of the World)
• 1985 - Internal Combustion
• 1987 - Seven Heaven
• 1989 - Assyrian Rose
• 1991 - Doctrine of Signatures
• 1991 - Ramana (Nomad Records) (Music of the World)
• 1993 - Borderstates
• 1993 - Pan Eros
• 1995 - Ars Moriende
• 1996 - Rhythmcolor Exotica
• 1998 - Rhythms of the Chakras
• 2000 - Breathing Rhythms
• 2005 - Rhythms of Awakenings
• 2011 - Luminosity Len & Vani Greene

External links[link]

• Glen Velez official site
• "Glen Velez: A World of Sound in His Hands", by N. Scott Robinson (from Modern Drummer 24, no. 4 (April 2000), pp. 72–76, 78-80, 82, 84, and 86)
• Glen Velez at the Internet Movie Database
• / Video Interview, Glen Velez at PSALM

Bob Dylan
Dylan onstage at the Azkena Rock Festival, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, June 26, 2010
Background information
Birth name	Robert Allen Zimmerman
Also known as	Elston Gunnn, Blind Boy Grunt, Bob Landy, Robert Milkwood Thomas, Tedham Porterhouse, Lucky/Boo Wilbury, Jack Frost, Sergei Petrov
Born	(1941-05-24) May 24, 1941 (age 71) Duluth, Minnesota, U.S.
Origin	Hibbing, Minnesota, U.S.
Genres	Rock, folk, folk rock, blues, blues rock, country, gospel, country rock
Occupations	Musician, singer-songwriter, producer, visual artist, poet, writer, director, screenwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards, harmonica
Years active	1961–present
Labels	Columbia, Asylum
Associated acts	Joan Baez, The Band, The Byrds, Johnny Cash, Mark Knopfler, Grateful Dead, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Traveling Wilburys
Website	bobdylan.com

Bob Dylan ( /�?dɪlən/), born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, is an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist. He has been an influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades.^[1][2] Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest. A number of Dylan's early songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems for the US civil rights^[3] and anti-war^[4] movements. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music behind, Dylan's six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" has been described as radically altering the parameters of popular music in 1965.^[5] However, his recordings employing electric instruments attracted denunciation and criticism from others in the folk movement.

Dylan's lyrics incorporated a variety of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture. Initially inspired by the songs of Woody Guthrie,^[6] Robert Johnson,^[7] and Hank Williams, as well as the music and performance styles of Buddy Holly and Little Richard,^[8] Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres. His recording career, spanning fifty years, has explored numerous distinct traditions in American song—from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly to English, Scottish, and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and swing.^[9]

Dylan performs with guitar, keyboards, and harmonica. Backed by a changing line-up of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour. His accomplishments as a recording artist and performer have been central to his career, but his greatest contribution is generally considered to be his songwriting.^[1]

Since 1994, Dylan has published three books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries.^[10][11] As a songwriter and musician, Dylan has received numerous awards over the years including Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards; he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."^[12] In May 2012, Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.^[13]

Life and career[link]

Origins and musical beginnings[link]

Bob Dylan was born "Robert Allen Zimmerman" (Hebrew name שבת�?י זיס�?ל בן �?ברהם [Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham])^[14][15] in St. Mary's Hospital on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota,^[16][17] and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Iron Range west of Lake Superior. His paternal grandparents, Zigman and Anna Zimmerman, emigrated from Odessa in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine) to the United States following the anti-Semitic pogroms of 1905.^[18] His maternal grandparents, Benjamin and Lybba Edelstein, were Lithuanian Jews who arrived in the United States in 1902.^[18] In his autobiography Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan writes that his paternal grandmother's maiden name was Kyrgyz and her family originated from Kars, Turkey.^[19]

Dylan's parents, Abram Zimmerman and Beatrice "Beatty" Stone, were part of the area's small but close-knit Jewish community. Robert Zimmerman lived in Duluth until age six, when his father was stricken with polio and the family returned to his mother's home town, Hibbing, where Zimmerman spent the rest of his childhood. Robert Zimmerman spent much of his youth listening to the radio—first to blues and country stations broadcasting from Shreveport, Louisiana and, later, to early rock and roll.^[8] He formed several bands while he attended Hibbing High School. The Shadow Blasters was short-lived, but his next, The Golden Chords, lasted longer and played covers of Little Richard rock and roll^[20] and other popular songs.^[21] Their performance of Danny and the Juniors' "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay" at their high school talent show was so loud that the principal cut the microphone off.^[22] In 1959, his high school yearbook carried, beneath his photo, the caption: "Robert Zimmerman: to join 'Little Richard'."^[20][23] The same year, using the name Elston Gunnn [sic], he performed two dates with Bobby Vee, playing piano and providing handclaps.^[24][25][26]

