Dire Straits (album)
Dire Straits is the debut studio album by the British rock band Dire Straits released on 7 October 1978 by Vertigo Records internationally and by Warner Bros. Records in the United States; the album produced the hit single "Sultans of Swing", which reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 8 on the UK Singles Chart. The album reached #1 on album charts in Germany and France, #2 in the United States and #5 in the United Kingdom. Dire Straits was certified double-platinum in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Dire Straits came about through a musical collaboration between David Knopfler. After graduating from college with a degree in English, Mark Knopfler took a job writing for the Yorkshire Evening Post. Wanting to pursue a career in music, he took a teaching position at Loughton College while playing music at night, performing with pub bands around town, including Brewer's Droop and Cafe Racers. Following his divorce and struggling financially, Knopfler moved into his brother David's flat, where John Illsley lived.
In 1977, Mark and David decided to form a band. They recruited drummer Pick began rehearsing. A friend of Mark's helped give the group a reference to their financial situation. After a few months of rehearsals, the band borrowed enough money to record a five-song demo tape, which included the song "Sultans of Swing." They took the tape to disc jockey Charlie Gillett, who had a radio show called "Honky Tonk" on BBC Radio London. The band sought out his advice. Gillett liked what he started playing "Sultans of Swing" on his show. Two months Dire Straits signed a recording contract with the Vertigo Records division of Phonogram Inc. Dire Straits was recorded at Basing Street Studios in London from 13 February to 5 March 1978. Knopfler used a few guitars for the recording, including a pair of red Fender Stratocasters—one from 1961 and one from 1962, he played his 1938 National Style O 14 fret guitar on "Water of Love" and "Wild West End." He used a black Telecaster Thinline on "Setting Me Up". David played a Harmony Sovereign acoustic guitar.
The album was produced by Muff Winwood, engineered by Rhett Davies. The single "Sultans of Swing" first broke into the United States top five early in the spring of 1979—being a hit a full five months after the album was released there—and rose to number eight on the British charts. "Water of Love" was released as a single in some countries, charted in Australia, reaching number 54, in the Netherlands, reaching number 28. In Europe, the album sold four million copies, in the United States, it sold two million copies; the album was remastered and released with the rest of the Dire Straits catalogue in 1996 to most of the world excluding the U. S. and on 19 September 2000 in the United States. The album cover artwork is taken from a painting by Chuck Loyola; the Dire Straits Fender logo, which appears on the back cover, was designed by Geoff Halpern. Dire Straits promoted the release of their first single and album with the Dire Straits Tour, which started on 6 June 1978 at the Lafayette Club in Wolverhampton, included 55 shows, ending on 18 November 1978 at the College of Education in Hitchin.
The European tour included concerts in the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands. These concerts presented Dire Straits with their largest audiences to date; the first leg of the tour promoted their first single, "Sultans of Swing". This first leg took the band around Great Britain in June and July 1978, performing in England and Wales; the group performed in small halls with a maximum capacity of one thousand. The second leg of the tour promoted the band's debut album; this leg took the band to several European countries, where they met journalists and performed on television programs. In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave the album four out of five stars, calling it "remarkably accomplished for a debut". Erlewine praised Knopfler's "spare, tasteful guitar lines and his husky warbling" and his "inclination toward Dylanesque imagery, which enhances the smoky, low-key atmosphere of the album."In his review for Rolling Stone magazine, Ken Tucker wrote that the band "plays tight, spare mixtures of rock and country music with a serene spirit and witty irony.
It's as if they were aware that their forte has nothing to do with what's happening in the industry, but couldn't care less." Tucker singled out "Sultans of Swing" for its "inescapable hook" and "Bob Dylan-like snarl in its vocal". He praised "Setting Me Up" as a "heavenly number and bitter." All tracks written by Mark Knopfler. The original album contained a shorter version of "Sultans of Swing", omitting the last seconds of the guitar solo at the end of the song; the full-length version was included on the remastered edition of the album. Cassette versions of the album featured the sides in reverse order from the original vinyl album—side A consisting of tracks 6–9 and side B consisting of 1–5; the French issue of the cassette had "Down to the Waterline" and "Wild West End" interchanged in the order listed above to allow for more equal playing time on each side. John Illsley – bass, vocals David Knopfler – rhythm guitar, vocals Mark Knopfler – vocals and rhythm guitars Pick Withers – drums Rhett Davies – engineer Paddy Eckersley – photography Chuck Loyola – cover painting Bob Ludwig – remastering Alan Schmidt – art direction Muff Winwood – producer Dire Straits spent 132 weeks in the UK Albums Chart.
