name	Patrick Garrett
other names	Pat Garrett
birth date	June 05, 1850
birth place	Chambers County, Alabama
death date	February 29, 1908
death place	Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States
death cause	Shooting
signature	Pat Garrett Signature.svg }}

Patrick Floyd "Pat" Garrett (June 5, 1850 February 29, 1908) was an American Old West lawman, bartender, and customs agent who was best known for killing Billy the Kid. He was also the sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico.

Early life

Patrick Floyd Garrett was born in Cusseta, Alabama, and grew up on a prosperous Louisiana plantation near Haynesville in northern Claiborne Parish, just below the Arkansas state line. He left home in 1869 and found work as a cowboy in Dallas County, Texas. In 1875, he left to hunt buffalo. In 1878, Garrett shot and killed a fellow hunter who charged at Garrett with a hatchet following a disagreement over buffalo hides. As he lay dying, the hunter brought Garrett to tears upon asking him to forgive him.

Garrett moved to New Mexico and briefly found work as a cowpuncher before quitting to open his own saloon. A tall man, he was referred to by locals as "Juan Largo" or "Long John". In 1879, Garrett married Juanita Gutierrez, who died within a year. In 1880, he married Gutierrez's sister, Apolinaria. The couple had nine children.

Lincoln County War

On November 7, 1880, the sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico, George Kimbell, resigned with two months left in his term. As Kimbell's successor, the county appointed Garrett, a member of the Republican Party who ran as a Democrat and a gunman of some reputation who had promised to restore law and order. Garrett was charged with tracking down and arresting an alleged friend from his saloon keeping days, Henry McCarty, a jail escapee and Lincoln County War participant who often went by the aliases Henry Antrim and William Harrison Bonney, but is better known as "Billy the Kid".

McCarty was an alleged murderer who had participated in the Lincoln County War. He was said to have killed 21 men, one for every year of his life, but the actual total was probably closer to nine. New Mexico Governor Lew Wallace had personally put a US$500 reward on McCarty's capture.

On December 19, 1880, Garrett killed Tom O'Folliard, a member of McCarty's gang, in a shootout on the outskirts of Fort Sumner. On December 23, the sheriff's posse killed Charlie Bowdre, and captured the Kid and his companions at Stinking Springs (near present-day Taiban, New Mexico). Garrett transported the captives to Mesilla, New Mexico, for trial. Though he was convicted, the Kid managed to escape from the Lincoln County jail on April 28, 1881, after killing his guards, J. W. Bell and Bob Olinger.

On July 14, 1881, Garrett visited Fort Sumner to question a friend of the Kid's about the whereabouts of the outlaw. He learned the Kid was staying with a mutual friend, Pete Maxwell (son of land baron Lucien Maxwell). Around midnight, Garrett went to Maxwell's house. The Kid was asleep in another part of the house, but woke up hungry in the middle of the night and entered Maxwell's bedroom, where Garrett was standing in the shadows. The Kid did not recognize the man standing in dark. "''¿Quién es?'' (Who is it?), ''¿Quién es?''," the Kid asked repeatedly. Garrett replied by shooting at him twice, the first shot hitting him above the heart, although the second one missed and struck the mantle behind him. (Some historians have questioned Garrett's account of the shooting, alleging the incident happened differently. They claim Garrett went into Paulita Maxwell's room and tied her up. The Kid walked into her room, and Garrett ambushed him with a single blast from his Sharps rifle.)

There has been much dispute over the details of the Kid's death that night. The way Garrett allegedly killed McCarty without warning eventually sullied the lawman's reputation. Garrett claimed Billy the Kid had entered the room armed with a pistol, but no gun was found on his body. Other accounts claim he entered carrying a kitchen knife, but no hard evidence supported this. Garrett's reputation was also hurt by popular stories that he and Billy had once been friends, and that the shooting was a kind of betrayal, but historians have found no evidence of such a friendship.

Still, at the time, the shooting solidified Garrett's fame as a lawman and gunman, and led to numerous appointments to law enforcement positions, as well as requests that he pursue outlaws in other parts of New Mexico.

After the Lincoln County War

His law enforcement career never achieved any great success following the Lincoln County War, and he mostly used that era in his life as his stepping-stone to higher positions. After finishing out his term as sheriff, Garrett became a rancher and released a book in 1882 titled ''The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid''. His book, a first-hand account about his experiences with McCarty, which helped raise the Kid to the level of historical figure, was in large part ghostwritten by his friend Ash Upson. Garrett lost the next election for Lincoln County sheriff and was never paid the $500 reward for McCarty's capture, since he had killed him. In 1882, he ran for the position of Grant County, New Mexico sheriff, but was defeated by Sheriff Harvey Whitehill. In 1884, he lost an election for the New Mexico State Senate. Later that year, he left New Mexico and helped found and captain a company of Texas Rangers.

He returned to New Mexico briefly in 1885. In October 1889, Garrett ran for Chaves County, New Mexico, sheriff but lost. By this time, his rough disposition was beginning to wear thin with much of the populace, and rumors of his less than admirable killing of Billy the Kid were beginning to affect his popularity. Garrett left New Mexico in 1891 for Uvalde, Texas. He returned to New Mexico in 1896 to investigate the disappearance of Albert Jennings Fountain and Fountain's young son, Henry.

Disappearance of Albert Jennings Fountain

In January 1896, Colonel Fountain served as a special prosecutor against men charged with cattle raiding in Lincoln, New Mexico. With his work finished, Fountain left Lincoln with his eight-year-old son, Henry. The two did not complete their trip home; on the third day, they disappeared near White Sands.

Fountain's disappearance caused outrage throughout the territory. Further complicating matters, the main suspects in the disappearance were deputy sheriffs William McNew, James Gililland, and Oliver M. Lee. New Mexico's governor saw outside help was needed, and he called in Pat Garrett. One problem Garrett encountered was that Lee, McNew, and Gililland were very close with powerful former judge, lawyer, and politician Albert B. Fall.

Garrett, who was appointed Doña Ana County sheriff on August 10, 1896, and elected to the post on January 4, 1897, believed he would never get a fair hearing regarding his evidence while Fall was in control of the courts. Therefore, Garrett waited two full years before presenting his evidence before the court and securing indictments against the suspected men. McNew was quickly arrested, and Lee and Gililland went into hiding.

Garrett's posse caught up with Lee and Gililland on July 12, 1898. One of Garrett's deputies, Kurt Kearney, was killed in the gun battle that followed. Garrett and his posse then retreated, and Gililland and Lee escaped. They later surrendered, although not to Garrett. Both stood trial and were acquitted. The location of the Fountain bodies remains a mystery.

Final years

On December 20, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt, who became a personal friend of Garrett, appointed him customs collector in El Paso, Texas. Garrett served for five years. He was not reappointed, however, possibly because he had embarrassed Roosevelt by showing up at a San Antonio Rough Riders reunion with a notorious gambler friend, Tom Powers. Garrett had Powers pose in a group photograph with Roosevelt, resulting in bad publicity for the president.

Garrett had been warned about his close association with Powers by friends. Years earlier, Powers had been run out of his home state of Wisconsin for beating his father into a coma. Garrett did not listen, and when his reappointment was denied, he traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak personally with Roosevelt. He had the bad judgment of taking Powers with him. In that meeting, Roosevelt told Garrett plainly that there would be no reappointment.

Garrett retired to his ranch in New Mexico but was suffering financial difficulties. He owed a large amount in taxes and was found liable for an unpaid loan he had cosigned for a friend. Garrett borrowed heavily to make these payments and started drinking and gambling excessively. He crossed paths regularly with Oliver M. Lee and Lee's corrupt attorney, Albert Fall, always finding himself on the opposite end of their illegal land deals and intimidation of local ranchers and citizens.

Death

Garrett's main creditor, rancher W. W. Cox, who was brother-in-law to Oliver M. Lee, worked out a deal to repay the debt by using Garrett's Quarter horse ranch in the San Andres Mountains slopes as grazing land for one of his partners. There is no deal on record in the courthouse, and no deed from Garrett to Cox. Cox took over the ranch and razed the home. Garrett's son, Pat, Jr., kept the upper ranch with the water until his death. Garrett agreed to the deal, not realizing Jesse Wayne Brazel would be grazing goats rather than cattle on the land. Garrett objected to the goats, feeling their presence lowered the value of his land in the eyes of buyers or other renters. By this time, questions surrounding the manner in which he killed Billy the Kid and Garrett's general demeanor had led to his becoming quite unpopular. He no longer had any local political support, his support from President Roosevelt had been withdrawn, and he had few friends with power.

Garrett and Carl Adamson, who was in the process of talks with Garrett to purchase land, rode together, heading from Las Cruces, New Mexico in Adamson's wagon. Brazel showed up on horseback along the way. Garrett and Brazel began to argue about the goats grazing on Garrett's land. Garrett is alleged to have leaned forward to pick up a shotgun on the floorboard. Brazel shot him once in the head, and then once more in the stomach as Garrett fell from the wagon. Brazel and Adamson left the body by the side of the road and returned to Las Cruces, alerting Sheriff Felipe Lucero of the killing.

Controversy

There has occasionally been disagreement about the identity of Pat Garrett's killer. Today, most historians believe Jesse Wayne Brazel, who confessed to the shooting and was tried for first degree murder, did in fact commit the crime. Cox paid his bond and retained Fall as his defense attorney. Brazel claimed self defense, claiming Garrett was armed with a shotgun and was threatening him. Adamson backed up Brazel's story. The jury took less than a half-hour to return a not guilty verdict. Cox hosted a barbecue in celebration of the verdict.

Another alleged suspect in Garrett's death was the outlaw Jim Miller, a known killer for hire and cousin of Adamson. Miller was alleged to have been hired by enemies of Garrett, but this is believed to be only a rumor because Adamson was kin to him, and Miller is believed to have been in Oklahoma at the time. Oliver Lee was also alleged to have taken part in a conspiracy to kill Garrett, made up of businessmen and outlaws who disliked the former lawman. However, despite his previous clashes with Garrett, there is no evidence to support the claim.

To date, the common belief is the death happened as Brazel said it did. Garrett was known to have carried a double-barreled shotgun when he traveled, and he had a fiery temper. Garrett could have reacted violently during his argument with Brazel.

Funeral and burial site

Garrett's body was too tall for any finished coffins available, so a special one had to be shipped in from El Paso. His funeral service was held March 5, 1908, and he was laid to rest next to his daughter, Ida, who had preceded him in death eight years earlier. The site of Garrett's death is now commemorated by a historical marker, which can be visited south of U.S. Route 70, between Las Cruces and the San Augustin Pass. The highway marker is not at the actual spot where Garrett was shot. The location of the shooting was marked by Pat's son Jarvis Garrett in 1938-1940 with a monument of his construction. The monument consists of concrete laid around a stone with a cross carved in it. The cross is believed to be the work of Pat's mother. Scratched in the concrete is "P. Garrett" and the date of his killing.

The location of this marker has been a fairly closely kept secret, but is now being made public because the city of Las Cruces is annexing the land where the marker is located. An organization, Friends of Pat Garrett. has been formed to ensure that the city preserves the site and marker.

Garrett's grave and the many graves of his descendants can be found in Las Cruces at the Masonic Cemetery.

Portrayals in film

Garrett has been a recurring character in movies and television shows, and has been portrayed on screen by:

Wallace Beery in ''Billy the Kid'' (MGM, 1930)

Wade Boteler in ''Billy the Kid Returns'' (1938)

Thomas Mitchell in ''The Outlaw'' (United Artists, 1943)

Charles Bickford in ''Four Faces West'' (They passed this way) (United Artists, 1948)

Monte Hale in ''Outcasts of the Trail'' (Republic, 1949)

Robert Lowery in ''I Shot Billy the Kid'' (Lippert, 1950)

Frank Wilcox in ''The Kid from Texas'' (Universal-International, 1950)

Scott Douglas in the NBC-TV series, ''Omnibus'' (1952, 1 episode)

James Griffith in ''The Law vs. Billy the Kid'' (Columbia, 1954)

Richard Travis in the syndicated half-hour TV series, ''Stories of the Century'' (1954)

Keith Richards in the syndicated half-hour TV series, ''Buffalo Bill Jr.'' (1955, 1 episode)

James Craig in ''Last of the Desperados'' (Allied Artists, 1955)

John Dehner in ''The Left Handed Gun'' (Warner Bros., 1957)

Wayne Heffley in the half-hour ABC-TV series, ''Colt .45'' (1957, 1 episode)

Bob Duncan in ''The Parson and the Outlaw'' (Columbia, 1957)

George Montgomery in ''Badman's Country'' (Warner Bros., 1958)

Rhodes Reason in the half-hour ABC-TV series, ''Bronco'' (1958, 1 episode)

Walter Sande in the half-hour CBS series, ''Wanted: Dead or Alive'' (1958, episode 26, "The Eager Man")

Barry Sullivan (1960) in the half-hour NBC-TV series ''The Tall Man'', co-starring Clu Gulager as Billy the Kid

Rod Cameron in ''Le Pistole non discutono'' (1964)

Allen Case in the ABC-TV series, ''The Time Tunnel'' (1966, 1 episode)

Fausto Tozzi in ''El Hombre que mató a Billy el Niño'' (1967)

Glenn Corbett in ''Chisum'' (Warner Bros., 1970)

Rod Cameron in ''The Last Movie'' (Universal, 1971)

James Coburn in ''Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid'' (MGM, 1973)

Patrick Wayne in ''Young Guns'' (Fox, 1988)

Duncan Regehr in ''Gore Vidal's Billy the Kid'' (HBO Films, 1989)

William Petersen in ''Young Guns II'' (Fox, 1990)

Joe Zimmerman in the TV documentary series, ''Unsolved History'' (2002, 1 episode) and in the Discovery Channel's cable documentary ''Discovery Quest: Billy the Kid Unmasked'' (2004)

Michael Pare in ''Bloodrayne 2: Deliverance'' (2007)

Bruce Greenwood in ''I'm Not There'' (2007)

Michael A. Martinez in ''The Scarlet Worm'' (2010)

References

External links

Roswell web magazine

DesertUSA.com

A group campaigning to save the Pat Garrett murder site and the marker constructed there by Pat's son Jarvis Garrett in 1938-1940

Amazon Kindle link to ''The Story of the Outlaw: A Study of the Western Desperado''

Category:1850 births Category:1908 deaths Category:1908 crimes Category:New Mexico sheriffs Category:Lawmen of the American Old West Category:American ranchers Category:People from El Paso, Texas Category:People from Lincoln County, New Mexico Category:People from Chambers County, Alabama Category:People of the American Old West Category:Deaths by firearm in New Mexico Category:People from Claiborne Parish, Louisiana

ca:Pat Garrett cs:Pat Garrett da:Pat Garrett de:Pat Garrett es:Pat Garrett fr:Pat Garrett it:Pat Garrett nl:Pat Garrett ja:パット・ギャレット pl:Pat Garrett pt:Pat Garrett fi:Pat Garrett sv:Pat Garrett

name	Billy the Kid
birth name	William Henry McCarty, Jr.
alias	William H. Bonney, William McCarty, Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim, Kid Antrim
birth date	November 23, 1859
birth place	Many states claimed to be Billy the Kid's place of birth including New Mexico and New York City, New York, United States
death date	July 14, 1881
death place	Fort Sumner, New Mexico Territory, United States
death cause	gunshot
occupation	Cowboy, gambler, cattle rustler, outlaw
parents	Father: unknown—possibly Patrick Henry McCarty, Michael McCarty, or William Bonney Stepfather: William Antrim Mother: Catherine McCarty/Katherine McCarty Bonney Half-brother: Joseph Antrim }}

Billy the Kid, also known as William Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim and William H. Bonney (allegedly November 23, 1859 – c. July 14, 1881) was a 19th-century American frontier outlaw and gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War. According to legend, he killed 21 men, but he is generally accepted to have killed between four and nine.

McCarty (or Bonney, the name he used at the height of his notoriety) was to tall with blue eyes, a smooth complexion, and prominent front teeth. He was said to be friendly and personable at times, and many recalled that he was as "lithe as a cat". Contemporaries described him as a "neat" dresser who favored an "unadorned Mexican sombrero". These qualities, along with his cunning and celebrated skill with firearms, contributed to his paradoxical image, as both a notorious outlaw and beloved folk hero.

Relatively unknown during most of his lifetime, Bonney was catapulted into legend a few months before his death by New Mexico's governor, Lew Wallace, who placed a price on his head, and by stories printed in the ''Las Vegas Gazette'' (Las Vegas, New Mexico) and the ''New York Sun''. Many other newspapers followed suit and published stories about Billy the Kid's exploits. After his death, several biographies were written that portrayed the Kid in varying lights.

Early life

Little is known about McCarty's origins, but some scholars of western history "contend that he was born on the eve of the Civil War in an Irish neighborhood in New York City" (at 70 Allen Street). If indeed his birthplace was New York, no records that can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he ever lived there have ever been uncovered". While his biological father remains an obscure figure, some researchers have theorized that his name was Patrick McCarty, Michael McCarty, William McCarty, or Edward McCarty. There is clear evidence that his mother's name was Catherine McCarty, although "there have been continuing debates about whether McCarty was her maiden or married name". According to some accounts, McCarty was born as William Henry McCarty, Jr., but his mother preferred to call him "Henry" because she did not wish him to be known as "Junior". It is believed that McCarty's mother was a survivor of the Great Famine. By 1868, Catherine McCarty had moved with her two young sons, Henry and Joseph, to Indianapolis, Indiana. There, she met William Antrim, who was 12 years her junior. In 1873, after several years of moving around the country, the two were married at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and settled further south in Silver City. Antrim found sporadic work as a bartender and carpenter but soon became more interested in prospecting and gambling for fortune than in his wife and stepsons. Nevertheless, young McCarty often used the surname "Antrim" when referring to himself.