Zimmerman moved to Minneapolis in September 1959 and enrolled at the University of Minnesota, where his early focus on rock and roll gave way to an interest in American folk music. In 1985, Dylan explained the attraction that folk music had exerted on him:

The thing about rock'n'roll is that for me anyway it wasn't enough ... There were great catch-phrases and driving pulse rhythms ... but the songs weren't serious or didn't reflect life in a realistic way. I knew that when I got into folk music, it was more of a serious type of thing. The songs are filled with more despair, more sadness, more triumph, more faith in the supernatural, much deeper feelings.^[27]

He soon began to perform at the 10 O'clock Scholar, a coffee house a few blocks from campus, and became actively involved in the local Dinkytown folk music circuit.^[28][29]

During his Dinkytown days, Zimmerman began introducing himself as "Bob Dylan".^[30] In his autobiography, Dylan acknowledged that he had been influenced by the poetry of Dylan Thomas.^{[31][a 1]} Explaining his change of name in a 2004 interview, Dylan remarked: "You're born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free."^[32]

1960s[link]

Relocation to New York and record deal[link]

Dylan dropped out of college at the end of his freshman year. In January 1961, he traveled to New York City, hoping to perform there and visit his musical idol Woody Guthrie,^[33] who was seriously ill with Huntington's Disease in Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital.^[34] Guthrie had been a revelation to Dylan and was the biggest influence on his early performances. Describing Guthrie's impact on him, Dylan later wrote: "The songs themselves had the infinite sweep of humanity in them ... [He] was the true voice of the American spirit. I said to myself I was going to be Guthrie's greatest disciple."^[35] As well as visiting Guthrie in the hospital, Dylan befriended Guthrie's acolyte Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Much of Guthrie's repertoire was actually channeled through Elliott, and Dylan paid tribute to Elliott in Chronicles (2004).^[36]

From February 1961, Dylan played at various clubs around Greenwich Village. He befriended and picked up material from many folk singers in the Village scene, including Dave Van Ronk, Fred Neil, Odetta, the New Lost City Ramblers, and Irish musicians Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers.^[37] Dylan later described Liam Clancy as "the best ballad singer I ever heard."^[38] In September, Dylan gained some public recognition when Robert Shelton wrote a positive review in The New York Times of a show at Gerde's Folk City.^[39] The same month Dylan played harmonica on folk singer Carolyn Hester's eponymous third album, which brought his talents to the attention of the album's producer, John Hammond.^[40] Hammond signed Dylan to Columbia Records in October. The performances on his first Columbia album, Bob Dylan (1962), consisted of familiar folk, blues and gospel material combined with two original compositions. The album made little impact, selling only 5,000 copies in its first year, just enough to break even.^[41] Within Columbia Records, some referred to the singer as "Hammond's Folly" and suggested dropping his contract. Hammond defended Dylan vigorously. In March 1962, Dylan contributed harmonica and back-up vocals to the album Three Kings and the Queen, accompanying Victoria Spivey and Big Joe Williams on a recording for Spivey Records.^[42] While working for Columbia, Dylan also recorded several songs under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt,^[43] for Broadside Magazine, a folk music magazine and record label.^[44] Dylan used the pseudonym Bob Landy to record as a piano player on the 1964 anthology album, The Blues Project, issued by Elektra Records.^[43] Under the pseudonym Tedham Porterhouse, Dylan contributed harmonica to Ramblin' Jack Elliott's 1964 album Jack Elliott.^[43]

With Joan Baez during the civil rights "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom", August 28, 1963

Bob Dylan in November 1963

	"Blowin' in the Wind" noicon Blowin' in the Wind was, according to critic Andy Gill, "the song with which Dylan's name is most inextricably linked, and safeguarded his reputation as a civil libertarian through any number of changes in style and attitude."[45]
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Dylan made two important career moves in August 1962. He legally changed his name to Bob Dylan,^[46] and signed a management contract with Albert Grossman.^[47] Grossman remained Dylan's manager until 1970, and was notable both for his sometimes confrontational personality, and for the fiercely protective loyalty he displayed towards his principal client.^[48] Dylan subsequently said of Grossman, "He was kind of like a Colonel Tom Parker figure ... you could smell him coming."^[29] Tensions between Grossman and John Hammond led to Hammond being replaced as the producer of Dylan's second album by the young African American jazz producer Tom Wilson.^[49]

