Bob Dylan has dabbled in many genres of music including folk, country, rap and rock.

Evolving musical style

Dylan went electric at the 1965 Newport Pop Festival, infuriating many of his folk admirers. He soon released “Like A Rolling Stone,” a confrontational song in free verse that some consider to be the greatest rock song of all time.

“When you listen to the young Bob Dylan, anything he recorded...there is this extraordinary combination of calm center of self and an absolute confidence that he needn’t be hurried," says Gray, "that he needn’t shout, and at the same time, a complete biting, focused grip on whatever kind of material he was doing."

Critics agree that Dylan has always said exactly what he wanted to say in whatever musical style interested him. His many personas have included Dylan the rap pioneer, Dylan the country singer, Dylan the romantic, Dylan the American everyman and Dylan the outlaw. It may have been Dylan's “Born Again” Christian phase in the late 1970s and early to mid 1980’s that many secular fans found most difficult to accept.

Dylan himself has not publically explained why his life and music have taken so many turns. But critic Greil Marcus believes Dylan’s mystery is part of the message.

“I think that’s what artists do. They tell us that there is more to life than we thought there was and that means that you have to be able to continually surprise people. That’s a way of not being put into a box."