Bob Dylan

USA, 1961–now

American singer and songwriter (b. 1941) who moved from folk revival material to electric rock in 1965. His lyric writing extended the range of subject and language available to popular song; he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016.

MusicRoots documents 9 artists who influenced Bob Dylan and 41 artists Bob Dylan influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Bob Dylan?

• The Carter Family — The Carter Family was part of the folk canon Dylan absorbed early in his career — real American music, simple, deep, honest.
• Pete Seeger — Seeger introduced Dylan to the Greenwich Village folk community and personally championed his early career.
• Lead Belly — Lead Belly was one of the first sounds that struck Dylan: 'Those songs went straight through me.'
• Odetta — Odetta's recording made Dylan trade his electric guitar for an acoustic on the spot.
• Woody Guthrie — Dylan came to New York to visit his idol Woody Guthrie.
• Robert Johnson — Dylan described in detail how Johnson's records overturned his songwriting.
• Hank Williams — Dylan called Hank Williams's songs his school of songwriting.
• Johnny Cash — Dylan called Cash's voice a revelation of his youth — the two exchanged fan letters before duetting on Nashville Skyline; 'Johnny was and is the North Star'.
• Ramblin' Jack Elliott — Elliott's guitar and his command of Guthrie's songs made a deep impression on Dylan in Minneapolis and then in New York, where Elliott mentored him; Dylan called him the king of the folk singers.

Which artists did Bob Dylan influence?

• Boris Grebenshchikov — Bob Dylan was a formative idol for Grebenshchikov — inspired by Dylan he spent the summer of 1978 writing songs, and 'Dylanisms' run through Aquarium.
• Simon & Garfunkel — Dylan showed Paul Simon that serious poetry could exist in the form of a pop song.
• Donovan — Dylan was Donovan's primary inspiration at the start — he learned from him that you could be a poet in rock.
• Buffalo Springfield — The band grew directly out of the mid-1960s folk revival's electric turn — Dylan's jangling guitars, harmony vocals and introspective lyrics recast for a rock band.
• The Byrds — The Byrds made folk-rock by turning Dylan songs into electric hits — their debut single 'Mr. Tambourine Man' was the first Dylan composition to top a major pop chart.
• Jefferson Airplane — Dylan's literary approach to lyrics was a key influence on Paul Kantner and Marty Balin's songwriting.
• Love — Dylan's literary approach to songwriting was a key influence on Arthur Lee's complex lyrical style.
• The Zombies — Dylan influenced the lyrical seriousness evident in The Zombies' later work.
• Procol Harum — Dylan's literary surrealism was the primary influence on Keith Reid's lyrics.
• The Mamas & the Papas — Dylan's songwriting craft was a primary influence on John Phillips' approach to lyrics.
• The Turtles — The Turtles debuted with a cover of Dylan's 'It Ain't Me Babe' which launched their career.
• The Band — The Band grew directly from Dylan's touring Hawks — a documented founding relationship.
• Jimi Hendrix — The 'All Along the Watchtower' cover is a tribute to Dylan's influence.
• Thin Lizzy — Lynott's slice-of-life, working-class storytelling drew on Dylan (and Springsteen) and the Irish literary tradition — the writerly side of Thin Lizzy.
• Patti Smith — Dylan was Smith's poet-musician model — Horses grew from the ambition to fuse Rimbaud with rock the way Dylan had.
• Neil Young — Young has called Dylan the master he measures songwriting against — 'the greatest writer of them all'.
• Lou Reed — Dylan's proof that rock lyrics could be literature was the precondition Reed acknowledged for his own street-level writing.
• Bruce Springsteen — Springsteen inducted Dylan into the Hall of Fame with the words 'Dylan freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body'.
• Tom Waits — Waits began as a Dylan-schooled folk writer at the Troubadour hoots — a debt he has named repeatedly.
• Steely Dan — Dylan's literate, allusive lyric-writing was the model for Fagen and Becker's cryptic wordcraft.
• Lana Del Rey — Dylan is among the songwriters Del Rey names as inspirations, informing the literary, narrative side of her writing.
• Dire Straits — Mark Knopfler's talky, poetic phrasing openly echoes Dylan's drawl — the songwriting model behind Dire Straits.
• Bob Seger — Seger admired how Dylan told vivid, character-driven stories — the narrative craft under his heartland anthems.
• Cat Stevens — Dylan's literate folk songwriting was a central model for Stevens's introspective songcraft.
• Jackson Browne — Browne was profoundly influenced by Dylan — the confessional, literary songwriting that defined his own.
• James Taylor — Dylan's songwriting was central to the confessional folk Taylor helped define.
• John Lennon — Dylan's confessional, personally reflective songwriting landed most heavily on Lennon, deepening his lyrics.
• John Mellencamp — Dylan and Woody Guthrie's storytelling is the backbone of Mellencamp's small-town Americana.
• Joni Mitchell — Dylan was the songwriting benchmark Mitchell measured herself against and transcended.
• Rod Stewart — Dylan's debut album was a formative record for the teenage Stewart, who busked around London singing Dylan songs before he ever sang soul.
• PJ Harvey — Dylan is among the music Harvey's parents played her, and stands behind the writing rather than the sound.
• Townes Van Zandt — Early Dylan showed him that a country song could carry that much language.
• The Kooks — Luke Pritchard grew up on Bob Dylan and classic songwriters — Dylan is a recurring reference point for the Kooks' songcraft.
• Fleet Foxes — Bob Dylan was one of the songwriters Fleet Foxes' founders studied closely as they learned their craft.
• Beck — Bob Dylan's folk songcraft and surreal wordplay are foundational to Beck's acoustic and lyrical side.
• Tim Buckley — Tim Buckley began as a folk singer-songwriter in the Dylan-era coffeehouse scene — Bob Dylan's poetic folk was a starting point before he moved into jazz and the avant-garde.
• Mika — Part of what Mika grew up listening to, at the folk end of a childhood that also held opera.
• The War on Drugs — The phrasing and the writing habit both. Granduciel was deep in Dylan in the Philadelphia years and took from him the idea that a song is worth staying with far past the point it works.
• Arctic Monkeys — One of the lyricists Alex Turner names as a model, with Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen and John Cale.
• Counting Crows — One of the influences named with R.E.M., Van Morrison and the Band.
• Sam Cooke — Hearing 'Blowin' in the Wind' in 1963 embarrassed Cooke into writing a civil rights song of his own. He put Dylan's song into his own set, then wrote 'A Change Is Gonna Come'.