In Australia, the album was the tenth best-selling album of 1978. Notes Citations Dire Straits at M
Fingerstyle guitar
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking. The term "fingerstyle" is something of a misnomer, since it is present in several different genres and styles of music—but because it involves a different technique, not just a "style" of playing for the guitarist's picking/plucking hand; the term is used synonymously with fingerpicking, although fingerpicking can refer to a specific tradition of folk and country guitar playing in the US. The terms "fingerstyle" and "fingerpicking" applied to similar string instruments such as the banjo. Music arranged for fingerstyle playing can include chords and other elements such as artificial harmonics, hammering on and pulling off notes with the fretting hand, using the body of the guitar percussively, many other techniques; the guitarist will play the melody notes, interspersed with the melody's accompanying chords and the deep bassline simultaneously.
Some fingerpicking guitarists intersperse percussive tapping along with the melody and bassline. This enables a single guitarist to provide all of these important song elements; this enables singer-guitarists to accompany themselves, it enables smaller groups which have only a single guitarist to use one guitarist to provide all of these musical elements. Fingerpicking is a standard technique on the classical or nylon string guitar, but is considered more of a specialized technique on steel string guitars. Fingerpicking is less common on electric guitars, except in the heavy metal music virtuoso style of lead guitar playing known as shred guitar; the timbre of fingerpicked notes is described as, "result in a more piano-like attack," and less like pizzicato. Because individual digits play notes on the guitar rather than the hand working as a single unit, a guitarist playing fingerstyle can perform several musical elements simultaneously. One definition of the technique has been put forward by the Toronto Fingerstyle Guitar Association: Physically, "Fingerstyle" refers to using each of the right hand fingers independently to play the multiple parts of a musical arrangement that would be played by several band members.
Deep bass notes, harmonic accompaniment and percussion can all be played when playing Fingerstyle. Many fingerstyle guitarists have adopted a combination of acrylic nails and a thumbpick to improve tone and decrease nail wear and chance of breaking or chipping. Notable guitarists to adopt this hardware are Doyle Dykes and Canadian guitarist Don Ross and Richard Smith Players do not have to carry a plectrum, but fingernails may have to be maintained at the right length and in good condition if the player has a preference to use fingernails over their skin, it is possible to play multiple non-adjacent strings at the same time. This enables the guitarist to play a low bass note and a high treble note at the same time; this enables the guitarist to play double stops, such as an octave, a fifth, a sixth, or other intervals that suit the harmony. It is more suitable for playing polyphonically, with separate, independent musical lines, or separate melody and bass parts, therefore more suitable to unaccompanied solo playing, or to small ensembles, like duos in which a guitarist accompanies a singer.
Fingerstyle players have up to four surfaces striking the strings and/or other parts of the guitar independently. (an exception to this may be found in the flamenco technique of rasgueado. It is easy to play arpeggios, it is possible to play chords without any arpeggiation, because up to five strings can be plucked simultaneously. There is less need for fretting hand damping in playing chords, since only the strings that are required can be plucked. A greater variation in strokes is possible, allowing greater expressiveness in timbre and dynamics. A wide variety of strums and rasgueados are possible. Less energy is imparted to strings than with plectrum playing, leading to lower volume when playing acoustically. Playing on heavier gauge strings can damage nails: fingerstyle is more suited to nylon strings or lighter gauge steel strings Nylon string guitars are most played fingerstyle; the term "Classical guitar" can refer to any kind of art music played fingerstyle on a nylon string guitar, or more narrowly to music of the classical period, as opposed to baroque or romantic music.