From December 1962 to January 1963, Dylan made his first trip to the United Kingdom.^[50] He had been invited by TV director Philip Saville to appear in a drama, The Madhouse on Castle Street, which Saville was directing for BBC Television.^[51] At the end of the play, Dylan performed "Blowin' in the Wind", one of the first major public performances of the song.^[52] The film recording of The Madhouse on Castle Street was destroyed by the BBC in 1968.^[51] While in London, Dylan performed at several London folk clubs, including Les Cousins, The Pinder of Wakefield,^[53] and Bunjies.^[50] He also learned new songs from several UK performers, including Martin Carthy.^[50]

By the time Dylan's second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, was released in May 1963, he had begun to make his name as both a singer and a songwriter. Many of the songs on this album were labeled protest songs, inspired partly by Guthrie and influenced by Pete Seeger's passion for topical songs.^[54] "Oxford Town", for example, was a sardonic account of James Meredith's ordeal as the first black student to risk enrollment at the University of Mississippi.^[55]

His most famous song at this time, "Blowin' in the Wind", partially derived its melody from the traditional slave song "No More Auction Block", while its lyrics questioned the social and political status quo.^[56] The song was widely recorded and became an international hit for Peter, Paul and Mary, setting a precedent for many other artists who had hits with Dylan's songs. "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" was based on the tune of the folk ballad "Lord Randall". With its veiled references to nuclear apocalypse, it gained even more resonance when the Cuban missile crisis developed only a few weeks after Dylan began performing it.^[57] Like "Blowin' in the Wind", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" marked an important new direction in modern songwriting, blending a stream-of-consciousness, imagist lyrical attack with a traditional folk form.^[58]

While Dylan's topical songs solidified his early reputation, Freewheelin' also included a mixture of love songs and jokey, surreal talking blues. Humor was a large part of Dylan's persona,^[59] and the range of material on the album impressed many listeners, including The Beatles. George Harrison said, "We just played it, just wore it out. The content of the song lyrics and just the attitude—it was incredibly original and wonderful."^[60]

The rough edge of Dylan's singing was unsettling to some early listeners but an attraction to others. Describing the impact that Dylan had on her and her husband, Joyce Carol Oates wrote: "When we first heard this raw, very young, and seemingly untrained voice, frankly nasal, as if sandpaper could sing, the effect was dramatic and electrifying."^[61] Many of his most famous early songs first reached the public through more immediately palatable versions by other performers, such as Joan Baez, who became Dylan's advocate, as well as his lover.^[62] Baez was influential in bringing Dylan to national and international prominence by recording several of his early songs and inviting him onstage during her own concerts.^[63]

Others who recorded and had hits with Dylan's songs in the early and mid-1960s included The Byrds; Sonny and Cher; The Hollies; Peter, Paul and Mary; The Association; Manfred Mann; and The Turtles. Most attempted to impart a pop feel and rhythm to the songs, while Dylan and Baez performed them mostly as sparse folk pieces. The cover versions became so ubiquitous that CBS started to promote him with the tag "Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan."^[64]

"Mixed Up Confusion", recorded during the Freewheelin' sessions with a backing band, was released as a single and then quickly withdrawn. In contrast to the mostly solo acoustic performances on the album, the single showed a willingness to experiment with a rockabilly sound. Cameron Crowe described it as "a fascinating look at a folk artist with his mind wandering towards Elvis Presley and Sun Records."^[65]

[edit] Protest and Another Side

In May 1963, Dylan's political profile was raised when he walked out of The Ed Sullivan Show. During rehearsals, Dylan had been informed by CBS Television's "head of program practices" that the song he was planning to perform, "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues", was potentially libelous to the John Birch Society. Rather than comply with the censorship, Dylan refused to appear on the program.^[66]

	"The Times They Are a-Changin'" noicon Dylan said of "The Times They Are a-Changin'": "This was definitely a song with a purpose. I wanted to write a big song, some kind of theme song, with short concise verses that piled up on each other in a hypnotic way. The civil rights movement and the folk music movement were pretty close and allied together at that time."[27]
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By this time, Dylan and Baez were both prominent in the civil rights movement, singing together at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.^[67] Dylan's third album, The Times They Are a-Changin', reflected a more politicized and cynical Dylan.^[68] The songs often took as their subject matter contemporary, real life stories, with "Only A Pawn In Their Game" addressing the murder of civil rights worker Medgar Evers; and the Brechtian "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" the death of black hotel barmaid Hattie Carroll, at the hands of young white socialite William Zantzinger.^[69] On a more general theme, "Ballad of Hollis Brown" and "North Country Blues" address the despair engendered by the breakdown of farming and mining communities. This political material was accompanied by two personal love songs, "Boots of Spanish Leather" and "One Too Many Mornings".^[70]

