1965年，当Bob Dylan在新港民歌节上接通一只电吉他，违反了“不要在教堂里吹口哨，不要在民歌节上唱摇滚”的训条，激怒了他的大部分听众时，实际上标着他的民谣生涯的结束，从此进入摇滚时代。这一转变非同小可，Bob Dylan脱胎换骨，摇滚萌发新机。Bob Dylan在新港民歌上用电声宣布了民谣摇滚的诞生，随后就抛出了《像一块滚石》《伊甸园之门》《放任自流》等大量的“愤怒摇滚”。从抗议民谣走到摇滚，也反映了Bob Dylan在价值观念上，从真诚向真实的转变。
在世界摇滚史上，Bob Dylan（鲍勃·迪伦）无疑是承前启的的一位。如果说普莱斯利赋予摇滚乐以生命，那么鲍勃·迪伦则可以说赋予摇滚乐以灵魂。他以暗含讥讽、语带象征、思想丰富、才智十足的歌词，大大拓展了摇滚乐的领域。鲍勃·迪伦确立了自己在社会政治生活中的位置则是由摇滚乐开始的，以异常尖锐的主题，成为60年代美国青年的代言人。《滚石》杂志的詹恩·温纳说道：“摇滚乐成了我们四周发生的一切迅猛变化的动力中心，无论你把那些变化称作社会的、政治的、文化的都行。对我们这些战后成长起来的一代人而言，正是摇滚才把第一场革命深置于我们的内心。”
Dylan‘s own transition from folk troubadour to rock bard was not quite so smooth: debuting his new material with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he was famously booed off the stage. Such resistance notwithstanding, Dylan‘s fame had long since eclipsed Baez‘s, and their relationship was starting to crumble. He had begun to see Sara Lowndes, a friend of his manager Albert Grossman‘s wife, and by the end of the year would marry her. In the meantime, he recorded and released the album "Highway 61 Revisited", which contained the monumental single "Like a Rolling Stone." Clocking in at more than six minutes, it was the longest, angriest song ever released on a 45, and it reached No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart.
After than on Bob Dylan was not more popular at medium.He didn‘t show himself at public frequently.But he appeared at the George Harrison-organized Concert for Bangladesh--Dylan‘s first American concert appearance in 1971.After 2 years he held a nationwide tour concert at America.The concerts were the stuff of legend, and promoter Bill Graham said that there were mail-order requests for more than twelve million tickets, though only 658,000 seats were available for the forty shows. An acclaimed two-record live set, Before the Flood, came out within a few months of the tour, and made it to No. 3 on the charts.
While the tour see med to reinvigorate Dylan‘s creative spirit, his personal life was in a shambles.In fact he was sad for separating with his wife.Later that year, a truncated version of "The Basement Tapes" was finally released, and was hailed as a found masterpiece.
Dylan released "Desire", which was his third consecutive No. 1 album; it featured the single "Hurricane," dedicated to the wrongly imprisoned boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter.While nowhere near as impressive as Blood on the Tracks, Desire was a well-crafted, evocative effort that contained at least two great songs:"Black Diamond Bay," and "Sara." The song did not win her back: Dylan and Sara divorced the following year.
Early in 1997, though, those who lived in hope of an artistically born-again Dylan had cause for optimism: musician Jim Dickinson told a Memphis newspaper that he had played on some recent, Daniel Lanois-produced Dylan sessions featuring new material Dylan had composed while stuck at home in Minnesota during a blizzard. According to Dickinson, one cut was seventeen minutes long, and overall the material was "so good, I can‘t imagine he won‘t use it."
The seventeen-minute song turned out to be "Highlands," the closing cut on the critically acclaimed "Time Out of Mind", which was released in September and became Dylan‘s first gold record of the decade. The success of the album was noteworthy, but 1997 will go down as the year that Dylan knocked on heaven‘s door:in May,he was hospitalized for potentially fatal infection in the sac surrounding the heart.Happily, the songwriter made a rapid recovery, and was back on the road by August and continued to tour through the remainder of the year, including a September date in Bologna, Italy, at the behest of Pope John Paul II. In early December, Dylan was one of five recipients of his country‘s highest award for artistic excellence, the Kennedy Center Honors.