Faced with a husband who was frequently absent, McCarty's mother reportedly washed clothes, baked pies, and took in boarders in order to provide for her sons. Although she was fondly remembered by onetime boarders and neighbors as "a jolly Irish lady, full of life and mischief", she was already in the final stages of tuberculosis when the family reached Silver City. The following year, on September 16, 1874, Catherine McCarty died; she was buried in the Memory Lane Cemetery in Silver City. At age 14, McCarty was taken in by a neighboring family who operated a hotel where he worked to pay for his keep. The manager was impressed by the youth, contending that he was the only young man who ever worked for him that did not steal anything. One of McCarty's school teachers later recalled that the young orphan was "no more of a problem than any other boy, always quite willing to help with chores around the schoolhouse". Early biographers sought to explain McCarty's subsequent descent into lawlessness by focusing on his habit of reading dime novels that romanticized crime. A more likely explanation, however, was his slender physique, "which placed him in precarious situations with bigger and stronger boys".

Forced to seek new lodgings when his foster family began to experience "domestic problems," McCarty moved into a boarding house and pursued odd jobs. In April 1875, McCarty was arrested by Grant County Sheriff Harvey Whitehill, after McCarty stole some cheese. On September 24, 1875, McCarty was again arrested when he was found in possession of clothing and firearms that a fellow boarder had stolen from a Chinese laundry owner. Two days after McCarty was placed in jail, the teenager escaped by worming his way up the jailhouse chimney. From that point on, McCarty was more or less a fugitive. According to some accounts, he eventually found work as an itinerant ranch hand and shepherd in southeastern Arizona. In 1876, he settled in the vicinity of Fort Grant Army Post in Arizona, where he worked local ranches and tested his skills at local gaming houses. Sheriff Whitehill would later say that he liked the boy, and his acts of theft were more due to necessity than wantonness.

During this time, McCarty became acquainted with John R. Mackie, a Scottish-born ex-cavalry private with a criminal bent. The two men supposedly became involved in the risky, but profitable, enterprise of horse thievery; and McCarty, who targeted local soldiers, became known by the sobriquet of "Kid Antrim". Biographer Robert M. Utley writes that the nickname arose because of McCarty's "slight build and beardless countenance, his young years, and his appealing personality". In 1877, McCarty was involved in an altercation with the civilian blacksmith at Fort Grant, an Irish immigrant named Frank "Windy" Cahill, who took pleasure in bullying young McCarty. On August 17, Cahill reportedly attacked McCarty after a verbal exchange and threw him to the ground. Reliable accounts suggest McCarty retaliated by drawing his gun and shooting Cahill, who died the next day. The coroner's inquest concluded that McCarty's shooting of Cahill was "criminal and unjustifiable". Some of those who witnessed the incident later claimed that McCarty acted in self-defense. Years later, Louis Abraham, who had known McCarty in Silver City but was not a witness, denied that anyone was killed in this altercation.

In fear of Cahill's friends and associates, McCarty fled Arizona Territory and entered New Mexico Territory. He eventually arrived at the former army post of Apache Tejo, where he joined a band of cattle rustlers who targeted the sprawling herds of cattle magnate John Chisum. During this period, McCarty was spotted by a resident of Silver City, and the teenager's involvement with the notorious gang was mentioned in a local newspaper. It is unclear how long McCarty rode with the gang of rustlers known as the "Jesse Evans Gang", but reliable sources indicate that he soon turned up at Heiskell Jones's house in Pecos Valley, New Mexico. According to this account, Apaches stole McCarty's horse, forcing him to walk many miles to the nearest settlement, which happened to be Jones's home. When he arrived, the young man was supposedly near death, but Mrs. Jones nursed him back to health. The Jones family developed a strong attachment to McCarty and gave him one of their horses. At some point in 1877, McCarty began to refer to himself as "William H. Bonney".

Lincoln County War

In 1877, McCarty (now widely known as William Bonney) moved to Lincoln County, New Mexico, and was first hired by Doc Scurlock and Charlie Bowdre to work in their cheese factory. Through them he met Frank Coe, George Coe and Ab Saunders, three cousins who owned their own ranch near to the ranch of Richard Brewer. After a short stint working on the ranch of Henry Hooker, McCarty began working on the Coe-Saunders ranch.

Late in 1877, McCarty, along with Brewer, Bowdre, Scurlock, the Coes and the Saunders, was hired as a cattle guard by John Tunstall, an English cattle rancher, banker and merchant, and his partner, Alexander McSween, a prominent lawyer. A conflict known today as the Lincoln County War had erupted between the established town merchants, Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan, and competing business interests headed by Tunstall and McSween. Events turned bloody on February 18, 1878, when Tunstall was spotted while driving a herd of nine horses towards Lincoln and murdered by William Morton, Jesse Evans, Tom Hill, and Frank Baker — all members of the Murphy-Dolan faction, and members of a posse sent to attack McSween's holdings. After murdering Tunstall, the gunmen shot down his prized bay horse. "As a wry and macabre joke on Tunstall's great affection for horses, the dead bay's head was then pillowed on his hat", writes Frederick Nolan, Tunstall's biographer. Although members of the Murphy-Dolan faction sought to frame Tunstall's death as a "justifiable homicide", evidence at the scene suggested that Tunstall attempted to avoid a confrontation before he was shot down. Tunstall's murder enraged McCarty and the other ranch hands.

McSween, who abhorred violence, took steps to punish Tunstall's murderers through legal means; he obtained warrants for their arrests from the local justice of the peace John B. Wilson. Tunstall's men formed their own group called the Regulators. After being deputized by Brewer, Tunstall's foreman, who had been appointed a special constable and given the warrant to arrest Tunstall's killers, proceeded to the Murphy-Dolan store. The wanted men, Bill Morton and Frank Baker, attempted to flee, but they were captured on March 6. Upon returning to Lincoln, the Regulators reported that Morton and Baker had been shot on March 9 near Agua Negra during an alleged escape attempt. During their journey to Lincoln, the Regulators also killed one of their own members, a man named McCloskey, whom they suspected of being a traitor. On the very day that McCloskey, Morton, and Baker were slain, Governor Samuel Beach Axtell arrived in Lincoln County to investigate the ongoing violence. The governor, accompanied by James Dolan and associate John Riley, proved hostile to the faction now headed by McSween. Thus, the Regulators "went from lawmen to outlaws". Notably, Axtell refused to acknowledge the existence of the so-called "Santa Fe Ring", a group of corrupt politicians and business leaders led by U.S. Attorney Thomas Benton Catron. Catron cooperated closely with the Murphy-Dolan faction, which was perceived as part of the notorious "ring".

Unfazed, the Regulators planned to settle a score with Sheriff William J. Brady, who had arrested McCarty and fellow deputy Fred Waite in the aftermath of Tunstall's murder. At the time Brady arrested them, the two men were attempting to serve a warrant on Brady for his suspected role in looting Tunstall's store after the Englishman's death, as well as his posse members for the murder of Tunstall. On April 1, Regulators Jim French, Frank McNab, John Middleton, Fred Waite, Henry Brown and McCarty ambushed Sheriff Brady and his deputy, George W. Hindman, killing them both in Lincoln's main street. McCarty was shot in the thigh while attempting to retrieve a rifle that Brady had seized from him during an earlier arrest. With this move, the McSween faction disillusioned many former supporters, who came to view both sides as "equally nefarious and bloodthirsty".

The connection between McSween and the Regulators was ambiguous, however. McCarty was loyal to the memory of Tunstall, though not necessarily to McSween. There is some doubt as to whether McCarty and McSween were even acquainted at the time of Brady's death. According to a contemporary newspaper account, the Regulators disclaimed "all connection or sympathy with McSween and his affairs" and expressed their sole desire to track down Tunstall's murderers.

On April 4, in what became known as the Gunfight of Blazer's Mills, the Regulators sought the arrest of an old buffalo hunter known as Buckshot Roberts, whom they suspected of involvement in the Tunstall slaying. Roberts refused to be taken alive, even after he suffered a severe bullet wound to the chest. During the gun battle that ensued, Roberts shot and killed the Regulators' leader, Dick Brewer. Four other Regulators were wounded in the skirmish. The incident had the effect of further alienating the public, given that many local residents "admired the way Roberts put up a gutsy fight against overwhelming odds".

Killing of Frank McNab and after

After Brewer's death, Frank McNab was elected as captain of the Regulators. For a short period, the Regulators benefited from the appointment of Sheriff John Copeland, who proved sympathetic to the McSween faction. Copeland's authority, however, was undermined by the Murphy-Dolan faction, which promptly rounded up recruits from among Sheriff Brady's former deputies. On April 29, 1878, a posse including the Jesse Evans Gang and the Seven Rivers Warriors, under the direction of former Brady deputy George W. Peppin, engaged McNab, Ab Saunders and Frank Coe in a shootout at the Fritz Ranch. McNab was killed in a hail of gunfire, while Saunders was severely wounded and Coe was captured. Coe escaped custody a short time later, when his captors were occupied elsewhere.

What is known about the morning following McNab's death is that the Regulators "iron clad" took up defensive positions in the town of Lincoln, trading shots with Dolan's men as well as U.S. cavalrymen. The only casualty was Dutch Charley Kruling, a Dolan man wounded by a rifle slug fired by George Coe at a distance of 440 paces. By shooting at government troops, the Regulators earned their animosity and gained a whole new set of enemies. On May 15, the Regulators tracked down Seven Rivers Warriors gang member Manuel Segovia, the suspected murderer of Frank McNab, and killed him. Around the time of Segovia's death, the Regulator "iron clad" gained a new member, a young Texas "cowpoke" named Tom O'Folliard, who became McCarty's close friend and constant companion.

The Regulators' position worsened when the governor, in a quasi-legal move, removed Copeland and appointed George Peppin (an ally of the Murphy-Dolan faction) as sheriff. Under indictment for the Brady killing, McCarty and the other Regulators spent the next several months in hiding and were trapped, along with McSween, in McSween's home in Lincoln on July 15, by members of "The House" (as the Murphy-Dolan faction was known) and some of Brady's men. On July 19, a column of U.S. cavalry soldiers entered the fray. Ostensibly neutral, the column's actions worked to the clear advantage of the Dolan faction. After a five-day siege, McSween's house was set on fire by the sheriff's posse. McCarty and the other Regulators fled. McSween was shot down while fleeing the blaze, and his death essentially marked the end of the Lincoln County War.

Lew Wallace and amnesty

In the Autumn of 1878, a former Union Army general, Lew Wallace, became Governor of the New Mexico Territory. In an effort to restore peace to Lincoln County, Wallace proclaimed an amnesty for any man involved in the Lincoln County War who was not already under indictment. McCarty, who had fled to Texas after his escape from McSween's house, was under indictment, but sent Wallace a letter requesting immunity in return for testifying in front of the Grand Jury. In March 1879, Wallace and McCarty met in Lincoln County to discuss the possibility of a deal. McCarty greeted the governor with a revolver in one hand and a Winchester rifle in the other. After taking several days to consider Wallace's offer, McCarty agreed to testify in return for amnesty.

The arrangement called for McCarty to submit to a token arrest and a short stay in jail until the conclusion of his courtroom testimony. Although McCarty's testimony helped to indict John Dolan, the district attorney, one of the powerful "House" faction leaders, disregarded Wallace's order to set McCarty free after his testimony. After the trial, McCarty and O'Folliard slipped away on horses that were supplied by friends.

For the next year-and-a-half, McCarty survived by rustling, gambling, and taking defensive action. In January 1880, he reportedly killed a man named Joe Grant in a Fort Sumner saloon. Grant, who did not realize he was playing poker with McCarty, boasted that he would kill "Billy the Kid" if he ever encountered him. In those days people loaded their revolvers with only five rounds, with the hammer down on an empty chamber. This was done to prevent an accidental discharge should the hammer be struck. The Kid asked Grant if he could see his ivory handled revolver and, while looking at the weapon, rotated the cylinder so the hammer would fall on the empty chamber when the trigger was pulled. He then informed Grant of his identity. When Grant fired, nothing happened, and McCarty then shot him. When asked about the incident later, he remarked, "It was a game for two, and I got there first".

Other versions of this story exist. One biographer, Joel Jacobsen, recounts the story as described in Utley, describing Grant as a "drunk" who was "making himself obnoxious in a bar". As in other accounts of the incident, the Kid is described as rotating the cylinder "so an empty chamber was beneath the hammer". In Jacobsen's recounting of the incident, however, Grant attempted to shoot McCarty unawares. "As [McCarty] was leaving the saloon, his back turned to Grant, he heard a distinct click. He spun around before Grant could reach a loaded chamber. Always a good marksman, he shot Grant in the chin".

In November 1880, a posse pursued and trapped McCarty's gang inside a ranch house owned by one of the Kid's friends, James Greathouse, at Anton Chico in the White Oaks area. A posse member named James Carlyle ventured into the house under a white flag, in an effort to negotiate the group's surrender. Greathouse was sent out to act as a hostage for the posse. At some point in the evening, Carlyle evidently decided the outlaws were stalling. According to one version of events, Carlyle heard a shot that had been fired accidentally outside. Concluding that the posse members had shot down Greathouse, he chose escape, crashed through a window and was fired upon and killed. Recognizing their mistake, the posse members became demoralized and scattered, enabling McCarty and his gang to slip away. McCarty vehemently denied shooting Carlyle, and later wrote to Governor Wallace, claiming to be innocent of this crime and others attributed to him.

Pat Garrett

During this time, McCarty became acquainted with an ambitious local bartender and former buffalo hunter named Pat Garrett. While popular accounts often depict McCarty and Garrett as "bosom buddies", there is no concrete evidence that they were ever friends. Running on a pledge to rid the area of rustlers, Garrett was elected as sheriff of Lincoln County in November 1880, and in early December, he assembled a posse and set out to arrest McCarty, at that time known almost exclusively as "Billy the Kid", and he carried a $500 bounty on his head that had been authorized by governor Lew Wallace.

The posse led by Garrett fared well, and his men closed in quickly. On December 19, McCarty barely escaped a midnight ambush in Fort Sumner, which left one member of the gang, Tom O'Folliard, dead. On December 23, the Kid was tracked to an abandoned stone building located in a remote location known as Stinking Springs (near present-day Taiban, New Mexico). While McCarty and his gang were asleep inside, Garrett's posse surrounded the building and waited for sunrise. The next morning, a cattle rustler named Charlie Bowdre stepped outside to feed his horse. Mistaken for McCarty, he was shot down by the posse. Soon afterward, somebody from within the building reached for the horse's halter rope, but Garrett shot and killed the horse, whose body blocked the building's only exit. As the lawmen began to cook breakfast over an open fire, Garrett and McCarty engaged in a friendly exchange, with Garrett inviting McCarty outside to eat, and McCarty inviting Garrett to "go to hell". Realizing that they had no hope of escape, the besieged and hungry outlaws finally surrendered later that day and were allowed to join in the meal.

Escape from Lincoln

McCarty was transported from Fort Sumner to Las Vegas, where he gave an interview to a reporter from the ''Las Vegas Gazette''. Next, the prisoner was transferred to Santa Fe, where he sent four separate letters over the next three months to Governor Wallace seeking clemency. Wallace, however, refused to intervene, and the Kid's trial was held in April 1881 in Mesilla. On April 9, after two days of testimony, McCarty was found guilty of the murder of Sheriff Brady, the only conviction ever secured against any of the combatants in the Lincoln County War. On April 13, he was sentenced by Judge Warren Bristol to hang.

With his execution scheduled for May 13, McCarty was removed to Lincoln, where he was held under guard by two of Garrett's deputies, James Bell and Robert Ollinger, on the top floor of the town courthouse. On April 28, while Garrett was out of town, McCarty stunned the territory by killing both of his guards and escaping. The details of the escape are unclear. Some researchers believe that a sympathizer placed a pistol in a nearby privy that McCarty was permitted to use, under escort, each day. McCarty retrieved the gun, and turned it on Bell when the pair had reached the top of a flight of stairs in the courthouse. Another theory holds that McCarty slipped off his manacles at the top of the stairs, struck Bell over the head with them, grabbed Bell's own gun, and shot him with it.

Bell staggered into the street and collapsed, mortally wounded. McCarty scooped up Ollinger's 10-gauge double-barrel shotgun. Both barrels had been fully loaded with buckshot earlier by Ollinger himself. The Kid waited at the upstairs window for his second guard, who had been across the street with some other prisoners, to respond to the gunshot and come to Bell's aid. As Ollinger came running into view, McCarty leveled the shotgun at him, called out "Hello Bob!" and killed him. The Kid's escape was delayed for an hour while he worked free of his leg irons with a pickax and then the young outlaw mounted a horse and rode out of town, reportedly singing. The horse returned two days later.

Death

Sheriff Pat Garrett offered that he responded to rumors that McCarty was lurking in the vicinity of Fort Sumner almost three months after his escape. Garrett and two deputies set out on July 14, 1881, to question one of the town's residents, a friend of McCarty's named Pete Maxwell (son of land baron Lucien Maxwell). Close to midnight, as Garrett and Maxwell sat talking in Maxwell's darkened bedroom, McCarty unexpectedly entered the room.