By the end of 1963, Dylan felt both manipulated and constrained by the folk and protest movements.^[71] These tensions were publicly displayed when, accepting the "Tom Paine Award" from the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, an intoxicated Dylan brashly questioned the role of the committee, characterized the members as old and balding, and claimed to see something of himself (and of every man) in Kennedy's alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.^[72]

Bobby Dylan, as the college yearbook lists him: St. Lawrence University, upstate New York, November 1963

Another Side of Bob Dylan, recorded on a single June evening in 1964,^[73] had a lighter mood than its predecessor. The surreal, humorous Dylan reemerged on "I Shall Be Free #10" and "Motorpsycho Nightmare". "Spanish Harlem Incident" and "To Ramona" are romantic and passionate love songs, while "Black Crow Blues" and "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)" suggest the rock and roll soon to dominate Dylan's music. "It Ain't Me Babe", on the surface a song about spurned love, has been described as a rejection of the role his reputation had thrust at him.^[74] His newest direction was signaled by two lengthy songs: the impressionistic "Chimes of Freedom", which sets elements of social commentary against a denser metaphorical landscape in a style later characterized by Allen Ginsberg as "chains of flashing images,"^[75] and "My Back Pages", which attacks the simplistic and arch seriousness of his own earlier topical songs and seems to predict the backlash he was about to encounter from his former champions as he took a new direction.^[76]

In the latter half of 1964 and 1965, Dylan's appearance and musical style changed rapidly, as he made his move from leading contemporary songwriter of the folk scene to folk-rock pop-music star. His scruffy jeans and work shirts were replaced by a Carnaby Street wardrobe, sunglasses day or night, and pointy "Beatle boots". A London reporter wrote: "Hair that would set the teeth of a comb on edge. A loud shirt that would dim the neon lights of Leicester Square. He looks like an undernourished cockatoo."^[77] Dylan also began to spar in increasingly surreal ways with his interviewers. Appearing on the Les Crane TV show and asked about a movie he was planning to make, he told Crane it would be a cowboy horror movie. Asked if he played the cowboy, Dylan replied, "No, I play my mother."^[78]

Going electric[link]

Dylan's April 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home was yet another stylistic leap,^[79] featuring his first recordings made with electric instruments. The first single, "Subterranean Homesick Blues", owed much to Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business";^[80] its free association lyrics have been described as both harkening back to the manic energy of Beat poetry and as a forerunner of rap and hip-hop.^[81] The song was provided with an early music video which opened D. A. Pennebaker's cinéma vérité presentation of Dylan's 1965 tour of England, Dont Look Back.^[82] Instead of miming to the recording, Dylan illustrated the lyrics by throwing cue cards containing key words from the song on the ground. Pennebaker has said the sequence was Dylan's idea, and it has been widely imitated in both music videos and advertisements.^[83]

The B side of Bringing It All Back Home consisted of four long songs on which Dylan accompanied himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica.^[84] "Mr. Tambourine Man" quickly became one of Dylan's best known songs when The Byrds recorded an electric version that reached number one in both the U.S. and the U.K. charts.^[85][86] "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" were acclaimed as two of Dylan's most important compositions.^[84][87]

In the summer of 1965, as the headliner at the Newport Folk Festival, Dylan performed his first electric set since his high school days with a pickup group drawn mostly from the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, featuring Mike Bloomfield (guitar), Sam Lay (drums) and Jerome Arnold (bass), plus Al Kooper (organ) and Barry Goldberg (piano).^[88] Dylan had appeared at Newport in 1963 and 1964, but in 1965 Dylan, met with a mix of cheering and booing, left the stage after only three songs. One version of the legend has it that the boos were from the outraged folk fans whom Dylan had alienated by appearing, unexpectedly, with an electric guitar. Murray Lerner, who filmed the performance, said: "I absolutely think that they were booing Dylan going electric."^[89] An alternative account claims audience members were merely upset by poor sound quality and a surprisingly short set. This account is supported by Kooper and one of the directors of the festival, who reports his audio recording of the concert proves that the only boos were in reaction to the emcee's announcement that there was only enough time for a short set.^[90][91]

