A beautiful, comprehensive volume of Dylan’s lyrics, from the beginning of his career through the present day-with the songwriter’s edits to dozens of songs, appearing here for the first time. Lyrics 1961-2012. Bob Dylan Biography. Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, author, and painter, and poet considered one of the most prolific and influential figures of his generation in popular music of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Biograph reached No. he was born in Duluth, Minnesota on May 24, 1941, and his birth name was Robert Allen Zimmerman.He grew up in the iron hills of megabit, in Hibbing. Biograph is a 53-track box set compilation spanning the career of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on November 7, 1985, by Columbia Records.Consisting of 53 released and unreleased tracks from 1962 to 1981, the box set was released as a five-LP set, a three-cassette tape set, and a three-compact disc set.