There are at least two versions of what happened next. One version suggests that as the Kid entered, he failed to recognize Garrett in the poor light. McCarty drew his pistol and backed away, asking "''¿Quién es? ¿Quién es?''" (Spanish for "Who is it? Who is it?"). Recognizing McCarty's voice, Garrett drew his own pistol and fired twice, the first bullet striking McCarty in the chest just above his heart, McCarty fell to the floor and gasped for a minute and died. In a second version, McCarty entered carrying a knife, evidently headed to a kitchen area. He noticed someone in the darkness, and uttered the words, "''¿Quién es? ¿Quién es?''" at which point he was shot and killed in ambush style. Although the popularity of the first story persists, and portrays Garrett in a better light, some historians contend that the second version is probably the accurate one. A markedly different theory, in which Garrett and his posse set a trap for McCarty, has also been suggested. Most recently explored in the 2004 Discovery Channel documentary, ''Billy the Kid: Unmasked'', this theory contends that Garrett went to the bedroom of Pedro Maxwell's sister, Paulita, and bound and gagged her in her bed. When McCarty arrived, Garrett was waiting behind Paulita's bed and shot the Kid.

According to Garrett, McCarty was buried the next day in Fort Sumner's old military cemetery, between his fallen companions Tom O'Folliard and Charlie Bowdre. A single tombstone was later erected over the graves, giving the three outlaws' names (Billy's as "William H. Bonney") and with a one word epitaph of "Pals" also carved into it. The tombstone has been stolen and recovered three times since it was set in place in the 1940s, and the entire gravesite is now enclosed within a steel cage.

In his book, ''Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life'', Robert Utley told the story of Pat Garrett's book effort. In the weeks following Garrett's execution of the Kid, he felt the need to tell his side of the story. Many people had begun to talk about the unfairness of the encounter, so Garrett called upon his friend, Marshall Ashmun (Ash) Upson, to ghostwrite a book with him. Ash Upson was a roving journalist who had a gift for graphic prose. Their collaboration led to a book entitled ''The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid'', which was first published in April, 1882. The book originally sold few copies; however, it eventually proved to be an important reference for historians who would later write about the Kid's life.

Notoriety

Like many gunfighters of the "Old West", Billy the Kid enjoyed a reputation built partly on exaggerated accounts of his exploits. McCarty was credited with the killing of between 15 to 26 men, depending on varying sources. Some historians speculate that his image was created deliberately to distract the public's attention from the nefarious activities of the Dolan faction and their influential supporters in Santa Fe, notably regional political leader Thomas Benton Catron.

The undeserved notoriety that McCarty gained during the Lincoln County War effectively doomed his appeals for amnesty. A number of the Regulators faded away or secured amnesty, but McCarty was in no position to accomplish either. His negotiations with governor Lew Wallace (famed Civil War general and author of the novel ''Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ'') for amnesty came to nothing. His position was further undermined by a string of negative newspaper editorials that referred to him as "Billy the Kid". When a reporter reminded Wallace that the Kid was depending on Wallace's intervention, the governor supposedly smiled and said, "Yes, but I can't see how a fellow like him can expect any clemency from me."

Personality traits according to first-hand accounts

One widely reported characteristic of McCarty has stood the test of research: his personal charisma and popularity. Various accounts recorded by friends and acquaintances describe him as fun-loving and jolly, articulate in both his writing and his speech, and loyal to those for whom he cared. He was fluent in Spanish, popular with Latina girls, an accomplished dancer, and thus especially well loved within the territory's Hispanic community. "His many Hispanic friends did not view him as a ruthless killer but rather as a defender of the people who was forced to kill in self-defense," Wallis writes. "In the time that the Kid roamed the land he chided Hispanic villagers who were fearful of standing up to the big ranchers who stole their land, water, and way of life."

There are several surviving accounts that portray an image of a friendly, fun loving Billy The Kid, who was loyal to those he loved. Frank Coe, who rode as a Regulator, recalled years after the Kid's death: "I never enjoyed better company. He was humorous and told me many amusing stories. He always found a touch of humor in everything, being naturally full of fun and jollity. Though he was serious in emergencies, his humor was often apparent even in such situations. Billy stood with us to the end, brave and reliable, one of the best soldiers we had. He never pushed in his advice or opinions, but he had a wonderful presence of mind. The tighter the place the more he showed his cool nerve and quick brain. He never seemed to care for money, except to buy cartridges with. Cartridges were scarce, and he always used about ten times as many as everyone else. He would practice shooting at anything he saw, from every conceivable angle, on and off his horse."

George Coe, a cousin to Frank who also served as a Regulator, stated: "Billy was a brave, resourceful and honest boy. He would have been a successful man under other circumstances. The Kid was a thousand times better and braver than any man hunting him, including Pat Garrett."

Susan McSween, widow of Alexander McSween, came to his defense in the years of his notoriety, saying: "Billy was not a bad man, that is he was not a murderer who killed wantonly. Most of those he killed deserved what they got. Of course I cannot very well defend his stealing horses and cattle, but when you consider that the Murphy, Dolan, and Riley people forced him into such a lawless life through efforts to secure his arrest and conviction, it is hard to blame the poor boy for what he did."

Contemporaries of Bonney often claimed that tales of his crimes were exaggerated or denied their veracity altogether. Louis Abraham, who befriended the Kid in Silver City, denied the killing of the blacksmith attributed to Bonney there, saying: "The story of Billy the Kid killing a blacksmith in Silver City is false. Billy was never in any trouble at all. He was a good boy, maybe a little too mischievous at times. When the boy was placed in jail and escaped, he was not bad, just scared. If he had only waited until they let him out he would have been all right, but he was scared and ran away. He got in with a band of rustlers in Apache Tejo in part of the county where he was made a hardened character." These recollections seem to indicate Bonney was popular with the people around him rather than the feared outlaw of contemporary media. Deluvina Maxwell, who was present at the Maxwell farmhouse at the time of The Kid's death, stated, "Garrett was afraid to go back in the room to make sure of whom he had shot. I went in and was the first to discover that they had killed my little boy. I hated those men and am glad that I lived long enough to see them all dead and buried."

Ferrotype

One of the few artifacts remaining from Billy's life is a 2x3 inch ferrotype taken by an unknown photographer sometime in late 1879 or early 1880. It is the only picture of Billy that is universally agreed upon as an authentic photo of Billy. The ferrotype survived because after Billy's death, Dan Dedrick, one of Billy's rustler friends, held onto the picture and passed it down in his family. The ferrotype appeared in several copied forms before the original was made public in the mid 1980s by Stephen and Art Upham, descendants of Dedrick. It was on display for several years in the Lincoln County Heritage Trust Museum before it was withdrawn again. The ferrotype sold at auction on June 25, 2011, in a three day Western show where it was sold for 2.3 million dollars, some six times the estimate – making it the most expensive piece ever sold at Brian Lebel's Annual Old West Show & Auction, and the 4th most expensive photograph ever sold.

The photograph of The Kid, commonly known as the Upham tintype – after its longtime owner Frank Upham, a nephew of Dan Dedrick – was the subject of intense study by experts in the late 1980s. Their detailed findings were presented at a symposium held in 1989. Among the conclusions reached by these experts, the Colt revolver carried by McCarty in the photograph was probably not his primary weapon, since his holster is not the type normally associated with gunslingers; it is a rather common holster, with a safety strap across the top to keep the six-shooter from bouncing out while riding a horse. McCarty's main weapon appears to be the Winchester carbine held in his hand in the ferrotype.

The ferrotype was sold at auction on June 25, 2011 to Florida billionaire William Koch for $2.3 million. Koch will allow a few small museums to display the ferrotype before putting it into his private collection.

Left-handed or right-handed?

It was widely assumed throughout much of the 20th century that Billy the Kid was left-handed. This perception was encouraged by the above mentioned photograph of McCarty, in which he appears to be wearing a gun belt with a holster on his left side, but further examination revealed that as all Winchester Model 1873 rifles were made with the loading gate on the right side of the receiver, the "left-handed" photograph is in fact a mirror image. Indeed, the notion of a left-handed Billy became so entrenched that, in 1958, a film biography of "the Kid" (starring Paul Newman) was titled ''The Left Handed Gun''.

In 1954, western historians James D. Horan and Paul Sann announced the disclosure that McCarty was "right-handed and carried his pistol on his right hip". More recently, in response to a story from ''The Guardian'' that used an uncorrected McCarty ferrotype, Clyde Jeavons, a former curator of the National Film and Television Archive, cited their work and added:}}

A second look at the ferrotype confirms what Jeavons wrote. The prong on the belt buckle points the wrong way, and the buttons on the Kid's vest are on the left side, the side reserved for ladies' blouses. The convention for men's wear is that buttons go down the right side.

Wallis wrote in 2007 that McCarty was ambidextrous.

People who claimed to be Billy the Kid

Legends grew over time that Billy the Kid had somehow cheated death and survived, despite eyewitness accounts of his slaying. In 2004, researchers sought to exhume the remains of Catherine Antrim, McCarty's mother, "so her DNA could be tested and compared with DNA to be taken from the body buried under the Kid's gravestone". Ultimately, the case was bogged down in the courts, "much to the delight of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who knows all too well the value of Billy as a cultural icon and a draw for tourists". Several men have claimed to be McCarty over the years, and at least two became notable because they were successful in persuading a small segment of the public.

Brushy Bill Roberts

In 1949, a paralegal named William Morrison located a man in Central Texas named Ollie P. Roberts (nicknamed "Brushy Bill"), who claimed to be Billy the Kid and challenged the popular account of McCarty as shot to death by Pat Garrett in 1881. Despite discrepancies in birth dates and physical appearance, the town of Hico, Texas (Brushy Bill's residence), has capitalized on the Kid's infamy by opening the "Billy The Kid Museum". Brushy Bill's story was further promoted by the 1990 film ''Young Guns II''.

John Miller

Another individual who allegedly claimed to be Billy the Kid was John Miller, whose family supported his claim in 1938, some time after Miller's death. Miller was buried at the state-owned Pioneers' Home Cemetery in Prescott, Arizona. Tom Sullivan, a former sheriff of Lincoln County, and Steve Sederwall, a former mayor of Capitan, disinterred the bones of John Miller in May 2005. Though Sederwall and Sullivan believed the exhumation was allowed, official permission had not been given. DNA samples from the remains were sent to a lab in Dallas, Texas, to be compared with traces of blood obtained from a bench that was believed to be the one upon which McCarty's body was placed after he was shot to death. The two investigators had searched for McCarty's physical remains since 2003. They had started in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, and had eventually ended up in Arizona. To date, no results of the DNA tests have been made public. As of 2008, a lawsuit is pending against officials in Lincoln County that would, if successful, publicize the results of those tests along with other evidence collected by Sullivan and Sederwall.

Posthumous pardon considered

In 2010, the governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, considered a posthumous pardon for McCarty, who had been convicted for killing Sheriff William Brady. The pardon was considered to be a follow-through on a purported promise made by then Governor Lew Wallace in 1879. On December 31, 2010, on the last day of his term in office, Bill Richardson announced on ''Good Morning America'' his decision not to pardon McCarty. He cited "historical ambiguity" surrounding the conditions of Lew Wallace's pardon.

Selected references in popular culture

Billy the Kid has been the subject and inspiration for many popular works, including:

Literature

"Frontier Fighter" (1934), a first-hand account of the Lincoln County War from George W. Coe.

''Billy The Kid'' (1958), a serial poem by Jack Spicer.

''Billy the Kid'' was published in 1962 as an episode in the ongoing adventures of Lucky Luke by Goscinny and Morris.

''The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left-handed Poems'', by Michael Ondaatje, 1970 Governor General's Award-winning biography in the form of experimental poetry.

''The Illegal Rebirth of Billy the Kid'' is a science fiction novel by Rebecca Ore, published in 1991.

''Anything for Billy'' is a 1988 novel by Larry McMurtry.

''Lucky Billy: a novel about Billy the Kid'' is a 2008 novel by John Vernon, a professor at Binghamton University.

Film

''Billy the Kid'', 1930 widescreen film directed by King Vidor and starring Johnny Mack Brown as Billy and Wallace Beery as Pat Garrett

''Billy the Kid Returns'', 1938: Roy Rogers plays a dual role, Billy the Kid and his dead-ringer lookalike who shows up after the Kid has been shot by Pat Garrett.

''Billy the Kid'', 1941 remake of the 1930 film, starring Robert Taylor and Brian Donlevy

Buster Crabbe played Billy the Kid in a serial series during 1942 and 1943. The thirteen films included ''Blazing Frontier'', ''The Renegade'', ''Cattle Stampede'', and ''Western Cyclone'' (1943).

''The Outlaw'', Howard Hughes' 1943 motion picture starring Jack Buetel as Billy and featuring Jane Russell in her breakthrough role as the Kid's fictional love interest

''The Law vs. Billy the Kid'' (1954, Columbia Pictures Corporation) starring Scott Brady as the Kid, James Griffith as Pat Garrett, Betta St. John as Nita Maxwell, and Alan Hale, Jr. as Bob Ollinger

''The Left Handed Gun'', Arthur Penn's 1958 motion picture based on a Gore Vidal teleplay, starring Paul Newman as Billy and John Dehner as Garrett

''The Boy from Oklahoma'' (1954), with Tyler MacDuff in the role of Billy the Kid

''One-Eyed Jacks'' (1961), is the only film directed by Marlon Brando, who also played its lead character, Rio. This story is from an adaptation by Rod Serling of a Charles Neider novelization of Billy the Kid's life, with a later revision among others by Sam Peckinpah.

''Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid'', Sam Peckinpah's 1973 motion picture with Kris Kristofferson as Billy, James Coburn as Pat Garrett, and with a soundtrack by Bob Dylan, who also appears in the movie

''Young Guns'', Christopher Cain's 1988 motion picture starring Emilio Estevez as Billy and Patrick Wayne, son of John Wayne as Pat Garrett

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, (1989) Billy the Kid, played by Dan Shor, is the "Historical Figure" that Bill and Ted pick up in the Old West.

''Gore Vidal's Billy the Kid'', Gore Vidal's 1989 film starring Val Kilmer as Billy and Duncan Regehr as Pat Garrett

''Young Guns II'', Geoff Murphy's 1990 motion picture starring Emilio Estevez as Billy and William Petersen as Pat Garrett

''Purgatory'', Uli Edel's 1999 made-for-TV movie starring Donnie Wahlberg as Deputy Glen/Billy The Kid

''Requiem for Billy the Kid'', Anne Feinsilber's 2006 motion picture starring Kris Kristofferson.

''Birth of a Legend'', a 2011 film in two parts based on Frederick Nolan's book ''The Lincoln County War: A Documentary History'' directed by Andrew Wilkinson

Music

"Billy the Kid", a folk song in the public domain, was published in John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax's ''American Ballads and Folksongs'', and also their ''Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads''. "Billy the Kid" folksong sung by Woody Guthrie, recorded by Alan Lomax in 1940 for the Library of Congress (#3412 B₂), with a melody Guthrie later used for his song "So Long, it's Been Good to Know You". He also recorded it in 1944 for Moe Asch's Asch/Folkways label (MA67).

Aaron Copland's ''Billy the Kid'', a ballet that premiered in 1938.

Bob Dylan's album ''Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid'', soundtrack of the 1973 film by Sam Peckinpah.

Jon Bon Jovi's album ''Blaze of Glory'', used as part of the soundtrack for ''Young Guns II'', and featured the song "Billy Get Your Gun".

Marty Robbins' song "Billy the Kid" from the album ''Gunfighter Ballads & Trail Songs Volume 3''.

Ry Cooder recorded the folk song "Billy the Kid", on the album ''Into The Purple Valley'', with his own melody and instrumental. It was also on ''Ry Cooder Classics Volume II''.

Billy Joel's song "The Ballad of Billy the Kid", a historically inaccurate re-telling of Billy the Kid's life, off of his 1973 album ''Piano Man''

Country singer Billy Dean co-wrote and recorded a song called "Billy the Kid," which was subsequently a hit single on the country charts in 1992. It has since gone on to become Dean's signature song.

"Billy The Kid", was written by Robert W. Marr in 2010 when New Mexico Governor, Bill Richardson talked of pardoning the outlaw. "With a slap in the face to those who had died. To hell with the death and the tears that were cried".

"Me and Billy the Kid", by Joe Ely on his 1987 album ''Lord of the Highway''.

Stage

Joseph Santley's 1906 Broadway play, co-written by Santley, in which he also starred

Michael Ondaatje's 1973 play, ''The Collected Works of Billy the Kid''.

Television and radio

The 2004 Discovery Channel Quest, ''Billy the Kid: Unmasked'', investigated the life and death of Billy the Kid through forensic science.

The NBC series ''The Tall Man'' ran from 1960 to 1962, starring Clu Gulager as Billy and Barry Sullivan as Pat Garrett.

See also

Folklore of the United States

Cowboy

List of American Old West outlaws

List of Western lawmen

Notes

References

Burns, Walter Noble (1953/1992). ''The Saga of Billy the Kid''. New York: Konecky & Konecky Associates. ISBN 1568521782

Horan, James D.; Sann, Paul (1954). ''Pictorial History of the Wild West: A True Account of the Bad Men, Desperadoes, Rustlers, and Outlaws of the Old West—and the Men Who Fought Them to Establish Law and Order.'' (6th Ed.) New York: Crown Publishers.

Jacobsen, Joel (1997). ''Such Men as Billy the Kid: The Lincoln County War Reconsidered''. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803276060

Nolan, Frederick (1965). ''The Life & Death of John Henry Tunstall''. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Rasch, Philip J. (1995). ''Trailing Billy the Kid''. Stillwater, OK: Western Publications. ISBN 0935269193

Utley, Robert M. (1989). ''Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life''. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803295588

Wallis, Michael (2007). ''Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride''. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393060683

Further reading

Garrett, Pat F. (1882). ''The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid''. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 1409910350. Library of Congress CCN: 54-10053

Klasner, Lily. (1972). ''My Girlhood Among Outlaws''. University of Arizona Press. edited by Eve Ball. ISBN 0816503540

Nolan, Frederick (1998). ''"The West of Billy the Kid".'' Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0806130822

Nolan, Frederick (2009). ''The Lincoln County War, Revised Edition.''Santa Fe, NM: Sunstone Press. ISBN 978-0-86534-721-2

Nolan, Frederick (2007). ''Tascosa: Its Life and Gaudy Times''. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press.