Nevertheless, Dylan's 1965 Newport performance provoked a hostile response from the folk music establishment.^[92][93] In the September issue of Sing Out!, singer Ewan MacColl wrote: "Our traditional songs and ballads are the creations of extraordinarily talented artists working inside disciplines formulated over time... 'But what of Bobby Dylan?' scream the outraged teenagers... Only a completely non-critical audience, nourished on the watery pap of pop music, could have fallen for such tenth-rate drivel."^[94] On July 29, just four days after his controversial performance at Newport, Dylan was back in the studio in New York, recording "Positively 4th Street". The lyrics teemed with images of vengeance and paranoia,^[95] and it was widely interpreted as Dylan's put-down of former friends from the folk community—friends he had known in the clubs along West 4th Street.^[96]

[edit] Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde

	"Like a Rolling Stone" noicon Dylan's 1965 hit single, which appeared on the album Highway 61 Revisited. In 2004, it was labelled the Greatest Song of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine.[97]
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In July 1965, Dylan released the single "Like a Rolling Stone", which peaked at No.2 in the U.S. and at No.4 in the UK charts. At over six minutes, the song has been widely credited with altering attitudes about what a pop single could convey. Bruce Springsteen, in his speech during Dylan's inauguration into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said that on first hearing the single, "that snare shot sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind".^[98] In 2004, and again in 2011, Rolling Stone Magazine listed it as number one on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".^[97][99] The song also opened Dylan's next album, Highway 61 Revisited, titled after the road that led from Dylan's Minnesota to the musical hotbed of New Orleans.^[100] The songs were in the same vein as the hit single, flavored by Mike Bloomfield's blues guitar and Al Kooper's organ riffs. "Desolation Row" offers the sole acoustic exception, with Dylan making surreal allusions to a variety of figures in Western culture during this epic song, which was described by Andy Gill as "an 11-minute epic of entropy, which takes the form of a Fellini-esque parade of grotesques and oddities featuring a huge cast of celebrated characters, some historical (Einstein, Nero), some biblical (Noah, Cain and Abel), some fictional (Ophelia, Romeo, Cinderella), some literary (T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound), and some who fit into none of the above categories, notably Dr. Filth and his dubious nurse."^[101]

In support of the record, Dylan was booked for two U.S. concerts and set about assembling a band. Mike Bloomfield was unwilling to leave the Butterfield Band, so Dylan mixed Al Kooper and Harvey Brooks from his studio crew with Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm, best known at the time for being part of Ronnie Hawkins's backing band The Hawks (later to become The Band).^[102] On August 28 at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, the group was heckled by an audience still annoyed by Dylan's electric sound. The band's reception on September 3 at the Hollywood Bowl was more favorable.^[103]

While Dylan and the Hawks met increasingly receptive audiences on tour, their studio efforts floundered. Producer Bob Johnston persuaded Dylan to record in Nashville in February 1966, and surrounded him with a cadre of top-notch session men. At Dylan's insistence, Robertson and Kooper came down from New York City to play on the sessions.^[104] The Nashville sessions produced the double-album Blonde on Blonde (1966), featuring what Dylan later called "that thin wild mercury sound".^[105] Al Kooper described the album as "taking two cultures and smashing them together with a huge explosion": the musical world of Nashville and the world of the "quintessential New York hipster" Bob Dylan.^[106]

On November 22, 1965, Dylan secretly married 25-year-old former model Sara Lownds.^[107] Some of Dylan's friends (including Ramblin' Jack Elliott) claim that, in conversation immediately after the event, Dylan denied that he was married.^[107] Journalist Nora Ephron first made the news public in the New York Post in February 1966 with the headline "Hush! Bob Dylan is wed."^[108]

Dylan undertook a world tour of Australia and Europe in the spring of 1966. Each show was split into two parts. Dylan performed solo during the first half, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica. In the second half, backed by the Hawks, he played high voltage electric music. This contrast provoked many fans, who jeered and slow handclapped.^[109] The tour culminated in a famously raucous confrontation between Dylan and his audience at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in England on May 17, 1966.^[110] An official recording of this concert was finally released in 1998: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966. At the climax of the evening, a member of the audience, angered by Dylan's electric backing, shouted: "Judas!" to which Dylan responded, "I don't believe you ... You're a liar!" Dylan turned to his band and said, "Play it fucking loud!"^[111] as they launched into the final song of the night—"Like a Rolling Stone."

