24 May 2021 Bob Dylan will be 80 years old

Bob Dylan is in the list ' 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time Dylan's vision on American popular music was transforming. No one raised the bar, or had more impact. “You want to write songs that are bigger than life,” he wrote in his memoirs, Chronicles. “You want to say something about strange things that have happened to you, strange things you've seen.“Dylan himself saw no difference between modern times and legendary past - reading about the Civil War helped him understand the 1960s - allowing him to rewire folk ballads passed down from generation to generation into songs that excite both the present moment as lasting standards. Early songs like “Blowin “in the Wind” became hits for others — Peter, Paul & Mary were number two in the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963; Stevie Wonder released the number nine two years later — changing the ambitions of everyone, from the Beatles to Johnny Cash.

Then Dylan started climbing the charts on his own with music that turned pop into prophecy: 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', 'Like a Rolling Stone', 'Positively Fourth Street', 'Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35.'His personas changed, but songs like “Tangled Up in Blue”, “Knockin 'on Heaven's Door” and “Forever Young” continued to define their epochs in a sustainable way. And only among his peers Dylan's creativity was incessant.

The BobCast: looking for Bob Dylan
On 24 May 2021 icon Bob Dylan will be 80 years old. In the run-up to that, the VPRO broadcasts the 'BobCast', a podcast series in 26 parts, from its 79th anniversary. Dylan is perhaps the most important pop musician and lyricist of the past sixty years and a cultural-social icon that has no equal.
Every two weeks a new episode on Sunday