Trachman, Paul (1974). ''The Old West: The Gunfighters''. New York: Time-Life Books.

Tuska, Jon (1983). ''Billy the Kid, A Handbook''. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803294069

Utley, Robert M. (1987). ''High Noon In Lincoln''. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 0-8263-1201-2

External links

Photographic Analysis of Billy The Kid's Famous Photo

Billy The Kid, a legend of New Mexico

Billy the Kid Outlaw Gang

Billy the Kid song lyrics by Larry W. Jones – Kingwood Kowboy

About Billy the Kid

Court TV's Crime Library: Billy the Kid

Billy the Kid National Scenic Byway

DesertUSA: "The Desert's Baddest Boy"

Billy the Kid Territory – guide by New Mexico Tourism Department

Peterson, Barbara Tucker and Louis Hart. "Billy the Kid: The Great Escape." ''Wild West magazine''. August 1998.

Nolan, Frederick. "The Hunting of Billy the Kid." ''Wild West magazine''. June 2003.

Turk, David S. "Billy the Kid and the U.S. Marshals Service." ''Wild West Magazine''. February 2007 (issued December 2006)

Category:1859 births Category:1881 deaths Category:American folklore Category:American people convicted of murder Category:American people convicted of murdering police officers Category:American people of Irish descent Category:Deaths by firearm in New Mexico Category:Gunmen of the American Old West Category:Outlaws of the American Old West Category:People from Manhattan Category:People of the American Old West

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Name	Bob Dylan
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Robert Allen Zimmerman
Alias	Elston Gunnn, Blind Boy Grunt, Bob Landy, Robert Milkwood Thomas, Tedham Porterhouse, Lucky/Boo Wilbury, Jack Frost, Sergei Petrov
Origin	Hibbing, Minnesota, U.S.
Birth date	May 24, 1941
Birth place	Duluth, Minnesota, U.S.
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano, keyboard, bass
Genre	Rock, folk rock, folk, blues, country, gospel, alternative country, country rock
Occupation	Musician, songwriter, producer, visual artist, poet, writer, director, screenwriter
Years active	1959–present
Label	Columbia, Asylum
Associated acts	Traveling Wilburys, The Band, Joan Baez, Grateful Dead, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Website	}}

Bob Dylan (), born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet and painter. He has been a major figure in music for five decades and has had immense influence on popular music. 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 his early songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music behind, Dylan proceeded to revolutionize perceptions of the limits of popular music in 1965 with the six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone".

His 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, Robert Johnson, Hank Williams, and the performance styles of Buddy Holly and Little Richard, 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.

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.

Since 1994, Dylan has published three books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. 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. In 2008, a road called the ''Bob Dylan Pathway'' was opened in the singer's honor in his birthplace of Duluth, Minnesota. 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."

Life and career

Origins and musical beginnings

Robert Allen Zimmerman (Hebrew name Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham) was born in St. Mary's Hospital on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota, 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. His maternal grandparents, Benjamin and Lybba Edelstein, were Lithuanian Jews who arrived in the United States in 1902. In his autobiography ''Chronicles: Volume One'', Dylan writes that his paternal grandmother's maiden name was Kyrgyz and her family originated from Kars, Turkey.

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. 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 popular songs. 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. In his 1959 school yearbook, Robert Zimmerman listed as his ambition "To follow Little Richard." The same year, using the name Elston Gunnn (sic), he performed two dates with Bobby Vee, playing piano and providing handclaps.

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:

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.

During his Dinkytown days, Zimmerman began introducing himself as "Bob Dylan". In his autobiography, Dylan acknowledged that he had been influenced by the poetry of Dylan Thomas. 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."

1960s

Relocation to New York and record deal

Dylan dropped out of college at the end of his freshman year. In January 1961, he travelled to New York City, hoping to perform there and visit his musical idol Woody Guthrie, who was seriously ill with Huntington's Disease in Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital. 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." 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).

From February 1961, Dylan played at various clubs around Greenwich Village. In September, he gained some public recognition when Robert Shelton wrote a positive review in ''The New York Times'' of a show at Gerde's Folk City. 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. 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. 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. While working for Columbia, Dylan also recorded several songs under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt, for ''Broadside Magazine'', a folk music magazine and record label. Dylan used the pseudonym Bob Landy to record as a piano player on the 1964 anthology album, ''The Blues Project'', issued by Elektra Records. Under the pseudonym Tedham Porterhouse, Dylan contributed harmonica to Ramblin' Jack Elliott's 1964 album ''Jack Elliott''.

Dylan made two important career moves in August 1962. He legally changed his name to Bob Dylan, and signed a management contract with Albert Grossman. 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. Dylan subsequently said of Grossman, "He was kind of like a Colonel Tom Parker figure ... you could smell him coming." 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.

From December 1962 to January 1963, Dylan made his first trip to the United Kingdom. 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. At the end of the play, Dylan performed "Blowin' in the Wind", one of the first major public performances of the song. The recording of ''The Madhouse on Castle Street'' was wiped by the BBC in 1968. While in London, Dylan performed at several London folk clubs, including Les Cousins, The Pinder of Wakefield, and Bunjies. He also learned new songs from several UK performers, including Martin Carthy.

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. "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. 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. 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. 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.

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, 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."

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." 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. 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.

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."

"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."

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.

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. Dylan's third album, ''The Times They Are a-Changin''', reflected a more politicized and cynical Dylan. 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. 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".

By the end of 1963, Dylan felt both manipulated and constrained by the folk and protest movements. 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.

''Another Side of Bob Dylan'', recorded on a single June evening in 1964, 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. 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," 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.

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." 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."

Going electric

Dylan's April 1965 album ''Bringing It All Back Home'' was yet another stylistic leap, featuring his first recordings made with electric instruments. The first single, "Subterranean Homesick Blues", owed much to Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business"; 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. 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''. 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.

The B side of ''Bringing It All Back Home'' consisted of four long songs on which Dylan accompanied himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica. "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. "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.

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). 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." 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.

Nevertheless, Dylan's 1965 Newport performance provoked a hostile response from the folk music establishment. 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." 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, 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.

''Highway 61 Revisited'' and ''Blonde on Blonde''

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". 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". 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. 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."

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 bar-band stalwarts 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). 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.

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. The Nashville sessions produced the double-album ''Blonde on Blonde'' (1966), featuring what Dylan later called "that thin wild mercury sound". 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.

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

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. 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. 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!" 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". D. A. Pennebaker, the film maker accompanying the tour, described Dylan as "taking a lot of amphetamine and who-knows-what-else." 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?" 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." 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."

Motorcycle accident and reclusion

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. 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. Mystery still surrounds the circumstances of the accident since no ambulance was called to the scene and Dylan was not hospitalized. 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. 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." In the wake of his accident, Dylan withdrew from the public and, apart from a few select appearances, did not tour again for eight years.

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. In 1967 he began recording music with the Hawks at his home and in the basement of the Hawks' nearby house, called "Big Pink". 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. 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, thus beginning a long and successful recording and performing career of their own.

In October and November 1967, Dylan returned to Nashville. Back in the recording studio after a 19-month break, he was accompanied only by Charlie McCoy on bass, Kenny Buttrey on drums, and Pete Drake on steel guitar. 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. 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. 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.

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." Dylan and Cash also recorded a series of duets, including Dylan's "One Too Many Mornings," but they were not 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.

1970s

In the early 1970s, critics charged that Dylan's output was of varied and unpredictable quality. ''Rolling Stone'' magazine writer and Dylan loyalist Greil Marcus notoriously asked "What is this shit?" upon first listening to 1970's ''Self Portrait''. In general, ''Self Portrait'', a double LP including few original songs, was poorly received. Later that year, Dylan released ''New Morning'', which some considered a return to form. In November 1968, Dylan had co-written "I'd Have You Anytime" with George Harrison; 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.

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". On November 4, 1971 Dylan recorded "George Jackson," which he released a week later. 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. Dylan contributed piano and hamony vocals to Steve Goodman's album, ''Somebody Else's Troubles'', under the pseudonym Robert Milkwood Thomas in September 1972.

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. 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.

Return to touring

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. As one critic described it, the song projected "something hymnal and heartfelt that spoke of the father in Dylan", and Dylan himself commented: "I wrote it thinking about one of my boys and not wanting to be too sentimental." Biographer Howard Sounes noted that Jakob Dylan believed the song was about him.

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. 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". 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''. Dylan returned to Columbia Records, which subsequently reissued his two Asylum albums on their imprint.

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. 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.

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." In ''Rolling Stone'', reviewer Jon Landau wrote that "the record has been made with typical shoddiness." 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-60s 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-'60s output and the self-consciously simple compositions of his post-accident years." Novelist Rick Moody called it "the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape."

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. 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, 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. 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.

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. 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''.

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. Later in that year, Dylan allowed a two-hour edit, dominated by the concert performances, to be more widely released.

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. In 1976, Dylan also wrote and duetted on the song "Sign Language" for Eric Clapton's ''No Reason To Cry''.

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''. Reviews were mixed. Robert Christgau awarded the album a C+ rating, giving the album a derisory review, 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." 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'. 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."

In April and May 1978, Dylan went into the studio in Santa Monica, California, to record an album of new material with the same large band and backing vocalists: ''Street-Legal''. 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". 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.

Born-again period

In the late 1970s, Dylan became a born-again Christian and released two albums of Christian gospel music. ''Slow Train Coming'' (1979) featured the guitar accompaniment of Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits) and was produced by veteran R&B; producer, Jerry Wexler. Wexler recalled that when Dylan had tried to evangelize him during the recording, he replied: "Bob, you're dealing with a sixty-two-year old Jewish atheist. Let's just make an album." The album won Dylan a Grammy Award as "Best Male Vocalist" for the song "Gotta Serve Somebody". The second evangelical album, ''Saved'' (1980), received mixed reviews, and was described by Dylan critic Michael Gray as "the nearest thing to a follow-up album Dylan has ever made, ''Slow Train Coming II'' and inferior." When touring from the fall of 1979 through the spring of 1980, Dylan would not play any of his older, secular works, and he delivered declarations of his faith from the stage, such as:

Dylan's embrace of Christianity was unpopular with some of his fans and fellow musicians. Shortly before his murder, John Lennon recorded "Serve Yourself" in response to Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody". By 1981, while Dylan's Christian faith was obvious, Stephen Holden wrote in the ''New York Times'' that "neither age (he's now 40) nor his much-publicized conversion to born-again Christianity has altered his essentially iconoclastic temperament."

1980s

In the fall of 1980 Dylan briefly resumed touring for a series of concerts billed as "A Musical Retrospective", where he restored several of his popular 1960s songs to the repertoire. ''Shot of Love'', recorded the next spring, featured Dylan's first secular compositions in more than two years, mixed with explicitly Christian songs; the song "Every Grain of Sand" reminded some critics of William Blake's verses.

In the 1980s the quality of Dylan's recorded work varied, from the well-regarded ''Infidels'' in 1983 to the panned ''Down in the Groove'' in 1988. Critics such as Michael Gray condemned Dylan's 1980s albums both for showing an extraordinary carelessness in the studio and for failing to release his best songs. The ''Infidels'' recording sessions, for example, produced several notable songs that Dylan left off the album. Most well regarded of these were "Blind Willie McTell", a tribute to the dead blues musician and an evocation of African American history, "Foot of Pride" and "Lord Protect My Child". These three songs were later released on ''The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991''.

Between July 1984 and March 1985, Dylan recorded his next studio album, ''Empire Burlesque''. Arthur Baker, who had remixed hits for Bruce Springsteen and Cyndi Lauper, was asked to engineer and mix the album. Baker has said he felt he was hired to make Dylan's album sound "a little bit more contemporary".

Dylan sang on USA for Africa's famine relief fundraising single "We Are the World". On July 13, 1985, he appeared at the climax at the Live Aid concert at JFK Stadium, Philadelphia. Backed by Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, Dylan performed a ragged version of "Hollis Brown", his ballad of rural poverty, and then said to the worldwide audience exceeding one billion people: "I hope that some of the money ... maybe they can just take a little bit of it, maybe ... one or two million, maybe ... and use it to pay the mortgages on some of the farms and, the farmers here, owe to the banks." His remarks were widely criticized as inappropriate, but they did inspire Willie Nelson to organize a series of events, Farm Aid, to benefit debt-ridden American farmers.

In April 1986, Dylan made a brief foray into the world of rap music when he added vocals to the opening verse of "Street Rock", a song featured on Kurtis Blow's album ''Kingdom Blow''. Dylan's next studio album, ''Knocked Out Loaded'', was released in July 1986 and contained three cover songs (by Little Junior Parker, Kris Kristofferson and the traditional gospel hymn "Precious Memories"), plus three collaborations with other writers (Tom Petty, Sam Shepard and Carole Bayer Sager), and two solo compositions by Dylan. One reviewer commented that "the record follows too many detours to be consistently compelling, and some of those detours wind down roads that are indisputably dead ends. By 1986, such uneven records weren't entirely unexpected by Dylan, but that didn't make them any less frustrating." It was the first Dylan album since ''Freewheelin''' (1963) to fail to make the Top 50. Since then, some critics have called the 11-minute epic that Dylan co-wrote with Sam Shepard, 'Brownsville Girl', a work of genius.

In 1986 and 1987, Dylan toured extensively with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, sharing vocals with Petty on several songs each night. Dylan also toured with The Grateful Dead in 1987, resulting in a live album ''Dylan & The Dead''. This album received some very negative reviews: ''Allmusic'' said, "Quite possibly the worst album by either Bob Dylan or the Grateful Dead." After performing with these musical permutations, Dylan initiated what came to be called The Never Ending Tour on June 7, 1988, performing with a tight back-up band featuring guitarist G. E. Smith. Dylan continued to tour with this small but constantly evolving band for the next 20 years.

In 1987, Dylan starred in Richard Marquand's movie ''Hearts of Fire'', in which he played Billy Parker, a washed-up-rock-star-turned-chicken farmer whose teenage lover (Fiona) leaves him for a jaded English synth-pop sensation (played by Rupert Everett). Dylan also contributed two original songs to the soundtrack—"Night After Night", and "I Had a Dream About You, Baby", as well as a cover of John Hiatt's "The Usual". The film was a critical and commercial flop. Dylan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January 1988, with Bruce Springsteen's introductory speech declaring, "Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. He showed us that just because music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual.

When Dylan released the album ''Down in the Groove'' in May 1988, it was even more unsuccessful in its sales than his previous studio album. Michael Gray wrote: "The very title undercuts any idea that inspired work may lie within. Here was a further devaluing of the notion of a new Bob Dylan album as something significant." The critical and commercial disappointment of that album was swiftly followed by the success of the Traveling Wilburys. Dylan co-founded the band with George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty, and in the fall of 1988 their multi-platinum ''Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1'' reached number three on the US album chart, featuring songs that were described as Dylan's most accessible compositions in years. Despite Orbison's death in December 1988, the remaining four recorded a second album in May 1990, which they released with the unexpected title ''Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3''.

Dylan finished the decade on a critical high note with ''Oh Mercy'' produced by Daniel Lanois. Dylan critic Michael Gray wrote that the album was: "Attentively written, vocally distinctive, musically warm, and uncompromisingly professional, this cohesive whole is the nearest thing to a great Bob Dylan album in the 1980s." The track "Most of the Time", a lost love composition, was later prominently featured in the film ''High Fidelity'', while "What Was It You Wanted?" has been interpreted both as a catechism and a wry comment on the expectations of critics and fans. The religious imagery of "Ring Them Bells" struck some critics as a re-affirmation of faith.

1990s

Dylan's 1990s began with ''Under the Red Sky'' (1990), an about-face from the serious ''Oh Mercy''. The album contained several apparently simple songs, including "Under the Red Sky" and "Wiggle Wiggle". The album was dedicated to "Gabby Goo Goo"; this was later explained as a nickname for the daughter of Dylan and Carolyn Dennis, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan, who was four at that time. Sidemen on the album included George Harrison, Slash from Guns N' Roses, David Crosby, Bruce Hornsby, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Elton John. Despite the stellar line-up, the record received bad reviews and sold poorly.

In 1991, Dylan was honored by the recording industry with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from American actor Jack Nicholson. The event coincided with the start of the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein, and Dylan performed his song "Masters of War". Dylan then made a short speech that startled some of the audience.

The next few years saw Dylan returning to his roots with two albums covering old folk and blues numbers: ''Good as I Been to You'' (1992) and ''World Gone Wrong'' (1993), featuring interpretations and acoustic guitar work. Many critics and fans commented on the quiet beauty of the song "Lone Pilgrim", penned by a 19th century teacher and sung by Dylan with a haunting reverence. In November 1994 Dylan recorded two live shows for ''MTV Unplugged''. He claimed his wish to perform a set of traditional songs for the show was overruled by Sony executives who insisted on a greatest hits package. The album produced from it, ''MTV Unplugged'', included "John Brown", an unreleased 1963 song detailing the ravages of both war and jingoism.

With a collection of songs reportedly written while snowed-in on his Minnesota ranch, Dylan booked recording time with Daniel Lanois at Miami's Criteria Studios in January 1997. The subsequent recording sessions were, by some accounts, fraught with musical tension. Late that spring, before the album's release, Dylan was hospitalized with a life-threatening heart infection, pericarditis, brought on by histoplasmosis. His scheduled European tour was cancelled, but Dylan made a speedy recovery and left the hospital saying, "I really thought I'd be seeing Elvis soon." He was back on the road by midsummer, and in early fall performed before Pope John Paul II at the World Eucharistic Conference in Bologna, Italy. The Pope treated the audience of 200,000 people to a homily based on Dylan's lyric "Blowin' in the Wind".