The major feature of classical-fingerstyle technique is that it enables solo rendition of harmony and polyphonic music in much the same manner as the piano can. The technique is intended to maximize the degree of control over the musical dynamics, texture and timbral characteristics of the guitar; the sitting position of the player, while somewhat variable places the guitar on the left leg, elevated, rather than the right. This sitting position is intended to maintain shoulder alignment and physical balance between the le
Single (music)
In the music industry, a single is a type of release a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record or an album. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, a single is a song, released separately from an album, although it also appears on an album; these are the songs from albums that are released separately for promotional uses such as digital download or commercial radio airplay and are expected to be the most popular. In other cases a recording released. Despite being referred to as a single, singles can include up to as many as three tracks; the biggest digital music distributor, iTunes Store, accepts as many as three tracks less than ten minutes each as a single, as does popular music player Spotify. Any more than three tracks on a musical release or thirty minutes in total running time is either an extended play or, if over six tracks long, an album; when mainstream music was purchased via vinyl records, singles would be released double-sided.
That is to say, they were released with an A-side and B-side, on which two singles would be released, one on each side. Moreover, only the most popular songs from a released album would be released as a single. In more contemporary forms of music consumption, artists release most, if not all, of the tracks on an album as singles; the basic specifications of the music single were set in the late 19th century, when the gramophone record began to supersede phonograph cylinders in commercially produced musical recordings. Gramophone discs were manufactured in several sizes. By about 1910, the 10-inch, 78 rpm shellac disc had become the most used format; the inherent technical limitations of the gramophone disc defined the standard format for commercial recordings in the early 20th century. The crude disc-cutting techniques of the time and the thickness of the needles used on record players limited the number of grooves per inch that could be inscribed on the disc surface, a high rotation speed was necessary to achieve acceptable recording and playback fidelity.
78 rpm was chosen as the standard because of the introduction of the electrically powered, synchronous turntable motor in 1925, which ran at 3600 rpm with a 46:1 gear ratio, resulting in a rotation speed of 78.26 rpm. With these factors applied to the 10-inch format and performers tailored their output to fit the new medium; the 3-minute single remained the standard into the 1960s, when the availability of microgroove recording and improved mastering techniques enabled recording artists to increase the duration of their recorded songs. The breakthrough came with Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone". Although CBS tried to make the record more "radio friendly" by cutting the performance into halves, separating them between the two sides of the vinyl disc, both Dylan and his fans demanded that the full six-minute take be placed on one side, that radio stations play the song in its entirety; as digital downloading and audio streaming have become more prevalent, it has become possible for every track on an album to be available separately.
The concept of a single for an album has been retained as an identification of a more promoted or more popular song within an album collection. The demand for music downloads skyrocketed after the launch of Apple's iTunes Store in January 2001 and the creation of portable music and digital audio players such as the iPod. In September 1997, with the release of Duran Duran's "Electric Barbarella" for paid downloads, Capitol Records became the first major label to sell a digital single from a well-known artist. Geffen Records released Aerosmith's "Head First" digitally for free. In 2004, Recording Industry Association of America introduced digital single certification due to significant sales of digital formats, with Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" becoming RIAA's first platinum digital single. In 2013, RIAA incorporated on-demand streams into the digital single certification. Single sales in the United Kingdom reached an all-time low in January 2005, as the popularity of the compact disc was overtaken by the then-unofficial medium of the music download.
Recognizing this, On 17 April 2005, Official UK Singles Chart added the download format to the existing format of physical CD singles. Gnarls Barkley was the first act to reach No.1 on this chart through downloads alone in April 2006, for their debut single "Crazy", released physically the following week. On 1 January 2007 digital downloads became eligible from the point of release, without the need for an accompanying physical. Sales improved in the following years, reaching a record high in 2008 that still proceeded to be overtaken in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch, 12-inch vinyl discs. Other, less common, formats include singles on Digital Compact Cassette, DVD, LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc; the most common form of the vinyl single is the 45 or 7-inch. The names are derived from its play speed, 45 rpm, the standard diameter, 7 inches; the 7-inch 45 rpm record was released 31 March 1949 by RCA Victor as a smaller, more durable and higher-fidelity replacement for the 78 rpm shellac discs.
