Bob Dylan: His Musical Roots, and His Education in Greenwich Village

迅雷专用高速下载

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Barbara Klein. Today we have the first of two programs about one of America's greatest musical and lyrical minds. This singer and songwriter recently won a special Pulitzer Prize. The prize committee said works of "extraordinary poetic power" mark his influence on popular music and American culture.

VOICE ONE:

The artist is Bob Dylan.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

The nineteen sixties were a time of great social change. Bob Dylan was called the voice of his generation. Yet he rejected that idea, and his musical journey has taken him beyond the music his fans expected him to play.

His most recent album, "Modern Times," was released in two thousand six. It became his first number one album in thirty years.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman. He was born on May twenty-fourth, nineteen forty-one, in Duluth, Minnesota, in the Midwest. When he was young, his father became sick with polio. As a result, his family moved to the small town of Hibbing, Minnesota. His family was part of a small Jewish community there.

In high school, the young Robert Zimmerman started his own musical groups. These included the Shadow Blasters and the Golden Chords. He played popular rock and roll songs. He especially liked the music of Little Richard.

VOICE TWO:

In nineteen fifty-nine, he went to Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota. He left college after one year, but in Minneapolis he became interested in folk music. Here is a recording of him from nineteen sixty, playing a version of the folk song "Rambler, Gambler."

(MUSIC)

It was also in Minneapolis that he started calling himself Bob Dylan. In his book "Chronicles" he writes that he wanted to call himself Robert Allyn. But then he saw some poems by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, and that settled it.

VOICE ONE:

He also changed the direction of his life. In nineteen sixty-one he moved to New York City. One of the reasons he went was to visit the biggest musical influence on his young career. The folk singer Woody Guthrie was slowly dying ofHuntington's disease（杭廷顿氏舞蹈症）at a hospital in New Jersey.

知识扩展：杭廷顿氏舞蹈症Huntington's disease

杭廷顿氏舞蹈症是一个单基因的遗传疾病，但是有一点复杂，不是检验方法复杂，而是在于如何去面对这个疾病。它是一种显性的遗传疾病，会一代传一代，而且因为发病得晚，所以会影响到生育。不管是 40 还是 50 岁发病，刚开始的时候可能只是轻微情绪不太好，但是到后来会产生所谓的杭廷顿氏舞蹈症。通常病程大约是 15 年左右，最后整个脑部都会退化，变得像植物人一样无法医疗。从基因的观点而言，这个疾病其实是很简单的，在基因的前端，有一个 CAG（三核启酸）序列，正常人大概有 29 个重复，但病人大概是增加至 36 个重复，最高可以到 120。如果基因的前端产生这种变化的话，就是一种疾病，会引起一些脑部的变化。

Bob Dylan visited him many times and later wrote a song about him. Here is "Song to Woody."

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

The artistic life of New York provided a rich musical education that the young Bob Dylan could not have received anywhere else. Much of it came from listening to folk performers in the Greenwich Village area of the city.

He had an excellent memory. He remembered people, and ways of playing the guitar. He played in bars and clubs, and became part of a loose community of performers. They shared traditional songs and added their own touches to create a living art form. 

In less than a year, Bob Dylan was offered a recording contract by John Hammond of Columbia Records. His first album, in nineteen sixty-two, was simply called "Bob Dylan." Mostly it was songs he had learned.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Also in nineteen sixty-two, Robert Zimmerman officially changed his name to Robert Dylan. Bob is short for Robert. The following year, he released his second album, called "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan."

This time, he wrote most of the songs himself. One was a song about his girlfriend at the time, Suze Rotolo, called "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right."

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Another song offered powerful words as social unrest grew in America in the nineteen sixties. The sixties brought major civil-rights legislation for blacks, and protests against American expansion of the war in Vietnam.

The group Peter, Paul and Mary had an international hit when they recorded their own version of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind."

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

In the next few years, Bob Dylan entered a period of intense creativity. Some of his songs were topical. For example, his third album included a song based on a true story, the killing of a black worker by a white tobacco farmer.

The album, released in January of nineteen sixty-four, was called "The Times They Are A-Changin'." The song was "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll."

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Bob Dylan performed with folk singer Joan Baez at the nineteen sixty-three March on Washington. That was the big civil-rights demonstration where Martin Luther King Junior gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.

For many listeners in those early years, Bob Dylan was singing about the problems and issues that defined their time. The press called him a poet and prophet of his generation. The pressure to live up to that image grew, even as his own musical interests expanded and he explored new sounds.

VOICE ONE:

In nineteen sixty-three the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island featured Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Phil Ochs. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame calls it a defining moment in the folk-protest movement.

But another defining moment in Bob Dylan's career came at the nineteen sixty-five festival. The crowd expected him to play his folk music. Instead, he came on stage with an electric guitar and a blues band.

VOICE TWO:

Many in the crowd disapproved of his new musical direction. They booed him until he left the stage. Pete Seeger threatened to cut off the electricity to the band's instruments.

The date was July twenty-fifth, nineteen sixty-five. It was a point from which Bob Dylan never turned back. And it's the point from which we will continue our story next week.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Our program was written and produced by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Barbara Klein. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. Our programs are online with pictures, transcripts and MP3s atwww.en8848.com.

知识补充：

 一句话点评：鲍勃.迪伦是摇滚乐时代最有影响的歌手和歌曲创作者。

迪伦的影响力主要体现在60年代，如果没有迪伦，无疑摇滚乐将走一段弯路，将不会有“披头士”（BGEATLES，THE）的《佩珀军士》（Sgt.Pepper），不会有“滚石”的《乞丐的宴会》（Beggar’s Banquet），也不会有“乐队”的《来自大平克的音乐》（Music form Big Pink），这就是他的影响程度。他对音乐的最主要的贡献，这点也影响了列农和麦卡特尼之后的很多歌手，那就是歌词的深刻寓意与音乐成为同等重要的一部分，从他一开始的抗议歌曲，就展示了他的歌词比他的音乐更浪漫、更激动人心。他对工业国家整个一代人的敏感性的形成起了很大的作用，他的音乐对理解和分析 60年代是至关重要的。

他对音乐的最主要的贡献，这点也影响了列农和麦卡特尼之后的很多歌手，那就是歌词的深刻寓意与音乐成为同等重要的一部分，从他一开始的抗议歌曲，就展示了他的歌词比他的音乐更浪漫、更激动人心。他对工业国家整个一代人的敏感性的形成起了很大的作用，他的音乐对理解和分析60年代是至关重要的。

纵观其音乐生涯，Bob Dylan 真正赋予了摇滚乐以灵魂。