September saw the release of the new Lanois-produced album, ''Time Out of Mind''. With its bitter assessment of love and morbid ruminations, Dylan's first collection of original songs in seven years was highly acclaimed. One critic wrote: "the songs themselves are uniformly powerful, adding up to Dylan's best overall collection in years." This collection of complex songs won him his first solo "Album of the Year" Grammy Award.

In December 1997, U.S. President Bill Clinton presented Dylan with a Kennedy Center Honor in the East Room of the White House, paying this tribute: "He probably had more impact on people of my generation than any other creative artist. His voice and lyrics haven't always been easy on the ear, but throughout his career Bob Dylan has never aimed to please. He's disturbed the peace and discomforted the powerful."

2000s

Dylan commenced the new millennium by winning his first Oscar; his song "Things Have Changed", penned for the film ''Wonder Boys'', won an Academy Award in March 2001. The Oscar (by some reports a facsimile) tours with him, presiding over shows perched atop an amplifier.

''"Love and Theft"'' was released on September 11, 2001. Recorded with his touring band, Dylan produced the album himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost. The album was critically well-received and earned nominations for several Grammy awards. Critics noted that Dylan was widening his musical palette to include rockabilly, Western swing, jazz, and even lounge ballads.

In 2003, Dylan revisited the evangelical songs from his "born again" period and participated in the CD project ''Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan''. That year also saw the release of the film ''Masked & Anonymous'', which Dylan co-wrote with director Larry Charles under the alias Sergei Petrov. Dylan played the central character in the film, Jack Fate, alongside a cast which included Jeff Bridges, Penelope Cruz and John Goodman. The film polarised critics: many dismissed it as an "incoherent mess"; a few treated it as a serious work of art.

In October 2004, Dylan published the first part of his autobiography, ''Chronicles: Volume One''. The book confounded expectations. Dylan devoted three chapters to his first year in New York City in 1961–1962, virtually ignoring the mid-'60s when his fame was at its height. He also devoted chapters to the albums ''New Morning'' (1970) and ''Oh Mercy'' (1989). The book reached number two on ''The New York Times''' Hardcover Non-Fiction best seller list in December 2004 and was nominated for a National Book Award.

Martin Scorsese's acclaimed film biography ''No Direction Home'' was broadcast in September 2005. It was shown on September 26–27, 2005, on BBC Two in the UK and PBS in the US. The documentary focuses on the period from Dylan's arrival in New York in 1961 to his motorcycle crash in 1966, featuring interviews with Suze Rotolo, Liam Clancy, Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, Pete Seeger, Mavis Staples, and Dylan himself. The film received a Peabody Award in April 2006 and a Columbia-duPont Award in January 2007. The accompanying soundtrack featured unreleased songs from Dylan's early career.

Dylan earned yet another distinction in a 2007 study of US legal opinions and briefs that found his lyrics were quoted by judges and lawyers more than those of any other songwriter, 186 times versus 74 by The Beatles, who were second. Among those quoting Dylan were US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia, both conservatives. The most widely cited lines included "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" from "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and "when you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose" from "Like a Rolling Stone".

''Modern Times'' (2006–08)

May 3, 2006, was the premiere of Dylan's DJ career, hosting a weekly radio program, ''Theme Time Radio Hour'', for XM Satellite Radio, with song selections revolving around a chosen theme. Dylan played classic and obscure records from the 1930s to the present day, including contemporary artists as diverse as Blur, Prince, L.L. Cool J and The Streets. The show was praised by fans and critics as "great radio," as Dylan told stories and made eclectic references with his sardonic humor, while achieving a thematic beauty with his musical choices. In April 2009, Dylan broadcast the 100th show in his radio series; the theme was "Goodbye" and the final record played was Woody Guthrie's "So Long, It's Been Good To Know Yuh". This has led to speculation that Dylan's radio series may have ended.

On August 29, 2006, Dylan released his ''Modern Times'' album. Despite some coarsening of Dylan's voice (a critic for ''The Guardian'' characterised his singing on the album as "a catarrhal death rattle") most reviewers praised the album, and many described it as the final installment of a successful trilogy, embracing ''Time Out of Mind'' and ''"Love and Theft"''. ''Modern Times'' entered the U.S. charts at number one, making it Dylan's first album to reach that position since 1976's ''Desire''.

Nominated for three Grammy Awards, ''Modern Times'' won Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album and Bob Dylan also won Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance for "Someday Baby". ''Modern Times'' was named Album of the Year, 2006, by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine, and by ''Uncut'' in the UK. On the same day that ''Modern Times'' was released the iTunes Music Store released ''Bob Dylan: The Collection'', a digital box set containing all of his albums (773 tracks in total), along with 42 rare and unreleased tracks.

In August 2007, the award-winning film biography of Dylan ''I'm Not There'', written and directed by Todd Haynes, was released—bearing the tagline "inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan". The movie uses six distinct characters to represent different aspects of Dylan's life, played by Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Ben Whishaw. Dylan's previously unreleased 1967 recording from which the film takes its name was released for the first time on the film's original soundtrack; all other tracks are covers of Dylan songs, specially recorded for the movie by a diverse range of artists, including Eddie Vedder, Mason Jennings, Stephen Malkmus, Jeff Tweedy, Karen O, Willie Nelson, Cat Power, Richie Havens, and Tom Verlaine.

On October 1, 2007, Columbia Records released the triple CD retrospective album ''Dylan'', anthologising his entire career under the ''Dylan 07'' logo. As part of this campaign, Mark Ronson produced a re-mix of Dylan's 1966 tune "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)," which was released as a maxi-single. This was the first time Dylan had sanctioned a re-mix of one of his classic recordings.

The sophistication of the ''Dylan 07'' marketing campaign was a reminder that Dylan's commercial profile had risen considerably since the 1990s. This first became evidenced in 2004, when Dylan appeared in a TV advertisement for Victoria's Secret lingerie. Three years later, in October 2007, he participated in a multi-media campaign for the 2008 Cadillac Escalade. Then, in 2009, he gave the highest profile endorsement of his career, appearing with rapper Will.i.am in a Pepsi ad that debuted during the telecast of Super Bowl XLIII. The ad, broadcast to a record audience of 98 million viewers, opened with Dylan singing the first verse of "Forever Young" followed by Will.i.am doing a hip hop version of the song's third and final verse.

In October 2008, Columbia released Volume 8 of Dylan's ''Bootleg Series'', ''Tell Tale Signs: Rare And Unreleased 1989–2006'' as both a two-CD set and a three-CD version with a 150-page hardcover book. The set contains live performances and outtakes from selected studio albums from ''Oh Mercy'' to ''Modern Times'', as well as soundtrack contributions and collaborations with David Bromberg and Ralph Stanley. The pricing of the album—the two-CD set went on sale for $18.99 and the three-CD version for $129.99—led to complaints about "rip-off packaging" from some fans and commentators. The release was widely acclaimed by critics. The plethora of alternative takes and unreleased material suggested to ''Uncut'''s reviewer: "''Tell Tale Signs'' is awash with evidence of (Dylan's) staggering mercuriality, his evident determination even in the studio to repeat himself as little as possible."

''Together Through Life'', ''Christmas in the Heart'' (2009)

Bob Dylan released his album ''Together Through Life'' on April 28, 2009. In a conversation with music journalist Bill Flanagan, published on Dylan's website, Dylan explained that the genesis of the record was when French film director Olivier Dahan asked him to supply a song for his new road movie, ''My Own Love Song''; initially only intending to record a single track, "Life Is Hard," "the record sort of took its own direction". Nine of the ten songs on the album are credited as co-written by Bob Dylan and Robert Hunter.

The album received largely favorable reviews, although several critics described it as a minor addition to Dylan's canon of work. Andy Gill wrote in ''The Independent'' that the record "features Dylan in fairly relaxed, spontaneous mood, content to grab such grooves and sentiments as flit momentarily across his radar. So while it may not contain too many landmark tracks, it's one of the most naturally enjoyable albums you'll hear all year."

In its first week of release, the album reached number one in the Billboard 200 chart in the U.S., making Bob Dylan (67 years of age) the oldest artist to ever debut at number one on that chart.

On October 13, 2009, Dylan released a Christmas album, ''Christmas in the Heart'', comprising such Christmas standards as "Little Drummer Boy", "Winter Wonderland" and "Here Comes Santa Claus". Dylan's royalties from the sale of this album will benefit the charities Feeding America in the USA, Crisis in the UK, and the World Food Programme.

The album received generally favorable reviews. ''The New Yorker'' commented that Dylan had welded a pre-rock musical sound to "some of his croakiest vocals in a while", and speculated that Dylan's intentions might be ironic: "Dylan has a long and highly publicized history with Christianity; to claim there's not a wink in the childish optimism of 'Here Comes Santa Claus' or 'Winter Wonderland' is to ignore a half-century of biting satire." In ''USA Today'', Edna Gundersen pointed out that Dylan was "revisiting yuletide styles popularized by Nat King Cole, Mel Tormé, and the Ray Conniff Singers." Gundersen concluded that Dylan "couldn't sound more sentimental or sincere".

In an interview published by Street News Service, journalist Bill Flanagan asked Dylan why he had performed the songs in a straightforward style, and Dylan responded: "There wasn't any other way to play it. These songs are part of my life, just like folk songs. You have to play them straight too."

2010s

On October 18, 2010, Dylan released Volume 9 of his Bootleg Series, ''The Witmark Demos''. This comprised 47 demo recordings of songs taped between 1962 and 1964 for Dylan's earliest music publishers: Leeds Music in 1962, and Witmark Music from 1962 to 1964. One reviewer described the set as "a kind of alternate early history of Dylan's songwriting process, 'writing five new songs before breakfast,' as he once famously quipped". The critical aggregator website Metacritic awarded the album a Metascore of 86, indicating "universal acclaim". In the same week, Sony Legacy released ''Bob Dylan: The Original Mono Recordings'', a box set which for the first time presented Dylan's eight earliest albums, from ''Bob Dylan'' (1962) to ''John Wesley Harding'' (1967), in their original mono mix in the CD format, accompanied by new liner notes by Dylan critic Greil Marcus.

On April 12, 2011, Legacy Recordings released ''Bob Dylan in Concert – Brandeis University 1963'' . The recording was taped at Brandeis University on May 10, 1963, two weeks prior to the release of ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan''. The tape had been discovered in the archive of music writer Ralph J. Gleason, and had previously been available as a limited edition supplement to ''The Bootleg Series Vol. 9''. The recording carries liner notes by Dylan scholar Michael Gray. Gray writes, "(The) Dylan performance it captured, from way back when Kennedy was President and the Beatles hadn't yet reached America, wasn't even on fans' radar.... It reveals him not at any Big Moment but giving a performance like his folk club sets of the period... This is the last live performance we have of Bob Dylan before he becomes a star."

The extent to which his work was studied at an academic level was demonstrated on Dylan's 70th birthday on May 24, 2011, when three universities organised symposia on his work. The University of Mainz, the University of Vienna, and the University of Bristol invited literary critics and cultural historians from Europe and the US to give papers on aspects of Dylan's work. Other events, including tribute bands, intellectual debates and simple singalongs, took place around the world, as reported in ''The Guardian'': "From Moscow to Madrid, Norway to Northampton and Malaysia to his home state of Minnesota, self-confessed "Bobcats" will gather today to celebrate the 70th birthday of a giant of popular music."

In August 2011, Dylan's label, Egyptian Records, announced that an album of previously unheard Hank Williams songs, ''The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams'', would be released in October. Dylan had helped to curate this project, in which songs unfinished when Williams died in 1953 were completed and recorded by a variety of artists, including Dylan himself, his son Jakob Dylan, Levon Helm, Norah Jones, Jack White, and others.

Never Ending Tour

The Never Ending Tour commenced on June 7, 1988, and Dylan has played roughly 100 dates a year for the entirety of the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century—a heavier schedule than most performers who started out in the 1960s. By the end of 2010, Dylan and his band had played more than 2300 shows, anchored by long-time bassist Tony Garnier, multi-instrumentalist Donnie Herron and guitarist Charlie Sexton. To the dismay of some of his audience, Dylan's performances remain unpredictable as he alters his arrangements and changes his vocal approach night after night. Critical opinion about Dylan's shows remains divided. Critics such as Richard Williams and Andy Gill have argued that Dylan has found a successful way to present his rich legacy of material. Others have criticised his vocal style as a "one-dimensional growl with which he chews up, mangles and spits out the greatest lyrics ever written so that they are effectively unrecognisable", and his lack of interest in bonding with his audience.

Dylan's performances in China in April 2011 generated controversy. Some criticised him for not making any explicit comment on the political situation in China, and for, allegedly, allowing the Chinese authorities to censor his set-list. Others defended Dylan's performances, arguing that such criticism represented a misunderstanding of Dylan's art, and that no evidence for the censorship of Dylan's set-list existed.

Dylan responded to these allegations of censorship by posting a statement on his website: "As far as censorship goes, the Chinese government had asked for the names of the songs that I would be playing. There's no logical answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the previous 3 months. If there were any songs, verses or lines censored, nobody ever told me about it and we played all the songs that we intended to play."

In April 2011, Dylan performed concerts in Taiwan, China, Vietnam and Australia. Dylan's website has published details of Dylan's 2011 tour of Europe, Israel and the US from June to August, commencing in Cork, Ireland, and concluding in Bangor, Maine.

Artist

Over a decade after Random House had published ''Drawn Blank'' (1994), a book of Dylan's drawings, an exhibit of his art, ''The Drawn Blank Series'', opened in October 2007 at the Kunstsammlungen in Chemnitz, Germany. This first public exhibition of Dylan's paintings showcased more than 200 watercolors and gouaches made earlier in 2007 from the original drawings. The exhibition coincided with the publication of the book ''Bob Dylan: The Drawn Blank Series'', which includes 170 reproductions from the series.

From September 2010 until April 2011, the National Gallery of Denmark exhibited 40 large-scale acrylic paintings by Dylan, ''The Brazil Series''. In July 2011, a leading contemporary art gallery, Gagosian Gallery, announced their representation of Dylan's paintings. The Gagosian Gallery has announced an exhibition of Dylan's art, ''The Asia Series'', will take place at their Madison Avenue Gallery in September-October 2011.

Discography

Awards

Personal life

Family

Dylan married Sara Lownds on November 22, 1965. Their first child, Jesse Byron Dylan, was born on January 6, 1966, and they had three more children: Anna Lea, Samuel Isaac Abraham, and Jakob Luke (born December 9, 1969). Dylan also adopted Sara's daughter from a prior marriage, Maria Lownds (later Dylan, born October 21, 1961). Maria married musician Peter Himmelman, an Orthodox Jew, in 1988. In the 1990s, Dylan's son Jakob became well known as the lead singer of the band The Wallflowers. Jesse Dylan is a film director and a successful businessman. Bob and Sara Dylan were divorced on June 29, 1977.

In June 1986, Dylan married his longtime backup singer Carolyn Dennis (often professionally known as Carol Dennis). Their daughter, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan, was born on January 31, 1986. The couple divorced in October 1992. Their marriage and child remained a closely guarded secret until the publication of Howard Sounes' Dylan biography, ''Down the Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan'' in 2001. Dylan now lives in Malibu, California, when not on the road.

Religious beliefs

Growing up in Hibbing, Minnesota, Dylan and his family were part of the area's small but close-knit Jewish community, and in May 1954 Dylan had his Bar Mitzvah. Around the time of his 30th birthday, in 1971, Dylan visited Israel, and also met Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the New York-based Jewish Defense League. Time Magazine quoted Dylan saying about Kahane, "He's a really sincere guy. He's really put it all together." Subsequently, Dylan downplayed the extent of his contact with Kahane.

For a period during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dylan was a public convert to Christianity. From January to April 1979, he participated in Bible study classes at the Vineyard School of Discipleship in Reseda, California. Pastor Kenn Gulliksen has recalled: "Larry Myers and Paul Emond went over to Bob's house and ministered to him. He responded by saying, 'Yes he did in fact want Christ in his life.' And he prayed that day and received the Lord."

By 1984, Dylan was deliberately distancing himself from the "born-again" label. He told Kurt Loder of ''Rolling Stone'' magazine: "I've never said I'm born again. That's just a media term. I don't think I've been an agnostic. I've always thought there's a superior power, that this is not the real world and that there's a world to come." In response to Loder's asking whether he belonged to any Church or synagogue, Dylan laughingly replied, "Not really. Uh, the Church of the Poison Mind." In 1997 he told David Gates of ''Newsweek'':

In an interview published in ''The New York Times'' on September 28, 1997, journalist Jon Pareles reported that "Dylan says he now subscribes to no organized religion."

Dylan has been described, in the last 20 years, as a supporter of the Chabad Lubavitch movement and has privately participated in Jewish religious events, including the bar mitzvahs of his sons and attending Hadar Hatorah, a Chabad Lubavitch yeshiva. In September 1989 and September 1991, Dylan appeared on the Chabad telethon. Jewish news services have reported that Dylan has visited Chabad synagogues; on September 22, 2007 (Yom Kippur), he attended Congregation Beth Tefillah, in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was called to the Torah for the sixth aliyah.

Dylan has continued to perform songs from his gospel albums in concert, occasionally covering traditional religious songs. He has also made passing references to his religious faith—such as in a 2004 interview with ''60 Minutes'', when he told Ed Bradley that "the only person you have to think twice about lying to is either yourself or to God." He also explained his constant touring schedule as part of a bargain he made a long time ago with the "chief commander—in this earth and in the world we can't see."

In a 2009 interview with Bill Flanagan promoting his Christmas LP, ''Christmas in the Heart'', Flanagan commented on the "heroic performance" Dylan gave of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and that Dylan "delivered the song like a true believer". Dylan replied: "Well, I am a true believer."

