Musical Artist Final Paper Pick an artist from the list below. Artist Genre Louis Armstrong Jazz | Scat Bob Dylan Folk Bob Seger Rock Jimmy Buffett Folk Pick one of the artists above. Thoroughly research your subject and present a detailed history that includes all of the important biographical and career information, their important recordings, and any awards or other accomplishments (personally, socially, and musical). Include a discussion about the music that influenced your chosen artist any social issues, movements, or trends that have been a factor in their careers. Criteria Achievement Level Assigned Topic (20% Weighting) 20 percent Student covered a topic as stated in the project description or approved by the instructor. Topic Information and Content (40% Weighting) 40 percent Student has provided substantial and thorough information on their subject and has met all of the parameters of the project. Sentence Structure (5% Weighting) 5 percent All sentences are well constructed with varied structure. Grammar, Punctuation & Spelling (5% Weighting) 5 percent Author makes no errors in grammar, punctuation or spelling that distracts the reader from the content. Project Format (5% Weighting) 5 percent Student has used APA format and has submitted a paper of four or more double-spaced pages in length – not including the title page and reference page. Overall Content (25% Weighting) 25 percent Student has gone beyond the basic criteria of the assignment.

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Bob Dylan whose birth name was Robert Zimmerman is an American song writer and singer born on 24^th May 1941 to Abram and Beatrice Zimmerman at a hospital in Duluth, Minnesota.  During his childhood years, they resided at Duluth where his parents were members of a close-knit Jewish community. It was not until he was six that they moved from Duluth and went to Hibbing, his mother’s hometown, as a result of his father getting ill with Polio. They lived in Hibbing for the rest of his childhood where he grew up and attended high school. He spent his early years listening to the radio where he preferred listening to the blues and country music while he was a child then he shifted to rock and roll during his teenage years (Maymudes 2014).

During his years in high school, he was a member of several bands and he performed music that was sung by Little Richard and Elvis Presley. After high school, he moved to Minneapolis where he joined Minnesota University where he began to perform at a coffee house that made him get involved with the Dinky town fork music circuit. This was the beginning of his illustrious music career which has revolutionized the pop genre (Dylan 2014). He was married to Sara Lowndes with whom they had 4 children and divorced after being married for 12 years. He got married again to Carol Dennis with whom they had a child together before they divorced after 6 years in marriage.

It was during his time with the Dinky town fork music circuit that he began to refer to himself as Bob Dylan; the name was inspired by the poetry of Dylan Thomas. Dylan dropped out of college in 1960 and went to New York to visit his ailing music idol Woody Guthrie as well as to perform Guthrie’s music given that Dylan’s earlier performances had been influenced greatly by him. Dylan started playing his own music in pubs where he started learning more about folk music from the singers he encountered such as Dave Van Ronk and Oddetta. Suze Rutolo, Dylan’s girlfriend whom she met in 1961 and was in a relationship with until 1964 was also instrumental in the classic songs sung by Dylan (Dylan 2014).

Dylan got public recognition when Robert Shelton wrote in the New York Times about a show he had performed really well. During the same month, he was signed to Columbia records by John Hammond, who recognized his talent during his performance in Carolyn Hester’s release of her third album where he was playing the harmonica. The first album he produced was titled, “Bob Dylan” and some of its debut songs consisted of folk songs which were authored by other singers, but he revised the songs and sang them again.

He released his second album titled “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” which contained some of his original songs, such as A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.” The album contained his song titled “Blowing in the wind,” which was the song that made me choose to write about Bob Dylan as I was impressed by the way it motivated the American civil rights movement.  The composition of the song also made me like the song thus made me a fan of his music from then henceforth. Majority of the songs he produced in the second album were labelled as protest songs, which were inspired by his music idol, Woody Guthrie. Dylan’s singing of topical songs enriched his earlier reputation and grew his identity not only as a singer and a songwriter, but also as the voice of his generation. Advocating for the rights of the people was and still is a major inspiration for most of the songs sung and produced by Bob Dylan.