In my 2024 book, MUSIC TITANS – 250 GREATEST RECORDING ARTISTS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS, using the metrics of Popularity (i.e., records sold; concert draw; career longevity), Influence (on the music and culture, in both the short-term and long-term), and Major Awards/Honors Won, Bob Dylan was ranked #2. Coincidently, he was also ranked #2 on Rolling Stone Magazine’s celebrated list. Why? Quite simply, Bob Dylan profoundly changed popular songwriting, recording, singing, and the greater society and culture. With such masterworks as “Blowin’ in the Wind”, “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”, “Mr. Tambourine Man”, “Like a Rolling Stone” and countless others, Dylan demonstrated that songs could be about Anything at all, and not simply love won and love lost. When “Like a Rolling Stone” was released in 1965, his record company and radio deejays didn’t know what to do with it— it was six minutes long; should it be edited down? Should the song be stopped mid-stream and then flipped over? Suffice to say, it became not only an enormous hit (#2 on Billboard), but it gave artists permission to record much longer songs (than the typical 2-3 minute singles) and helped give rise to album-oriented artists (Dylan being one of the first and most important) and new FM music radio stations. Likewise, his vocal style— soon there were a host of artists who fell outside the “pretty voice” mainstream— from Jagger to Donovan, Lou Reed to Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen to Tom Waits. As far as Dylan’s impact on the greater culture, it is hard to overestimate that, beginning with his early ‘60s influence on the Civil Rights and anti-war movements as he was an enormous force on college campuses, them morphing into, perhaps, The most important counter-cultural figure later in the decade and into the ‘70s, even if this was a mantle he never sought. Who are some of the many artists who have paid tribute to his influence on their own development? Start with the Beatles (certainly, Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison), Johnny Cash, Pete Townshend, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Jimi Hendrix, Patti Smith, Tom Petty, Gerry Garcia, Bono, Cohen, Waits, John Prine, even Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, and Sly Stone (and there’s just not enough space to go on). Honors and Awards? The Grammys and Rock Hall induction do not set him apart, but what other songwriter has won a Nobel Prize in Literature, putting him alongside such greats as Faulkner, Hemingway, Eliot, and Morrison? He’s won national honors from France and Spain, Sweden and the U.S. he is taught in universities from Harvard to Cambridge to Oslo. But, best of all, listen to the music, as I’ve done all my life, and maybe read along with my newest book, DOIWN THE ROAD WITH DYLAN – LIVING WITH THE SONGS, available online at BookBaby Book Shop. Thanks for reading.