Legacy

Bob Dylan is one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, musically and culturally. Dylan was included in the Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century where he was called "master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation". Biographer Howard Sounes placed him among the most exalted company when he said, "There are giant figures in art who are sublimely good—Mozart, Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright, Shakespeare, Dickens. Dylan ranks alongside these artists."

Initially modeling his writing style on the songs of Woody Guthrie, and lessons learned from the blues of Robert Johnson, Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 60s, infusing it "with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry". Paul Simon suggested that Dylan's early compositions virtually took over the folk genre: "[Dylan's] early songs were very rich ... with strong melodies. 'Blowin' in the Wind' has a really strong melody. He so enlarged himself through the folk background that he incorporated it for a while. He defined the genre for a while."

When Dylan made his move from acoustic music to a rock backing, the mix became more complex. For many critics, Dylan's greatest achievement was the cultural synthesis exemplified by his mid-'60s trilogy of albums—''Bringing It All Back Home'', ''Highway 61 Revisited'' and ''Blonde on Blonde''. In Mike Marqusee's words: "Between late 1964 and the summer of 1966, Dylan created a body of work that remains unique. Drawing on folk, blues, country, R&B;, rock'n'roll, gospel, British beat, symbolist, modernist and Beat poetry, surrealism and Dada, advertising jargon and social commentary, Fellini and ''Mad'' magazine, he forged a coherent and original artistic voice and vision. The beauty of these albums retains the power to shock and console."

One legacy of Dylan's verbal sophistication was the increasing attention paid by literary critics to his lyrics. Professor Christopher Ricks published a 500-page analysis of Dylan's work, placing him in the context of Eliot, Keats and Tennyson, and claiming that Dylan was a poet worthy of the same close and painstaking analysis. Former British poet laureate, Andrew Motion, argued that Bob Dylan's lyrics should be studied in schools. Since 1996, academics have lobbied the Swedish Academy to award Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Dylan's voice was, in some ways, as startling as his lyrics. New York Times critic Robert Shelton described Dylan's early vocal style as "a rusty voice suggesting Guthrie's old performances, etched in gravel like Dave Van Ronk's." David Bowie, in his tribute, "Song for Bob Dylan", described Dylan's singing as "a voice like sand and glue". Dylan's voice continued to develop as he began to work with rock'n'roll backing bands; critic Michael Gray described the sound of Dylan's vocal on his hit single, "Like a Rolling Stone", as "at once young and jeeringly cynical". As Dylan's voice aged during the 1980s, for some critics, it became more expressive. Christophe Lebold writes in the journal ''Oral Tradition'', "Dylan's more recent broken voice enables him to present a world view at the sonic surface of the songs—this voice carries us across the landscape of a broken, fallen world. The anatomy of a broken world in "Everything is Broken" (on the album ''Oh Mercy'') is but an example of how the thematic concern with all things broken is grounded in a concrete sonic reality."

Dylan's influence has been felt in several musical genres. As Edna Gundersen stated in ''USA Today'': "Dylan's musical DNA has informed nearly every simple twist of pop since 1962." Many musicians have testified to Dylan's influence, such as Joe Strummer, who praised Dylan as having "laid down the template for lyric, tune, seriousness, spirituality, depth of rock music." Other major musicians to have acknowledged Dylan's importance include John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Nick Cave, Patti Smith, Syd Barrett, Cat Stevens,Joni Mitchell, and Tom Waits. More directly, both The Byrds and The Band, two 1960s contemporary groups with some measure of influence on popular music themselves, largely owed their initial success to Dylan: the Byrds with their hit of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and subsequent album; and the Band for their association with him on tour in 1966, on retreat in Woodstock, and on their debut album featuring three previously unreleased Dylan songs.

There have been dissenters. Because Dylan was widely credited with imbuing pop culture with a new seriousness, the critic Nik Cohn objected: "I can't take the vision of Dylan as seer, as teenage messiah, as everything else he's been worshipped as. The way I see him, he's a minor talent with a major gift for self-hype." Similarly, Australian critic Jack Marx credited Dylan with changing the persona of the rock star: "What cannot be disputed is that Dylan invented the arrogant, faux-cerebral posturing that has been the dominant style in rock since, with everyone from Mick Jagger to Eminem educating themselves from the Dylan handbook." Joni Mitchell described Dylan as a "plagiarist" and his voice as "fake" in a 2010 interview in the ''Los Angeles Times'', in response to a suggestion that she and Dylan were similar since they had both changed their birthnames. Mitchell's comment led to discussions of Dylan's use of other people's material, both supporting and criticizing Dylan.

If Bob Dylan's legacy in the 1960s was seen as bringing intellectual ambition to popular music, now that he has reached the age of 70, he has been described as a figure who has greatly expanded the folk culture from which he initially emerged. As J. Hoberman wrote in ''The Village Voice'', "Elvis might never have been born, but someone else would surely have brought the world rock 'n' roll. No such logic accounts for Bob Dylan. No iron law of history demanded that a would-be Elvis from Hibbing, Minnesota, would swerve through the Greenwich Village folk revival to become the world's first and greatest rock 'n' roll beatnik bard and then—having achieved fame and adoration beyond reckoning—vanish into a folk tradition of his own making."

Footnotes

References

External links

BobDylan.com – Official web site, including lyrics and touring schedule

Expecting Rain – Dylan news and events, updated daily

BobLinks – Comprehensive log of concerts and set lists

Bjorner's Still on the Road – Information on recording sessions and performances

Category:1941 births Category:American blues singers Category:American Christians Category:American country singers Category:American DJs Category:American folk guitarists Category:American folk singers Category:American gospel singers Category:American harmonica players Category:American male singers Category:American memoirists Category:American multi-instrumentalists Category:American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Category:American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Category:American poets Category:American rock guitarists Category:American rock singer-songwriters Category:Best Song Academy Award winning songwriters Category:American people of Jewish descent Category:Columbia Records artists Category:English-language singers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Harmonica blues musicians

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name	Gillian Welch
alt	A slender, middle-aged woman with long brown hair plays guitar and sings into a microphone. She wears a cowboy hat and a red dress.
background	solo_singer
born	October 02, 1967 New York City, New York, U.S.
origin	New York, U.S. (born in); moved to LA, California with family; Nashville, Tennessee (currently resides)
instrument	singing, guitar, banjo, drums
genre	Bluegrass, Americana, rock
associated acts	Dave Rawlings Machine
website	gillianwelch.com
notable instruments	1956 Gibson J-50 }}

Gillian Welch (; born October 2, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter. She performs with her musical partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Their sparse and dark musical style, which combines elements of Appalachian music, Bluegrass, and Americana, is described by ''The New Yorker'' as "at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms".

Welch and Rawlings have released five critically acclaimed albums. Their 1996 debut, ''Revival'', and the 2001 release ''Time (The Revelator)'', received nominations for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Their 2003 album, ''Soul Journey'', introduced electric guitar, drums and a more upbeat sound to their body of work. After a gap of eight years, they released their fifth studio album, ''The Harrow & The Harvest'', in 2011.

Welch was an associate producer and performed on two songs of the ''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' soundtrack, a platinum album that won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. Welch has collaborated and recorded with distinguished musicians such as Alison Krauss, Ryan Adams, Jay Farrar, Emmylou Harris, The Decemberists, and Ani DiFranco. Welch and Rawlings perform at many music festivals.

Early life

Gillian Howard Welch was born on October 2, 1967 in New York City, and was adopted by Ken and Mitzie Welch, comedy and music entertainers. Her biological mother was a freshman in college, and her father was a musician visiting New York City. Welch has speculated that her biological father could have been one of her favorite musicians, and she later discovered from her adoptive parents that he was a drummer. Alec Wilkinson of ''The New Yorker'' stated that "from an address they had been given, it appeared that her mother ... may have grown up in the mountains of North Carolina". When Welch was three, her adoptive parents moved to Los Angeles to write music for ''The Carol Burnett Show''. They also appeared on ''The Tonight Show''. As a youngster, Welch was introduced to the music of American folk singers Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Carter Family. She performed folk songs with her peers at the Westland Elementary School in Los Angeles. Welch later attended Crossroads School, a high school in Santa Monica, California. While in high school, a local television program featured her as a student who "excelled at everything she did".

When a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Welch played bass in a goth band, and drums in a psychedelic surf band. In college, a roommate played an album by the bluegrass band The Stanley Brothers, and she had an epiphany:

The first song came on and I just stood up and I kind of walked into the other room as if I was in a tractor beam and stood there in front of the stereo. It was just as powerful as the electric stuff, and it was songs I'd grown up singing. All of a sudden I'd found my music.

After graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in photography, Welch attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she majored in songwriting. During her two years studying at Berklee, Welch gained confidence as a performer. Welch met her music partner David Rawlings at a successful audition for Berklee's only country band.

Career

Upon finishing college in 1992, Welch and Rawlings moved to Nashville, Tennessee. She recalled, "I looked at my record collection and saw that all the music I loved had been made in Nashville—Bill Monroe, Dylan, the Stanley Brothers, Neil Young—so I moved there. Not ever thinking I was thirty years too late." Rawlings soon followed. In Nashville, after singing "Long Black Veil", the two first realized that their voices harmonized well and they started to perform as a duo. They never considered using a working name, so the duo were simply billed as "Gillian Welch". A year after moving to Nashville, Welch found a manager, Denise Stiff, who already managed Alison Krauss. Both Welch and Stiff ignored frequent advice that Welch should stop playing with Rawlings and join a band. They eventually signed a recording contract with Almo Sounds. Following a performance opening for Peter Rowan at the Station Inn, producer T-Bone Burnett expressed interest in recording an album. Burnett did not plan to disturb Welch's and Rawlings' preference for minimal instrumentation, and Welch agreed to take him on as a producer.

''Revival''

For the recording sessions of Welch's debut, ''Revival'', Burnett wanted to recapture the bare sound of Welch's live performance. Welch recalled, "That first week was really intense. It was just T-Bone, the engineer, and Dave and myself. We got so inside our little world. There was very little distance between our singing and playing. The sound was very immediate. It was so light and small." Later, they recorded several more songs and played with an expanded group of musicians; guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee James Burton, bassist Roy Huskey, Jr., and veteran session drummers Jim Keltner, and Buddy Harman.

The album was released in April 1996 to positive reviews. Mark Deming of Allmusic called it a "superb debut" and wrote, "Welch's debts to artists of the past are obvious and clearly acknowledged, but there's a maturity, intelligence, and keen eye for detail in her songs you wouldn't expect from someone simply trying to ape the Carter Family." Bill Friskics-Warren of ''No Depression'' praised the album as "breathtakingly austere evocations of rural culture". The ''Chicago Daily Herald''s Mark Guarino observed that ''Revival'' was "cheered and scrutinized as a staunch revivalist of Depression-era music only because her originals sounded so much like that era." He attributed this to the biblical imagery of the lyrics, Burnett's threadbare production, and the plainly-sung bleakness in Welch's vocals. Ann Powers of ''Rolling Stone'' gave ''Revival'' a lukewarm review and criticized Welch for not singing of her own experiences, and "manufacturing emotion." Robert Christgau echoed Powers: Welch "just doesn't have the voice, eye, or way with words to bring her simulation off." ''Revival'' was nominated for the 1997 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, but lost to Bruce Springsteen's ''The Ghost of Tom Joad''.

''Hell Among The Yearlings''

The duo's 1998 ''Hell Among the Yearlings'' continued the rustic and dark themes; the songs' subject matter varies from a female character killing a rapist, a mining accident, a murder ballad, and an ode to morphine before death. Like ''Revival'', ''Hell Among The Yearlings'' featured a sparse style that focused on Rawlings and Welch's voices and guitars.

The album also received favorable reviews. Robert Wilonsky of the ''Dallas Observer'' observed that Welch "inhabits a role so completely, the fiction separating character and audience disappears". Thom Owens (Allmusic) stated that the album "lacks some of the focus" of ''Revival'', but is "a thoroughly satisfying second album" and proof that her debut was not a fluke. ''No Depression'''s Farnum Brown commended the live and "immediate feel" of the album, Welch's clawhammer banjo, and Rawlings' harmonies. Similar to ''Revival'', Welch was praised for reflecting influences such as the Stanley Brothers, but still managing to create an original sound, while Chris Herrington from Minneapolis's ''City Pages'' criticized the songs' lack of authenticity. He wrote "Welch doesn't write folk songs; she writes folk songs about writing folk songs."

''O Brother, Where Art Thou?''

Welch sang two songs and served as an associate producer for the Burnett-produced soundtrack to the 2000 film of the ''same name''. She shared vocals with Alison Krauss on a rendition of the gospel song "I'll Fly Away." Dave McKenna of ''The Washington Post'' praised their version: the singers "soar together." Burnett and Welch wrote additional lyrics for the song "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby," sung by Welch, Emmylou Harris, and Krauss. The song is an elaboration of an old Mississippi tune discovered by Alan Lomax, and was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. The platinum album won the 2002 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The surprise success of the soundtrack gave Welch a career boost. Welch also made a cameo appearance in the film.

''Time (The Revelator)''

When Universal Music Group purchased Almo Sounds, Welch began her own independent label, Acony Records (named for the Appalachian wildflower, Acony Bell, subject of the song "Acony Bell" on ''Revival''). Rawlings produced the first release on Welch's new label, the 2001 album ''Time (The Revelator)''. All but one song on the album was recorded in the historic RCA Studio B in Nashville. "I Want To Sing That Rock and Roll" was recorded live at the Ryman Auditorium in the recording sessions for the concert film ''Down from the Mountain''. Welch has said the album is about American history, rock 'n' roll, and country music. There are songs about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the Titanic Disaster, John Henry, and Elvis Presley. ''Time'' continues Welch and Rawlings' style of mellow and sparse arrangements. Welch explained, "As opposed to being little tiny folk songs or traditional songs, they're really tiny rock songs. They're just performed in this acoustic setting. In our heads we went electric without changing instruments."

''Time (The Revelator)'' received extensive critical praise, most of which focused on the evolution of lyrics from mountain ballads. For Michael Shannon Friedman of ''The Charleston Gazette'', "Welch's soul-piercing, backwoods quaver has always been a treasure, but on this record her songwriting is absolutely stunning." Critics compare the last track, the 15-minute "I Dream a Highway", to classics by Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Zac Johnson of Allmusic described ''I Dream...'' as akin to "sweetly dozing in the [river] current like Huck and Jim's Mississippi River afternoons". ''No Depression''s Grant Alden wrote, "Welch and Rawlings have gathered ... fragments from across the rich history of American music and reset them as small, subtle jewels adorning their own keenly observed, carefully constructed language." ''Time'' finished thirteenth in the 2001 ''Village Voice'' Pazz & Jop music critic poll. ''Time (The Revelator)'' appeared in best of decade lists of ''Rolling Stone'', ''Paste'', ''Uncut'', ''The Irish Times'', and the ''Ottawa Citizen''. The album was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, but lost to Bob Dylan's ''Love and Theft''. ''Time'' peaked at #7 on the Billboard Independent Album chart.

''The Revelator Collection'' DVD was released in 2002. It featured live performances and music videos of songs from ''Time'', and some covers. The concert footage was filmed in 2001, and the music videos included Welch and Rawlings performing three songs at RCA Studio B. ''No Depression''s Barry Mazor praised the DVD as an accompaniment for ''Time'', calling it "one last exclamation point on that memorable and important project".

''Soul Journey''

For the 2003 release, ''Soul Journey'', Welch and Rawlings explored new territory. Welch said: "I wanted to make it a happier record. Out of our four records, I thought this might be the one where you're driving down the road listening to it on a sunny summer day." Rawlings again produced the record. The album also reflected a change in the typically sparse instrumentation: Welch and Rawlings introduced a dobro, violin, electric bass and drums, and Welch later said, "Everything's not supposed to sound the same, you want it to reflect change and growth."

In three songs of ''Soul Journey'', for the first time Welch and Rawlings recorded their own versions of traditional folk songs. On the original compositions, Welch's lyrics are more autobiographical than previous albums.

The album received mixed reviews. Allmusic's Zac Johnson wrote that it was "too casual and off-the-cuff", but called it a "wonderful, dusty summertime front-porch album, full of whiskey drawls and sly smiles, floorboard stomps and screen-door creaks". Jon Caramanica of ''Rolling Stone'' criticized the slower songs as stagnant, but complimented the upbeat songs. ''Soul Journey'' also garnered significant acclaim. John Harris of ''Mojo'' magazine described the album as "pretty much perfect", and ''Uncut''s Barney Hoskyns favorably compared it to Bob Dylan and The Band's ''The Basement Tapes''. Will Hermes of ''Entertainment Weekly'' wrote that Welch has "never sounded deeper, realer, or sexier." ''Soul Journey'' peaked at #107 on the Billboard charts, and reached #3 for Independent Albums.

Dave Rawlings Machine

Welch and Rawlings continued their partnership in the band Dave Rawlings Machine. Welch co-wrote five of the songs with Rawlings, and provided guitar and harmony vocals. Andy Gill of ''The Independent'' described the 2009 debut album ''A Friend of a Friend'' as "akin to one of Welch's albums, but with the balance of their harmonies swapped to favour Rawlings' voice". Although ostensibly Rawlings' first solo album, Alex Ramon of PopMatters noted the similarities to Welch albums. ''Paste Magazine''s Stephen Deusner praised ''A Friend of a Friend'' for incorporating "a wide swath of traditional American music," comments echoed by ''Rolling Stone''s Will Hermes and in the ''PopMatters'' piece.

The Harrow & The Harvest

In a 2007 feature in ''The Guardian'', critic John Harris expressed frustration that there had not been a Gillian Welch release in four years. Creation Records founder Alan McGee showed optimism about Welch and Rawlings testing out some new songs while opening some concerts for Rilo Kiley, and wrote in a 2009 blog entry "the long gestation period signals nothing less than a perfect album". In 2009, Rawlings said that recording for the next Gillian Welch album has started, but did not give a release date.

