Dates

Bob Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota on May 24, 1941. 

- from the sleeve notes to the album Bob Dylan, released in March 1962 by Colombia Records. 

In 1959 in Central City, Colorado, he had that first job, in a rough and tumble striptease joint. 

- from the sleeve notes to the album Bob Dylan, released in March 1962 by Colombia Records.

Bob Dylan first came East in February, 1961. His destination: the Greystone Hospital in New Jersey. His purpose: to visit the long-ailing Woody Guthrie, singer, ballad-maker and poet.  

- from the sleeve notes to the album Bob Dylan, released in March 1962 by Colombia Records. 

He played at the Gaslight Coffeehouse, and in April 1961, appeared opposite John Lee Hooker, the blues singer at Gerde's Folk city.  

- from the sleeve notes to the album Bob Dylan, released in March 1962 by Colombia Records. 

By September of 1961, Dylan's singing in Greenwich Village, especially at Gerdes Folk City, had ignited a nucleus of singers and a few critics (notably Bob Shelton of the New York Times) into exuberant appreciation of his work. 

- from the sleeve notes to the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Colombia Records. 

[of the song Blowin' in the Wind] in 1962, Dylan said of the song's background: "I still say that some of the biggest criminals are those than turn their heads away when they see wrong and know it's wrong. I'm only 21 years old and I know that there's been too many wars ... You people over 21 should know better." 

- from the sleeve notes to the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Colombia Records.

Girl from the North Country was first conceived by Bob Dylan about three years before he finally wrote it down in December 1962

- from the sleeve notes to the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Colombia Records.

"Hard Rain is a desperate kind of song." It was written during the Cuban missile crisis of October, 1962

- from the sleeve notes to the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Colombia Records.

The song slumbered ... until Dylan went to England in the winter of 1962. There he heard a singer (whose name he recalls as Martin Carthy) perform Lord Franklin, and that old melody found a new adapted home in Bob Dylan's Dream

- from the sleeve notes to the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Colombia Records.