During his 1966 tour, Dylan was frequently described as exhausted and acting "as if on a death trip".^[112] D. A. Pennebaker, the film maker accompanying the tour, described Dylan as "taking a lot of amphetamine and who-knows-what-else."^[113] In a 1969 interview with Jann Wenner, Dylan said, "I was on the road for almost five years. It wore me down. I was on drugs, a lot of things... just to keep going, you know?"^[114] In 2011, BBC Radio 4 reported that, in an interview which Robert Shelton had taped in 1966, Dylan claimed that he had kicked a heroin habit in New York City: "I got very, very strung out for a while... I had about a $25-a-day habit and I kicked it."^[115] Some journalists questioned the validity of this confession, pointing out that Dylan had "been telling journalists wild lies about his past since the earliest days of his career."^[116][117]

Motorcycle accident and reclusion[link]

After his European tour, Dylan returned to New York, but the pressures on him increased. ABC Television had paid an advance for a TV show they could screen.^[118] His publisher, Macmillan, was demanding a finished manuscript of the poem/novel Tarantula. Manager Albert Grossman had already scheduled an extensive concert tour for that summer and fall.

On July 29, 1966, Dylan crashed his 500cc Triumph Tiger 100 motorcycle on a road near his home in Woodstock, New York, throwing him to the ground. Though the extent of his injuries were never fully disclosed, Dylan said that he broke several vertebrae in his neck.^[119] Mystery still surrounds the circumstances of the accident since no ambulance was called to the scene and Dylan was not hospitalized.^[119] Dylan's biographers have written that the crash offered Dylan the much-needed chance to escape from the pressures that had built up around him.^[119][120] Dylan confirmed this interpretation of the crash when he stated in his autobiography, "I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race."^[121] In the wake of his accident, Dylan withdrew from the public and, apart from a few select appearances, did not tour again for almost eight years.^[122]

Once Dylan was well enough to resume creative work, he began editing film footage of his 1966 tour for Eat the Document, a rarely exhibited follow-up to Dont Look Back. A rough-cut was shown to ABC Television and was promptly rejected as incomprehensible to a mainstream audience.^[123] In 1967 he began recording music with the Hawks at his home and in the basement of the Hawks' nearby house, called "Big Pink".^[124] These songs, initially compiled as demos for other artists to record, provided hit singles for Julie Driscoll ("This Wheel's on Fire"), The Byrds ("You Ain't Goin' Nowhere", "Nothing Was Delivered"), and Manfred Mann ("Mighty Quinn"). Columbia belatedly released selections from them in 1975 as The Basement Tapes. Over the years, more and more of the songs recorded by Dylan and his band in 1967 appeared on various bootleg recordings, culminating in a five-CD bootleg set titled The Genuine Basement Tapes, containing 107 songs and alternate takes.^[125] In the coming months, the Hawks recorded the album Music from Big Pink using songs they first worked on in their basement in Woodstock, and renamed themselves The Band,^[126] thus beginning a long and successful recording and performing career of their own.

In October and November 1967, Dylan returned to Nashville.^[127] Back in the recording studio after a 19-month break, he was accompanied only by Charlie McCoy on bass,^[128] Kenny Buttrey on drums,^[129] and Pete Drake on steel guitar.^[130] The result was John Wesley Harding, a quiet, contemplative record of shorter songs, set in a landscape that drew on both the American West and the Bible. The sparse structure and instrumentation, coupled with lyrics that took the Judeo-Christian tradition seriously, marked a departure not only from Dylan's own work but from the escalating psychedelic fervor of the 1960s musical culture.^[131] It included "All Along the Watchtower", with lyrics derived from the Book of Isaiah (21:5–9). The song was later recorded by Jimi Hendrix, whose version Dylan later acknowledged as definitive.^[27] Woody Guthrie died on October 3, 1967, and Dylan made his first live appearance in twenty months at a Guthrie memorial concert held at Carnegie Hall on January 20, 1968, where he was backed by The Band.

	"Lay Lady Lay" noicon "Lay Lady Lay", on the country album Nashville Skyline, has been one of Dylan's biggest hits, reaching No.7 in the U.S.A.[132]
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Dylan's next release, Nashville Skyline (1969), was virtually a mainstream country record featuring instrumental backing by Nashville musicians, a mellow-voiced Dylan, a duet with Johnny Cash, and the hit single "Lay Lady Lay."^[133] Variety magazine wrote, "Dylan is definitely doing something that can be called singing. Somehow he has managed to add an octave to his range."^[134] Dylan and Cash also recorded a series of duets, but only their recording of Dylan's "Girl from the North Country" was used on the album.