The first 45
Recording studio
A recording studio is a specialized facility for sound recording and audio production of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enough to record a single singer-guitarist, to a large building with space for a full orchestra of 100 or more musicians. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician or audio engineer to achieve optimum acoustic properties. Recording studios may be used to record singers, instrumental musicians, voice-over artists for advertisements or dialogue replacement in film, television, or animation, foley, or to record their accompanying musical soundtracks; the typical recording studio consists of a room called the "studio" or "live room" equipped with microphones and mic stands, where instrumentalists and vocalists perform. The engineers and producers listen to the live music and the recorded "tracks" on high-quality monitor speakers or headphones.
There will be smaller rooms called "isolation booths" to accommodate loud instruments such as drums or electric guitar amplifiers and speakers, to keep these sounds from being audible to the microphones that are capturing the sounds from other instruments or voices, or to provide "drier" rooms for recording vocals or quieter acoustic instruments such as an acoustic guitar a or fiddle. Major recording studios have a range of large and hard-to-transport instruments and music equipment in the studio, such as a grand piano, Hammond organ, electric piano. Recording studios consist of three or more rooms: The "live room" of the studio where the vocalists sing and instrumentalists play their instruments, with their singing and playing picked up by microphones and, for electric and electronic instruments, by connecting the instruments' outputs or DI unit outputs to the mixing board. Isolation booths are small sound-insulated rooms with doors, designed for instrumentalists. Vocal booths are designed rooms for singers.
In both types of rooms, there are windows so the performers can see other band members and the audio engineer/record producer, as singers and musicians give or receive visual cues. This equipment may make noise. Recording studios are designed around the principles of room acoustics to create a set of spaces with the acoustical properties required for recording sound with precision and accuracy; this will consist of both room treatment and soundproofing to prevent sound from leaving the property. A recording studio has to be soundproofed on its outer shell as well, to prevent noises from the surrounding streets and roads from being picked up by microphones. A recording studio may include additional rooms, such as a vocal booth—a small room designed for voice recording, as well as one or more extra isolation booths for loud guitar stacks and extra control rooms. Though sound isolation is a key goal, the musicians, audio engineers and record producers still need to be able to see each other, to see cue gestures and conducting by a bandleader.
As such, the "live room", isolation booths, vocal booths and control room have windows. Equipment found in a recording studio includes: A large professional-grade mixing console Additional small mixing consoles with 4, 8 or 16 channels, for adding more channels A large number of preamplifiers for microphones, such as the Neve 1272 and Neve 3104 Multitrack recorder Computers A wide selection of microphones. Studios have Neuman Tube mics, AKG tube mics, RCA ribbon mics, a number of Shure SM 57 and SM 58 mics. A large number of DI unit boxes Two or more record players Syncs A wide variety of microphone stands (boom stands, straigh
The Spokesman-Review
The Spokesman-Review is a daily broadsheet newspaper in the northwest United States, based in Spokane, Washington. It has the third highest readership among daily newspapers in the state, with most of its readership base in Eastern Washington; the Spokesman-Review was formed from the merger of the Spokane Falls Review and the Spokesman in 1893 and first published under the present name on June 29, 1894. It absorbed its competing sister publication, the Spokane Chronicle, the afternoon paper whose final edition was in 1992 on Friday, July 31. Long co-owned, the two combined their sports departments in late 1981 and news staffs in early 1983; the newspaper published three editions, a metro edition covering Spokane and the outlying areas, a Spokane Valley edition and an Idaho edition covering northern Idaho. After a large downsizing of the newsroom staff in November 2007, the paper moved to a single zoned edition emphasizing localized "Voices" sections staffed by non-union employees; the "Voices" section still caters to the three original editions, publishing a Valley "Voices," a North Spokane "Voices" and a South Spokane "Voices."
Owner of both papers since 1897, W. H. Cowles set the Chronicle on a course to be independent and The Spokesman-Review to support Republican Party causes. Time magazine related the papers' success gaining lowered rates for freight carried to the Northwest and an improved park system and that helped the region. Increasing its reputation for comprehensive local news and by opposing "gambling and prostitution," The Spokesman-Review gained popularity; the paper's opposition to building the Grand Coulee Dam was not quite so universally applauded, when it opposed the New Deal and the Fair Deal, it so disturbed President of the United States Harry Truman that he declared The Spokesman-Review to be one of the "two worst" newspapers in the United States. The Scripps League's Press closed in 1939. Cowles created the Idaho Farmer, Washington Farmer, Oregon Farmer and Utah Farmer. Cowles died in 1946; when William H. Cowles Jr. succeeded his father as publisher, James Bracken received much more news and editorial control as managing editor.