''The Harrow & The Harvest'' was released on June 28, 2011. Welch attributed the long time period between releases to writer's block and dissatisfaction with initial recording attempts. She explained: "Our songcraft slipped and I really don't know why. It's not uncommon. It's something that happens to writers. It's the deepest frustration we have come through, hence the album title." The writing process involved "this endless back and forth between the two of us," Welch said, stating that "It’s our most intertwined, co-authored, jointly-composed album."

The album received praise from publications such as ''The Los Angeles Times'', ''Uncut'', and'' Rolling Stone''. Thom Jurek of Allmusic wrote that the album "is stunning for its intimacy, its lack of studio artifice, its warmth and its timeless, if hard won, songcraft"..

The album peaked at #20 on the US Billboard 200 and #25 on the UK Albums Chart.

Musical style

Welch and Rawlings incorporate elements of early twentieth century music such as old time, classic country, gospel and traditional bluegrass with modern elements of rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll, jazz, and punk rock. ''The New Yorker''s Alec Wilkinson maintained their musical style is "not easily classified—it is at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms". The instrumentation on their songs is usually a simple arrangement, with Welch and Rawlings accompanying their own vocals with acoustic guitars, banjos, or a mandolin. Welch plays rhythm guitar with a 1956 Gibson J-50 (or banjo), while Rawlings plays lead on a 1935 Epiphone Olympic Guitar. ''The New Yorker''s Wilkinson described Rawlings as a "strikingly inventive guitarist" who plays solos that are "daring melodic leaps". A review in ''No Depression'' by Andy Moore observed that "he [Rawlings] doesn't play his big, coffee-colored, hollow body Gibson so much as he squeezes, strokes, chokes and does just about everything but blow into it". Jamie Cowperthwait of ''Rolling Stone'' wrote that Rawlings' guitar playing "makes the music swell and vibrate at all the right moments."

Themes

Many songs performed by Welch and Rawlings contain dark themes about social outcasts struggling against such elements as poverty, drug addiction, death, a disconnection from their family, and an unresponsive God. Despite Welch being the lead singer, several of these characters are male. Welch has commented, "To be commercial, everybody wants happy love songs. People would flat-out ask me, 'Don't you have any happy love songs?' Well, as a matter of fact, I don't. I've got songs about orphans and morphine addicts." To reflect these themes, Welch and Rawlings often employ a slow pace to their songs. Their tempo is compared to a "slow heartbeat", and Cowperthwait of ''Rolling Stone'' observed that their songs "can lull you into near-hypnosis and then make your jaw drop with one final revelation".

Reception

Welch has received broad critical praise. Geoffrey Himes of ''The Washington Post'' described Welch as "one of the most interesting singer-songwriters of her generation". In 2003, Tom Kielty of ''The Boston Globe'' observed that she was "quietly establishing one of the most impressive catalogs in contemporary roots music", and a 2007 piece in ''The Guardian'' by John Harris called Welch "one of the decade's greatest talents". Critic Robert Hilburn of the ''Los Angeles Times'' wrote, "At every turn, she demonstrates a spark and commitment that should endear her to anyone from country and folk to pop and rock fans who appreciate imagination and heart."

When Welch's first two albums came out, critics questioned the authenticity of her music, as she was raised in Southern California, but performed Appalachian themed songs. For ''Revival'', Welch was criticized for "manufacturing emotion", and a review of ''Hell Among the Yearlings'' by Chris Herrington of ''City Pages'' stated, "Welch is someone who discovered old-time music in college and decided that her own sheltered life could never be worth writing about", and that she is "completely devoid of individuality". Other critics rejected the notion that her background affects the authenticity of her music. Music critic Mark Kemp defended Welch in a ''The New York Times'' piece:

The first-person protagonist of Ms. Welch’s song ("Caleb Meyer") may be a young girl from a time and place that Ms. Welch will never fully understand, but the feelings the singer expresses about rape, and the respect she displays for her chosen musical genre, are nothing if not poignantly authentic. Likewise, it matters not whether Ms. Welch has ever walked the streets of "the black dust towns of East Tennessee" about which she sings in "Miner's Refrain" because the sense of foreboding that she expresses for the men who once labored in coal mines with futile hopes of a better life comes through loud and clear.

''The Wall Street Journal'''s Taylor Holliday echoed this: "Stingy critics give Ms. Welch a hard time because she's a California city girl, not an Appalachian coal miner's daughter. But as Lucinda or Emmylou might attest, love of the music is not a birthright, but an earned right. Listen to Ms. Welch yodel, in a tune about that no-good "gal" Morphine, and you know she's as mountain as they come."

Influences and collaborations

Welch emphasizes music from a previous era as her major influence. She said that "by and large I listen to people who are dead. I'm really of the tried-and-true school. I let 50 years go by and see what's really relevant." Welch has acknowledged inspiration from several traditional country artists, including the Stanley Brothers, the Carter Family, the Louvin Brothers, and the Blue Sky Boys. She explained her relationship with traditional music by saying, "I've never tried to be traditional. It's been a springboard for me and I love it and revere it and would not be doing what I do without the music of the Monroe Brothers, the Stanley Brothers and the Carter Family. However, it was clear I was never going to be able to do exactly that; I'm a songwriter."

In addition to the strong country influence, Welch also draws on a repertoire of such Rock 'n' Roll artists as Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Neil Young, the Grateful Dead and the Velvet Underground. She has noted alternative rock bands Throwing Muses, Pixies and Camper Van Beethoven "don't directly inform my music, but they're in there."

Welch has recorded songs with a variety of notable artists, including Ryan Adams, Ani DiFranco, Emmylou Harris, Jay Farrar, Alison Krauss, Old Crow Medicine Show, Bright Eyes, Robyn Hitchcock, Steve Earle, Ralph Stanley, The Decemberists, Solomon Burke and Mark Knopfler. Welch and Rawlings' contributions on Hitchcock's album ''Spooked'' was described by Christopher Bahn of ''The A.V. Club'' as "subtle but vital". Mark Deming of Allmusic wrote that their work on Ryan Adams' album ''Heartbreaker'' "brought out the best in Adams".

Artists who have recorded songs written by Welch include Jimmy Buffett, Alison Krauss and Union Station, Trisha Yearwood, Joan Baez, Allison Moorer, Emmylou Harris, and Kathy Mattea.

Performances

Welch and Rawlings have played many music festivals, including The Newport Folk Festival, Coachella Festival, The Telluride Bluegrass Festival, The Cambridge Folk Festival, MerleFest, The Austin City Limits Festival, and Farm Aid. They have toured North America extensively, and have played in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Concert reviews have praised the chemistry between Welch and Rawlings on stage. Tizzy Asher of the ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' wrote "there was a startling unspoken intimacy between them. They anticipated each other's movements and shifted when necessary to fit each other."

The Dave Rawlings Machine have toured North America, with the band composed of Rawlings, Welch and three members of Old Crow Medicine Show. Welch and Rawlings also participate in group tours with notable musicians. In 2004, they were part of the Sweet Harmony Traveling Revue, a three-week US tour with Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller and Emmylou Harris. In 2009, The Dave Rawlings Machine joined Old Crow Medicine Show, The Felice Brothers and Justin Townes Earle for The Big Surprise Tour, a US tour described as a "roots-music extravaganza". In 2011, it was announced that Welch would be opening a short tour for the newly reformed Buffalo Springfield.

Discography

1996 – ''Revival''

1998 – ''Hell Among the Yearlings''

2001 – ''Time (The Revelator)''

2003 – ''Soul Journey''

2011 - ''The Harrow & The Harvest''

Footnotes

References

External links

Official website

Category:1967 births Category:Living people Category:American female singers Category:American folk singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:Berklee College of Music alumni Category:American bluegrass musicians Category:Grammy Award winners Category:People from Nashville, Tennessee Category:People from New York City Category:University of California, Santa Cruz alumni Category:American adoptees Category:American female guitarists Category:People from Santa Monica, California

de:Gillian Welch fr:Gillian Welch he:גיליאן ולץ' simple:Gillian Welch sv:Gillian Welch

name	Gore Vidal
pseudonym	Edgar BoxCameron KayKatherine Everard
birth name	Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
birth date	October 03, 1925
birth place	West Point, New York, U.S.
occupation	Novelist, essayist, journalist, playwright
nationality	United States
Parents	Eugene Luther Vidal
genre	Drama, fictional prose, essay, literary criticism
period	1944–present
movement	Postmodernism
ideology	Fascism
influences	Petronius, Apuleius, Thomas Mann, Henry James, Mark Twain, Montaigne, Carson McCullers
influenced	William Kennedy, Clive James, Christopher Hitchens, Truman Capote, Bill Maher}}

Gore Vidal (; born October 3, 1925) is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. Early in his career he wrote ''The City and the Pillar'' (1948), which outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality. He also ran for political office twice and has been a longtime political critic.

Early years

Vidal was born Eugene Luther Gore Vidal in West Point, New York, the only child of 1st Lieutenant Eugene Luther Vidal (1895–1969) and Nina Gore (1903–1978). He was born in the Cadet Hospital of the United States Military Academy, where his father was the first aeronautics instructor, and was christened by the headmaster of St. Albans preparatory school, his future alma mater. According to "West Point and the Third Loyalty", an article Vidal wrote for ''The New York Review of Books'' (October 18, 1973), he later decided to be called Gore in honor of his maternal grandfather, Thomas Gore, Democratic senator from Oklahoma.

Vidal's father, a West Point football quarterback and captain, and an all-American basketball player, was director of the Commerce Department's Bureau of Air Commerce (1933–1937) in the Roosevelt administration, was one of the first Army Air Corps pilots and, according to biographer Susan Butler, was the great love of Amelia Earhart's life. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was a co-founder of three American airlines: the Ludington Line, which merged with others and became Eastern Airlines, Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT, which became TWA), and Northeast Airlines, which he founded with Earhart, as well as the Boston and Maine Railroad. The elder Vidal was also an athlete in the 1920 and 1924 Summer Olympics (seventh in the decathlon; U.S. pentathlon team coach).

Gore Vidal's mother was an actress and socialite who made her Broadway debut in ''Sign of the Leopard'' in 1928. She married Eugene Luther Vidal, Sr. in 1922 and divorced him in 1935. She later married twice more; one husband, Hugh D. Auchincloss, was later the stepfather of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and, according to Gore Vidal, she had "a long off-and-on affair" with actor Clark Gable. She was an alternate delegate to the 1940 Democratic National Convention.

Vidal had four half-siblings from his parents' later marriages (the Rev. Vance Vidal, Valerie Vidal Hewitt, Thomas Gore Auchincloss, and Nina Gore Auchincloss Steers Straight) and four stepbrothers from his mother's third marriage to Army Air Forces Major General Robert Olds, who died in 1943, ten months after marrying Vidal's mother. Vidal's nephews include the brothers Burr Steers, writer and film director, and painter Hugh Auchincloss Steers (1963–1995).

Vidal was raised in Washington, D.C., where he attended Sidwell Friends School and then St. Albans School. Since Senator Gore was blind, his grandson read aloud to him and was his guide. The senator's isolationism contributed a major principle of his grandson's political philosophy, which is critical of foreign and domestic policies shaped by American imperialism. Gore attended High school in Exeter, New Hampshire at Phillips Exeter Academy, and after graduating in 1943 he joined the U.S. Army Reserve. He was deployed to the Aleutian Islands during World War II, where he served in the Transportation Corps as a Warrant Officer on an Army search and rescue boat and later on a supply vessel.

Personal life

Vidal has had affairs with both men and women. The novelist Anaïs Nin claimed an involvement with Vidal in her memoir ''The Diary of Anaïs Nin'' but Vidal denied it in his memoir ''Palimpsest''. Vidal has also discussed having dalliances with people such as actress Diana Lynn, and has alluded to the possibility that he may have a daughter. He was briefly engaged to Joanne Woodward, before she married Paul Newman; after eloping, the couple shared a house with Vidal in Los Angeles for a short time. In 1950, he met his long-term partner Howard Austen.

During the latter part of the twentieth century Vidal divided his time between Italy and California. In 2003, he sold his 5,000-square-foot (460 m²) Italian Villa, ''La Rondinaia'' (The Swallow's Nest), and moved to Los Angeles. Austen died in November 2003 and, in February 2005, was buried in a plot for himself and Vidal at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

Writing career

Fiction

Vidal, whom a ''Newsweek'' critic called "the best all-around American man of letters since Edmund Wilson," began his writing career at nineteen, with the publication of the military novel ''Williwaw'', based upon his Alaskan Harbor Detachment duty. The novel was successful and the first novel about World War II. A few years later, ''The City and the Pillar'' caused a furor for its dispassionate presentation of homosexuality. The novel was dedicated to "J.T." Decades later, after a magazine published rumors about J.T.'s identity, Vidal confirmed they were the initials of his St. Albans-era love, James "Jimmy" Trimble III, killed in the Battle of Iwo Jima on February 29, 1945; Vidal later said that Trimble was the only person he had ever loved.

Orville Prescott, the book critic for the ''New York Times'', found ''The City and the Pillar'' so objectionable that he refused to review or allow the ''Times'' to review Vidal's next five books. In response, Vidal wrote several mystery novels the early 1950s under the pseudonym "Edgar Box". Featuring public relations man Peter Cutler Sargeant II, their success financed Vidal for more than a decade.

He wrote plays, films, and television series. Two plays, ''The Best Man'' (1960) and ''Visit to a Small Planet (1955),'' were both Broadway and film successes.

In 1956, Vidal was hired as a contract screenwriter for Metro Goldwyn Mayer. In 1959, director William Wyler needed script doctors to re-write the script for ''Ben-Hur'', originally written by Karl Tunberg. Vidal collaborated with Christopher Fry, reworking the screenplay on condition that MGM release him from the last two years of his contract. Producer Sam Zimbalist's death complicated the screenwriting credit. The Screen Writers Guild resolved the matter by listing Tunberg as sole screenwriter, denying credit to both Vidal and Fry. This decision was based on the WGA screenwriting credit system which favors original authors. Vidal later claimed in the documentary film ''The Celluloid Closet'' that in order to explain the animosity between Ben-Hur and Messala, he had inserted a gay subtext suggesting that the two had had a prior relationship, but that actor Charlton Heston was oblivious. Heston denied that Vidal contributed significantly to the script.

In the 1960s, Vidal wrote three novels. The first, ''Julian'' (1964) dealt with the apostate Roman emperor, while the second, ''Washington, D.C.'' (1967) focused on a political family during the Franklin D. Roosevelt era. The third was the satirical transsexual comedy ''Myra Breckinridge'' (1968), a variation on Vidal's familiar themes of sex, gender, and popular culture. In the novel, Vidal showcased his love of the American films of the 30s and 40s, and he resurrected interest in the careers of the forgotten players of the time including, for example, that of the late Richard Cromwell, who, he wrote, "was so satisfyingly tortured in ''The Lives of a Bengal Lancer''."

After the staging of the plays ''Weekend'' (1968) and ''An Evening With Richard Nixon'' (1972), and the publication of the novel ''Two Sisters: A Novel in the Form of a Memoir'' (1970), Vidal focused on essays and two distinct themes in his fiction. The first strain comprises novels dealing with American history, specifically with the nature of national politics. Critic Harold Bloom wrote, "Vidal's imagination of American politics...is so powerful as to compel awe." Titles in this series, the Narratives of Empire, include ''Burr'' (1973), ''1876'' (1976), ''Lincoln'' (1984), ''Empire'' (1987), ''Hollywood'' (1990), ''The Golden Age'' (2000). Another title devoted to the ancient world, ''Creation'', appeared in 1981 and then in expanded form in 2002.

The second strain consists of the comedic "satirical inventions": ''Myron'' (1974, a sequel to ''Myra Breckinridge''), ''Kalki'' (1978), ''Duluth'' (1983), ''Live from Golgotha: The Gospel according to Gore Vidal'' (1992), and ''The Smithsonian Institution'' (1998).

Vidal occasionally returned to writing for film and television, including the television movie ''Gore Vidal's Billy the Kid'' with Val Kilmer and the mini-series ''Lincoln''. He also wrote the original draft for the controversial film ''Caligula'', but later had his name removed when director Tinto Brass and actor Malcolm McDowell rewrote the script, changing the tone and themes significantly. The producers later made an attempt to salvage some of Vidal's vision in the film's post-production.

Essays and memoirs

Vidal is—at least in the U.S.—even more respected as an essayist than as a novelist. The critic John Keats praised him as "[the twentieth] century's finest essayist." Even an occasionally hostile critic like Martin Amis admits, "Essays are what he is good at ... [h]e is learned, funny and exceptionally clear-sighted. Even his blind spots are illuminating."

For six decades, Gore Vidal has applied himself to a wide variety of sociopolitical, sexual, historical, and literary themes. In 1987, Vidal wrote the essays titled ''Armageddon?'', exploring the intricacies of power in contemporary America. He pilloried the incumbent president Ronald Reagan as a "triumph of the embalmer's art." In 1993, he won the National Book Award for his collection of essays, ''United States (1952–1992)'', the citation noting: "Whatever his subject, he addresses it with an artist's resonant appreciation, a scholar's conscience, and the persuasive powers of a great essayist." A subsequent collection of essays, published in 2000, is ''The Last Empire''. Since then, he has published such self-described "pamphlets" as ''Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace'', ''Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta'', and ''Imperial America'', critiques of American expansionism, the military-industrial complex, the national security state, and the George W. Bush administration. Vidal also wrote an historical essay about the U.S.'s founding fathers, ''Inventing a Nation''. In 1995, he published a memoir ''Palimpsest'', and in 2006 its follow-up volume, ''Point to Point Navigation''. Earlier that year, Vidal also published ''Clouds and Eclipses: The Collected Short Stories.''