In May 1969, Dylan appeared on the first episode of Johnny Cash's new television show, duetting with Cash on "Girl from the North Country", "I Threw It All Away" and "Living the Blues". Dylan next travelled to England to top the bill at the Isle of Wight rock festival on August 31, 1969, after rejecting overtures to appear at the Woodstock Festival far closer to his home.^[135]

1970s[link]

In the early 1970s, critics charged that Dylan's output was of varied and unpredictable quality. Rolling Stone magazine writer Greil Marcus notoriously asked "What is this shit?" on first listening to Self Portrait, released in June 1970.^[136][137] In general, Self Portrait, a double LP including few original songs, was poorly received.^[138] In October 1970, Dylan released New Morning, which some considered a return to form.^[139] In November 1968, Dylan had co-written "I'd Have You Anytime" with George Harrison;^[140] Harrison recorded both "I'd Have You Anytime" and Dylan's "If Not For You" for his 1970 solo triple album All Things Must Pass. Dylan's surprise appearance at Harrison's 1971 Concert for Bangladesh attracted much media coverage, reflecting that Dylan's live appearances had become rare.^[141]

Between March 16 and 19, 1971, Dylan reserved three days at Blue Rock Studios, a small studio in New York's Greenwich Village. These sessions resulted in one single, "Watching the River Flow", and a new recording of "When I Paint My Masterpiece".^[70] On November 4, 1971 Dylan recorded "George Jackson", which he released a week later.^[70] For many, the single was a surprising return to protest material, mourning the killing of Black Panther George Jackson in San Quentin Prison that summer.^[142] Dylan contributed piano and harmony vocals to Steve Goodman's album, Somebody Else's Troubles, under the pseudonym Robert Milkwood Thomas in September 1972.^[143]

In 1972, Dylan signed onto Sam Peckinpah's film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, providing songs and backing music for the movie, and playing the role of "Alias", a member of Billy's gang with some historical basis.^[144] Despite the film's failure at the box office, the song "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" has proven its durability as one of Dylan's most extensively covered songs.^[145][146]

Return to touring[link]

Bob Dylan and The Band touring in Chicago, 1974

Dylan began 1973 by signing with a new record label, David Geffen's Asylum Records, when his contract with Columbia Records expired. On his next album, Planet Waves, he used The Band as backing group, while rehearsing for a major tour. The album included two versions of "Forever Young", which became one of his most popular songs.^[147] As one critic described it, the song projected "something hymnal and heartfelt that spoke of the father in Dylan",^[148] and Dylan himself commented: "I wrote it thinking about one of my boys and not wanting to be too sentimental."^[149] Biographer Howard Sounes noted that Jakob Dylan believed the song was about him.^[147]

Columbia Records simultaneously released Dylan, a haphazard collection of studio outtakes (almost exclusively cover songs), which was widely interpreted as a churlish response to Dylan's signing with a rival record label.^[150] In January 1974, Dylan returned to live touring after a break of seven years; backed by The Band, he embarked on a high-profile, coast-to-coast North American tour, playing 40 concerts. A live double album of the tour, Before the Flood, was released on Asylum Records. Soon, Columbia Records sent word that they "will spare nothing to bring Dylan back into the fold".^[151] Dylan had second thoughts about Asylum, apparently miffed that while there had been millions of unfulfilled ticket requests for the 1974 tour, Geffen had managed to sell only 700,000 copies of Planet Waves.^[151] Dylan returned to Columbia Records, which subsequently reissued his two Asylum albums on their imprint.

	"Tangled Up in Blue" noicon Dylan said of the opening song from Blood on the Tracks: "I was trying to deal with the concept of time, and the way the characters change from the first person to the third person, and you're never sure if the first person is talking or the third person. But as you look at the whole thing it really doesn't matter."[27]
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After the tour, Dylan and his wife became publicly estranged. He filled a small red notebook with songs about relationships and ruptures, and quickly recorded a new album entitled Blood on the Tracks in September 1974.^[152] Dylan delayed the album's release, however, and re-recorded half of the songs at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis with production assistance from his brother David Zimmerman.^[153]