Despite its hometown feel, The Spokesman-Review has been known to take a moderate-to-liberal stance when it comes to opinions ranging from tackling city hall to hate groups in the region. Those groups have threatened to attack the paper, at times have made good on that promise. In 1997, three extreme-right militants were tried and convicted of bombing the office of The Spokesman-Review as well as an abortion clinic; the Spokesman-Review is one of the few remaining family-owned newspapers in the United States. It is owned by Cowles Company, which owns KHQ-TV/Spokane and The KHQ Television Group. While the newspaper wins awards, it is burdened with local critics and activists who suspect the Cowles family of using its alleged vast local media influence to sway public opinion. In particular, a issue regarding a public-private partnership wherein the Cowles family may have profited, some claim, up to $20 million; this is referred to as the "River Park Square Parking Garage" issue. The newspaper underwent an independent review by the Washington News Council regarding its River Park Square coverage and was found to be at fault for its news bias.
In 2004, Spokane mayor James E. West became the target of a sting operation conducted by The Spokesman-Review; some journalists and academics criticized the paper for. West was cleared of criminal charges by the FBI but not before the mayor lost a recall vote by the citizens of Spokane in December 2005. In the summer of 2006, West died of cancer. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, as reported in the Puget Sound Business Journal April 29, 2010, the newspaper's average Sunday circulation totaled 95,939. Weekly circulation averaged 76,291; that represented a year-over-year decrease of about 10.5 percent. With the demise of the print edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Spokesman-Review is the state's third-largest paper, after the Seattle Times and the News-Tribune of Tacoma. Jim Kershner, "The Spokesman-Review," History Link, July 26, 2012. Greg Lamm, "Washington's Dailies See Subscriber Exodus," Puget Sound Business Journal, April 29, 2010; the Spokesman-Review official website The Spokesman Review Google News archive, news.google.com/ —PDFs of 31,191 issues dated 1889 to 2007.
PBS Frontline report A Hidden Life
National String Instrument Corporation
The National String Instrument Corporation was a guitar company that formed to manufacture the first resonator guitars. National produced resonator ukuleles and mandolins; the company was formed by John Dopyera, the luthier who invented the resonator, George Beauchamp, a steel guitar player who had suggested to Dopyera the need for a guitar loud enough to play a melody over brass and other wind instruments. In 1927, National sold under their National brand, they had metal bodies and a tricone resonator system, with three aluminium cones joined by a T-shaped aluminium spider. Wooden-bodied models soon followed, based on inexpensive plywood student guitar bodies supplied by Kay and other established instrument manufacturers. In 1928, Dopyera left National, with four of his brothers formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company to produce a competing single resonator design, with the resonator cone inverted. John Dopyera continued to hold stock in National; the Dobro design was both louder than the tricone.
National soon introduced their own single resonator design, the biscuit, which Dopyera claimed to have designed before leaving, though the patent was registered by Beauchamp. National continued to produce tricone designs, which some players preferred. In their 1930 catalog, National list eight key associates, including Adolph Rickenbacker, George Beauchamp, Harry Watson, Paul Barth, Jack Levy. In 1932, the Dopyera brothers secured a controlling interest in both National and Dobro, merged the companies to form the National Dobro Corporation. In 1989 a new company in California named National Reso-Phonic Guitars began manufacturing reproductions of resonator instruments based on designs originated by John Dopyera; the National brand and trademark are associated with two of the three basic resonator designs: The tricone design with three resonator cones The biscuit design with a single coneTerms such as National or National pattern are used to distinguish these patterns from the Dobro design. Some of the artists that used National guitars were: Johnny Winter Black Ace Scrapper Blackwell Bumble Bee Slim Bo Carter Ray Davies Reverend Gary Davis Blind Boy Fuller Arvella Gray Son House Mark Knopfler Babe Stovall Tampa Red Bukka White Bob Brozman Sol Hoopii Chris Whitley Oscar "Buddy" Woods Dan Auerbach Reverend J. Peyton of The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band Tinsley Ellis Resonator guitar the history section.