Because of his matter-of-fact treatment of same-sex relations in such books as ''The City and The Pillar'', Vidal is often seen as an early champion of sexual liberation. ''Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings'', a representative sampling of his views, contains literary and cultural essays. Focusing on, in his view, the anti-sexual heritage of Judeo-Christianity, irrational and destructive sex laws, feminism, heterosexism, homophobia, gay liberation and pornography, the essays frequently return to a favorite Vidal motif: the fluidity of sexual identity. Vidal argues that "there are no homosexual people, only homosexual acts." Given the diversity of human desire, Vidal resists any effort to categorize him as exclusively "homosexual"—either as writer or human being.

In 2005, Jay Parini was appointed as Vidal's literary executor.

Acting and popular culture

In the 1960s, Vidal moved to Italy; he gave a cameo appearance in Federico Fellini's film ''Roma''. In 1992, Vidal appeared in the film ''Bob Roberts'' (starring Tim Robbins) and has appeared in other films, notably ''Gattaca'', ''With Honors'', and ''Igby Goes Down''. Vidal has voiced himself on both ''The Simpsons'' and ''Family Guy'' and appeared on the ''Da Ali G Show'', where Ali G (intentionally) mistakes him for Vidal Sassoon. He provided the narrative for the Royal National Theatre's production of Brecht's Mother Courage in the autumn of 2009.

Vidal was portrayed in ''Amelia'' (2009), as a child, by Canadian actor William Cuddy, and in ''Infamous'' (2006), the story of Truman Capote, as a young adult, by American actor Michael Panes.

Political views and activities

Besides his politician grandfather, Vidal has other connections with the Democratic Party: his mother, Nina, married Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr., who later was stepfather of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Gore Vidal is a fifth cousin of Jimmy Carter. Vidal may be a distant cousin of Al Gore.

As a political activist, in 1960, Gore Vidal was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress, losing an election in New York's 29th congressional district, a traditionally Republican district on the Hudson River, encompassing all of Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Schoharie, and Ulster Counties to J. Ernest Wharton, by a margin of 57% to 43%. Campaigning with a slogan of "You'll get more with Gore", he received the most votes any Democrat in 50 years received in that district. Among his supporters were Eleanor Roosevelt, Paul Newman, and Joanne Woodward; the latter two, longtime friends of Vidal's, campaigned for him and spoke on his behalf.

On the December 15, 1971 taping of ''The Dick Cavett Show'', with Janet Flanner, Norman Mailer allegedly head-butted Vidal during an altercation prior to their appearance on the show.

From 1970 to 1972, Vidal was one of the chairmen of the People's Party. In 1971, he wrote an article in ''Esquire'' advocating consumer advocate Ralph Nader for president in the 1972 election.

In 1982 he campaigned against incumbent Governor Jerry Brown for the Democratic primary election to the United States Senate from California and this was documented in the film, ''Gore Vidal: The Man Who Said No'' directed by Gary Conklin. Vidal lost to Brown in the primary election.

Frequently identified with Democratic causes and personalities, Vidal wrote in the 1970s: }} Despite this, Vidal has said "I think of myself as a conservative." Vidal has a protective, almost proprietary attitude toward his native land and its politics: "My family helped start [this country]", he has written, "and we've been in political life... since the 1690s, and I have a very possessive sense about this country." At a 1999 lecture in Dublin, Vidal said:

He has suggested that President Roosevelt deliberately provoked the Japanese to attack the U.S. at Pearl Harbor to facilitate American entry to the war, and believes FDR had advance knowledge of the attack. During an interview in the 2005 documentary ''Why We Fight'', Vidal asserts that during the final months of World War II, the Japanese had tried to surrender to the United States, to no avail. He said, "They were trying to surrender all that summer, but Truman wouldn't listen, because Truman wanted to drop the bombs." When the interviewer asked why, Vidal replied, "To show off. To frighten Stalin. To change the balance of power in the world. To declare war on communism. Perhaps we were starting a pre-emptive world war."

During domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh's imprisonment, Vidal corresponded with McVeigh and concluded that he bombed the federal building as retribution for the FBI's role in the 1993 Branch Davidian Compound massacre in Waco, Texas.

Vidal was a member of the advisory board of the World Can't Wait organization, a left-wing organization seeking to repudiate the Bush administration's program, and advocating the impeachment of George W. Bush for war crimes.

In 1997, Vidal was one of 34 celebrities to sign an open letter to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, published as a newspaper advertisement in the ''International Herald Tribune'', which protested the treatment of Scientologists in Germany.

Vidal contributed an article to ''The Nation'' in which he expressed support for Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, citing him as "the most eloquent of the lot" and that Kucinich "is very much a favorite out there in the amber fields of grain".

In May 2008, Vidal proclaimed to Esquire magazine: "Everything’s wrong on Wikipedia."

In April 2009, Vidal accepted appointment to the position of honorary president of the American Humanist Association, succeeding Kurt Vonnegut.

On September 30, 2009, ''The Times'' of London published a lengthy interview with him headlined "We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US - The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘rotting away’ — and don’t expect Barack Obama to save it", which brings up-to-date his views on his own life, and a variety of political subjects.

Vidal versus Buckley

In 1968, ABC News invited Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. to be political analysts of the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions. Verbal and nearly physical combat ensued. After days of mutual bickering, their debates devolved to vitriolic, ad hominem attacks. During discussions of the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, the men were arguing about freedom of speech in regards to American protesters displaying a Viet Cong flag when Vidal told Buckley to "shut up a minute" and, in response to Buckley's reference to "pro-Nazi" protesters, went on to say "As far as I'm concerned, the only sort of pro-crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself." The visibly livid Buckley replied, "Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered." After an interruption by anchor and facilitator Howard K. Smith, the men continued to discuss the topic in a less hostile manner. Buckley later expressed regret for having called Vidal a "queer," but nonetheless described Vidal as an "evangelist for bisexuality."

Later, in 1969, the feud was continued as Buckley further attacked Vidal in the lengthy essay, "On Experiencing Gore Vidal", published in the August 1969 issue of ''Esquire''. The essay is collected in ''The Governor Listeth'', an anthology of Buckley's writings of the time. In a key passage attacking Vidal as an apologist for homosexuality, Buckley wrote, "The man who in his essays proclaims the normalcy of his affliction [i.e., homosexuality], and in his art the desirability of it, is not to be confused with the man who bears his sorrow quietly. The addict is to be pitied and even respected, not the pusher."

Vidal responded in the September 1969 issue of ''Esquire'', variously characterizing Buckley as "anti-black", "anti-semitic", and a "warmonger". The presiding judge in Buckley's subsequent libel suit against Vidal initially concluded that "[t]he court must conclude that Vidal's comments in these paragraphs meet the minimal standard of fair comment. The inferences made by Vidal from Buckley's [earlier editorial] statements cannot be said to be completely unreasonable." However, Vidal also strongly implied that, in 1944, Buckley and unnamed siblings had vandalized a Protestant church in their Sharon, Connecticut, hometown after the pastor's wife had sold a house to a Jewish family. Buckley sued Vidal and ''Esquire'' for libel. Vidal counter-claimed for libel against Buckley, citing Buckley's characterization of Vidal's novel ''Myra Breckinridge'' as pornography.

The court dismissed Vidal's counter-claim; Buckley settled for $115,000 in attorney's fees and an editorial statement from ''Esquire'' magazine that they were "utterly convinced" of the untruthfulness of Vidal's assertion. However, in a letter to ''Newsweek'', the ''Esquire'' publisher stated that "the settlement of Buckley's suit against us" was not "a 'disavowal' of Vidal's article. On the contrary, it clearly states that we published that article because we believed that Vidal had a right to assert his opinions, even though we did not share them."

As Vidal's biographer, Fred Kaplan, later commented, "The court had 'not' sustained Buckley's case against ''Esquire''... [t]he court had 'not' ruled that Vidal's article was 'defamatory.' It had ruled that the case would have to go to trial ''in order to determine as a matter of fact whether or not it was defamatory.'' [italics original.] The cash value of the settlement with ''Esquire'' represented 'only' Buckley's legal expenses [not damages based on libel]... " Ultimately, Vidal bore the cost of his own attorney's fees, estimated at $75,000.

In 2003, this affair re-surfaced when ''Esquire'' published ''Esquire's Big Book of Great Writing'', an anthology that included Vidal's essay. Buckley again sued for libel, and ''Esquire'' again settled for $55,000 in attorney's fees and $10,000 in personal damages to Buckley.

After Buckley's death on February 27, 2008, Vidal summed up his impressions of his rival with the following obituary on March 20, 2008: "RIP WFB—in hell." In a June 15, 2008, interview with the ''New York Times'', Vidal was asked by Deborah Solomon, "How did you feel when you heard that Buckley died this year?" Vidal responded:

Criticism of the George W. Bush administration

Vidal was strongly critical of the George W. Bush administration, listing it among administrations he considered to have either an explicit or implicit expansionist agenda. He has described George W. Bush as "the stupidest man in the United States".

He is of the view that for several years the Bush administration and their associates aimed to control the petroleum of Central Asia (after gaining effective control of the petroleum of the Persian Gulf in 1991). In October 2006, Vidal derided NORAD for what he claimed was a conspiracy against the US public, perpetrated by an alliance of the US Air Force and the government of Canada at the time.

In May 2007, Vidal clarified his views, saying: }}

Bibliography

Essays and non-fiction

''Rocking the Boat'' (1963)

''Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship'' (1969)

''Sex, Death and Money'' (1969) (paperback compilation)

''Homage to Daniel Shays'' (1972)

''Matters of Fact and of Fiction'' (1977)

''Views from a Window'' Co-Editor (1981)

''The Second American Revolution'' (1982)

''Vidal In Venice'' (1985) ISBN 0-671-60691-3

''Armageddon?'' (1987) (UK only)

''At Home'' (1988)

''A View From The Diner's Club'' (1991) (UK only)

''Screening History'' (1992) ISBN 0-233-98803-3

''Decline and Fall of the American Empire'' (1992) ISBN 1-878825-00-3

''United States: essays 1952–1992'' (1993) ISBN 0-7679-0806-6

''Palimpsest: a memoir'' (1995) ISBN 0-679-44038-0

''Virgin Islands'' (1997) (UK only)

''The American Presidency'' (1998) ISBN 1-878825-15-1

''Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings'' (1999)

''The Last Empire: essays 1992–2000'' (2001) ISBN 0-375-72639-X (there is also a much shorter UK edition)

''Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace or How We Came To Be So Hated'', Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002, (2002) ISBN 1-56025-405-X

''Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta'', Thunder's Mouth Press, (2002) ISBN 1-56025-502-1

''Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson'' (2003) ISBN 0-300-10171-6

''Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia'' (2004) ISBN 1-56025-744-X

''Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir'' (2006) ISBN 0-385-51721-1

''The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal'' (2008) ISBN 0-385-52484-6

''Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History's Glare'' (2009) ISBN 0-810-95049-9

Plays

''Visit to a Small Planet'' (1957) ISBN 0-8222-1211-0

''The Best Man'' (1960)

''On the March to the Sea'' (1960–1961, 2004)

''Romulus'' (adapted from Friedrich Dürrenmatt's 1950 play ''Romulus der Große'') (1962)

''Weekend'' (1968)

''Drawing Room Comedy'' (1970)

''An Evening with Richard Nixon'' (1970) ISBN 0-394-71869-0

''On the March to the Sea'' (2005)

Novels

''Williwaw'' (1946) ISBN 0-226-85585-6

''In a Yellow Wood'' (1947)

''The City and the Pillar'' (1948) ISBN 1-4000-3037-4

''The Season of Comfort'' (1949) ISBN 0-233-98971-4

''A Search for the King'' (1950) ISBN 0-345-25455-4

''Dark Green, Bright Red'' (1950) ISBN 0-233-98913-7 (prophecy of the Guatemala coup d'état of 1954, see "In the Lair of the Octopus" ''Dreaming War'')

''The Judgment of Paris'' (1952) ISBN 0-345-33458-2

''Messiah'' (1954) ISBN 0-14-118039-0

''A Thirsty Evil'' (1956) (short stories)

''Julian'' (1964) ISBN 0-375-72706-X

''Washington, D.C.'' (1967) ISBN 0-316-90257-8

''Myra Breckinridge'' (1968) ISBN 1125979488

''Two Sisters'' (1970) ISBN 0-434-82958-7

''Burr'' (1973) ISBN 0-375-70873-1

''Myron'' (1974) ISBN 0-586-04300-4

''1876'' (1976) ISBN 0-375-70872-3

''Kalki'' (1978) ISBN 0-14-118037-4

''Creation'' (1981) ISBN 0-349-10475-1

''Duluth'' (1983) ISBN 0-394-52738-0

''Lincoln'' (1984) ISBN 0-375-70876-6

''Empire'' (1987) ISBN 0-375-70874-X

''Hollywood'' (1990) ISBN 0-375-70875-8

''Live from Golgotha: The Gospel according to Gore Vidal'' (1992) ISBN 0-14-023119-6

''The Smithsonian Institution'' (1998) ISBN 0-375-50121-5

''The Golden Age'' (2000) ISBN 0-375-72481-8

''Clouds and Eclipses: The Collected Short Stories'' (2006) (short stories, this is the same collection as ''A Thirsty Evil'' (1956), with one previously unpublished short story – ''Clouds and Eclipses'' – added)

Screenplays

''Climax!: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde'' (1954) (TV adaptation)

''The Catered Affair'' (1956)

''I Accuse!'' (1958)

''The Scapegoat'' (1959)

''Ben Hur'' (1959) (uncredited)

''Suddenly, Last Summer'' (1959)

''The Best Man'' (1964)

''Is Paris Burning?'' (1966)

''Last of the Mobile Hot Shots'' (1970)

''Caligula'' (1979)

''Dress Gray'' (1986)

''The Sicilian'' (1987) (uncredited)

''Billy the Kid'' (1989)

''Dimenticare Palermo'' (1989)

Works under pseudonyms

''A Star's Progress'' (aka ''Cry Shame!'') (1950) as Katherine Everard

''Thieves Fall Out'' (1953) as Cameron Kay

''Death Before Bedtime'' (1953) as Edgar Box

''Death in the Fifth Position'' (1952) as Edgar Box

''Death Likes It Hot'' (1954) as Edgar Box

Film & TV appearances

''Profile of a Writer: Gore Vidal'' – RM Productions (1979 documentary film)

''Gore Vidal: The Man Who Said No'' (1983 documentary film)

''Weekend In Wallop'' (1984)

''Vidal in Venice'' – Antelope Films for Channel Four Television (1987 documentary film)

''Bob Roberts'' – as Senator Brickley Paiste (1992 film)

''With Honors'' – Plays the pessimistic and right-wing Prof. Pitkannan (1994 film)

''The Celluloid Closet'' – (1995 documentary film)

''Gattaca'' – Plays Director Josef in science-fiction film (1997)

''The Education of Gore Vidal'' (2003) Documentary by ''Deborah Dickson'', aired in the US on ''PBS''

''Thinking XXX'' (2004 documentary)

''Da Ali G Show'' (2004 TV)

''Why We Fight'' (2005 film)

''Inside Deep Throat'' (2005 film)

''One Bright Shining Moment'' (2005 film)

''Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula'' (2005 spoof trailer)

''Foreign Correspondent'' – with former NSW premier Bob Carr

''The U.S. Versus John Lennon'' (2006 film)

Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra concert, August 2, 2007 – Narrated Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait (conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas) from a wheelchair.

''The Henry Rollins Show'' (2007 TV)

"The Simpsons" episode: "Moe'N'a Lisa"

"Family Guy" episode: "Mother Tucker"

Alex Jones radio show (2006)

''Terrorstorm: Final Cut Special Edition'' (2007)

''Lateline – ABC Television Australia Interview'' (May 2, 2008)

''Democracy Now'' – interview: on the Bush Presidency, History and the "United States of Amnesia" (May 14, 2008)

''The South Bank Show'' (May 18, 2008)

''Hardtalk – BBC News'' (May 22, 2008)

''The Andrew Marr Show (May 25, 2008)

''The US is not a republic anymore'' (June, 2008)

''Zero: An Investigation Into 9/11'' (June, 2008)

''Interview on the BBC's US Presidential Election Coverage with David Dimbleby (04/11/08)

"Writer Against the Grain": Gore Vidal in conversation with Jay Parini at the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar (audio, 59:09)

''Real Time with Bill Maher'' (April 10, 2009)

''Shrink'' (2009 film)

''"Gore Vidal's America"'' on The Real News Network (December 24, 2010)

See also

Politics in fiction

References

External links

The Gore Vidal Index, by Harry Kloman

The Gore Vidal Pages

Gore Vidal New York Review of Books author profile including a list of his reviews and essays from over 40 years, along with a bibliography

Audio recording: Gore Vidal at the Key West Literary Seminar, 2009: "Writer Against the Grain"

Gore Vidal's America - Seven part interview with Gore Vidal on The Real News - (video) July 5, 2009

Gore Vidal Interview with Melvyn Bragg in ''New Statesman'' Magazine - 11 October 2010

Category:1925 births Category:Living people Category:People from Orange County, New York Category:American dramatists and playwrights Category:American essayists Category:American expatriates in Italy Category:American historical novelists Category:American humanists Category:American memoirists Category:American novelists Category:American political writers Category:American screenwriters Category:American tax resisters Category:Edgar Award winners Category:Bisexual actors Category:Bisexual writers Category:Conspiracy theorists Category:LGBT memoirists Category:American LGBT military personnel Category:LGBT screenwriters Category:LGBT writers from the United States Category:Military brats Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:United States Army soldiers Category:National Book Award winners Category:Postmodern writers

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