Released in early 1975, Blood on the Tracks received mixed reviews. In the NME, Nick Kent described "the accompaniments [as] often so trashy they sound like mere practice takes."^[154] In Rolling Stone, reviewer Jon Landau wrote that "the record has been made with typical shoddiness."^[154] However, over the years critics have come to see it as one of Dylan's greatest achievements, perhaps the only serious rival to his mid-1960s trilogy of albums. In Salon.com, Bill Wyman wrote: "Blood on the Tracks is his only flawless album and his best produced; the songs, each of them, are constructed in disciplined fashion. It is his kindest album and most dismayed, and seems in hindsight to have achieved a sublime balance between the logorrhea-plagued excesses of his mid-1960s output and the self-consciously simple compositions of his post-accident years."^[155] Novelist Rick Moody called it "the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape."^[156]

Bob Dylan photographed by Elsa Dorfman with Allen Ginsberg, on the Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975

That summer Dylan wrote a lengthy ballad championing the cause of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who had been imprisoned for a triple murder committed in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1966. After visiting Carter in jail, Dylan wrote "Hurricane", presenting the case for Carter's innocence. Despite its 8:32 minute length, the song was released as a single, peaking at No.33 on the U.S. Billboard Chart, and performed at every 1975 date of Dylan's next tour, the Rolling Thunder Revue, named after the Shoshone medicine man, shaman, teacher, and activist Rolling Thunder.^[157][158] The tour was a varied evening of entertainment featuring about one hundred performers and supporters drawn from the resurgent Greenwich Village folk scene, including T-Bone Burnett, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Joni Mitchell,^[159][160] David Mansfield, Roger McGuinn, Mick Ronson, Joan Baez, and violinist Scarlet Rivera, whom Dylan discovered while she was walking down the street, her violin case hanging on her back.^[161] Allen Ginsberg accompanied the troupe, staging scenes for the film Dylan was simultaneously shooting. Sam Shepard was initially hired to write the film's screenplay, but ended up accompanying the tour as informal chronicler.^[162]

Running through late 1975 and again through early 1976, the tour encompassed the release of the album Desire, with many of Dylan's new songs featuring an almost travelogue-like narrative style, showing the influence of his new collaborator, playwright Jacques Levy.^[163][164] The spring 1976 half of the tour was documented by a TV concert special, Hard Rain, and the LP Hard Rain; no concert album from the better-received and better-known opening half of the tour was released until 2002's Live 1975.^[165]

Dylan performing in Rotterdam, June 23, 1978

The fall 1975 tour with the Revue also provided the backdrop to Dylan's nearly four-hour film Renaldo and Clara, a sprawling and improvised narrative, mixed with concert footage and reminiscences. Released in 1978, the movie received generally poor, sometimes scathing, reviews and had a very brief theatrical run.^[166][167] Later in that year, Dylan allowed a two-hour edit, dominated by the concert performances, to be more widely released.^[168]

In November 1976, Dylan appeared at The Band's "farewell" concert, along with other guests including Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison and Neil Young. Martin Scorsese's acclaimed cinematic chronicle of this show, The Last Waltz, was released in 1978 and included about half of Dylan's set.^[169] In 1976, Dylan also wrote and duetted on the song "Sign Language" for Eric Clapton's No Reason To Cry.^[170]

In 1978, Dylan embarked on a year-long world tour, performing 114 shows in Japan, the Far East, Europe and the US, to a total audience of two million people. For the tour, Dylan assembled an eight piece band, and was also accompanied by three backing singers. Concerts in Tokyo in February and March were recorded and released as the live double album, Bob Dylan At Budokan.^[171] Reviews were mixed. Robert Christgau awarded the album a C+ rating, giving the album a derisory review,^[172] while Janet Maslin defended it in Rolling Stone, writing: "These latest live versions of his old songs have the effect of liberating Bob Dylan from the originals."^[173] When Dylan brought the tour to the US in September 1978, he was dismayed the press described the look and sound of the show as a 'Las Vegas Tour'.^[174] The 1978 tour grossed more than $20 million, and Dylan acknowledged to the Los Angeles Times that he had some debts to pay off because "I had a couple of bad years. I put a lot of money into the movie, built a big house ... and it costs a lot to get divorced in California."^[171]

In April and May 1978, Dylan took the same large band and backing vocalists into Rundown Studios, a rehearsal space Dylan had rented in Santa Monica, California, to record an album of new material: Street-Legal.^[175] It was described by Michael Gray as, "after Blood On The Tracks, arguably Dylan's best record of the 1970s: a crucial album documenting a crucial period in Dylan's own life".^[176] However, it suffered from poor sound recording and mixing (attributed to Dylan's studio practices), muddying the instrumental detail until a remastered CD release in 1999 restored some of the songs' strengths.^[177]