Dobro Manufacturing Company. National Reso-Phonic Guitars. "The Earliest Days of the Electric Guitar" at Rickenbacker website Wheeler, Tom: The Guitar Book: A Handbook for Electric & Acoustic Guitarists, Harpercollins - ISBN 0-06-014579-X Vintage National guitars
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter and visual artist, a major figure in popular culture for six decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" became anthems for the Civil Rights Movement and anti-war movement, his lyrics during this period incorporated a wide range of political, social and literary influences, defied pop-music conventions and appealed to the burgeoning counterculture. Following his self-titled debut album in 1962, which comprised traditional folk songs, Dylan made his breakthrough as a songwriter with the release of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan the following year; the album featured "Blowin' in the Wind" and the thematically complex "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". For many of these songs he adapted the tunes and sometimes phraseology of older folk songs, he went on to release the politically charged The Times They Are a-Changin' and the more lyrically abstract and introspective Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964.
In 1965 and 1966, Dylan encountered controversy when he adopted electrically amplified rock instrumentation, in the space of 15 months recorded three of the most important and influential rock albums of the 1960s: Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. The six-minute single. In July 1966, Dylan withdrew from touring after being injured in a motorcycle accident. During this period he recorded a large body of songs with members of the Band, who had backed him on tour; these recordings were released as the collaborative album The Basement Tapes, in 1975. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dylan explored country music and rural themes in John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, New Morning. In 1975, he released Blood on the Tracks. In the late 1970s, he became a born-again Christian and released a series of albums of contemporary gospel music before returning to his more familiar rock-based idiom in the early 1980s; the major works of his career include Time Out of Mind, "Love and Theft", Tempest.
His most recent recordings have comprised versions of traditional American standards songs recorded by Frank Sinatra. Backed by a changing lineup of musicians, he has toured since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed "the Never Ending Tour". Since 1994, Dylan has published eight books of drawings and paintings, his work has been exhibited in major art galleries, he has sold more than 100 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has received numerous awards including ten Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, an Academy Award. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame; the Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power". In 2012, Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 2016, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".
Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in St. Mary's Hospital on May 24, 1941, in Duluth and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Range west of Lake Superior, he has David. Dylan's paternal grandparents and Anna Zimmerman, emigrated from Odessa, in the Russian Empire, to the United States following the anti-Semitic pogroms of 1905, his maternal grandparents and Florence Stone, were Lithuanian Jews who arrived in the United States in 1902. In his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan wrote that his paternal grandmother's maiden name was Kirghiz and her family originated from the Kağızman district of Kars Province in northeastern Turkey. Dylan's father, Abram Zimmerman – an electric-appliance shop owner – and mother, Beatrice "Beatty" Stone, were part of a small, close-knit Jewish community, they lived in Duluth until Dylan was six, when his father had polio and the family returned to his mother's hometown, where they lived for the rest of Dylan's childhood. In his early years he listened to the radio—first to blues and country stations from Shreveport and when he was a teenager, to rock and roll.
Dylan formed several bands while attending Hibbing High School. In the Golden Chords, he performed covers of songs by Elvis Presley, their performance of Danny & the Juniors' "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay" at their high school talent show was so loud that the principal cut the microphone. On January 31, 1959, three days before his death, Buddy Holly performed at the Duluth Armory. Zimmerman, 17, was in the audience. Something I didn't know what, and it gave me the chills."In 1959, Dylan's high school yearbook carried the caption "Robert Zimmerman: to join'Little Richard'." That year, as Elston Gunnn, he performed two dates with Bobby Vee, clapping. In September 1959, Zimmerman enrolled at the University of Minnesota, his focus on rock and roll gave way to American folk music. In 1985, he said: The thing about rock'n'roll is that for me anyway it wasn't enough... There were great catch-phrases and driving pulse rhythms... but the songs weren't serious or didn't reflect li
