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"He's an inspiration, really, to us all, beyond even the songwriting, because he's always trying to go somewhere new. I love the man," said Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, no spring chicken himself.
U2 frontman Bono said the young Dylan was way ahead of his time. "The tumble of words, images, ire and spleen... shapeshifts easily into music forms 10 or 20 years away, like punk, grunge or hip-hop," he wrote in Rolling Stone magazine.
It is not clear how Dylan will celebrate his birthday Tuesday, but at least he's not actually on the road -- his informally-dubbed "Never Ending Tour" is taking a break this month, although it will resume in Europe in mid-June.
Last month he was in Asia, playing 17 dates in arenas from Taiwan to New Zealand, and including dates in Beijing and Shanghai clouded by controversy over reports -- denied by Dylan -- that he was censored by Chinese authorities.
It is all a long way from his humble beginnings as Robert Allen Zimmerman, born in 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota, who taught himself to play the harmonica, guitar and piano.
Captivated by the music of folksinger Woody Guthrie, Zimmerman changed his name to Bob Dylan -- reportedly after the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas -- and began performing in local nightclubs.
After dropping out of college he moved to New York in 1960. His first album contained only two original songs, but the 1963 breakthrough "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" featured a slew of his own work including the classic "Blowin' in the Wind."
Armed with a harmonica and an acoustic guitar, Dylan wrestled with social injustice, war and racism, quickly becoming a prominent civil rights campaigner -- and recording an astonishing 300 songs in his first three years.
In 1965 Dylan's first British tour was captured in the classic documentary "Don't Look Back" -- the same year he outraged his folk fans by playing with an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival on Rhode Island.
The following albums "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Blonde on Blonde" won rave reviews, but Dylan's career was interrupted in 1966 when he was badly injured in a motorcycle accident, and his recording output slowed in the 1970s.
By the early 1980s Dylan's music was reflecting his born-again Christianity, although this was tempered in successive albums, with many fans seeing a resurgence of his explosive early-career talent in the 1990s.
Since the turn of millennium, as well as his regular recording output and touring, Dylan has also found time to host a regular radio show, Theme Time Radio Hour, and published a well-received book "Chronicles," in 2004.
He was the focus of at least two more films, Martin Scorsese's 2005 "No Direction Home" and "I'm not There" in 2007 starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger and Cate Blanchett.
Over the years Dylan has won 11 Grammy awards, as well as one Golden Globe and even an Oscar in 2001, for best original song "Things have Changed" in the movie "Wonder Boys."
While Dylan is feted by his peers and generations of fans for his songs, his live shows are notoriously patchy -- his voice, never the smoothest, has grown rougher over the years, and he rarely sings a tune the same way twice.
But the singer, who has a home in Malibu north of Los Angeles, has said he has no plans to retire anytime soon.
"Critics might be uncomfortable with me (working so much). Maybe they can't figure it out," he said in a 2009 interview with Rolling Stone.
"But nobody in my particular audience feels that way about what I do. Anybody with a trade can work as long as they want. A welder, a carpenter, an electrician. They don't necessarily need to retire.
"People who have jobs on an assembly line, or are doing some kind of drudgery work, they might be thinking of retiring every day. Every man should learn a trade. It's different than a job.
"My music wasn't made to take me from one place to another so I can retire early."
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U2 frontman Bono said the young Dylan was way ahead of his time. "The tumble of words, images, ire and spleen... shapeshifts easily into music forms 10 or 20 years away, like punk, grunge or hip-hop," he wrote in Rolling Stone magazine.
It is not clear how Dylan will celebrate his birthday Tuesday, but at least he's not actually on the road -- his informally-dubbed "Never Ending Tour" is taking a break this month, although it will resume in Europe in mid-June.
Last month he was in Asia, playing 17 dates in arenas from Taiwan to New Zealand, and including dates in Beijing and Shanghai clouded by controversy over reports -- denied by Dylan -- that he was censored by Chinese authorities.
It is all a long way from his humble beginnings as Robert Allen Zimmerman, born in 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota, who taught himself to play the harmonica, guitar and piano.
Captivated by the music of folksinger Woody Guthrie, Zimmerman changed his name to Bob Dylan -- reportedly after the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas -- and began performing in local nightclubs.
After dropping out of college he moved to New York in 1960. His first album contained only two original songs, but the 1963 breakthrough "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" featured a slew of his own work including the classic "Blowin' in the Wind."
Armed with a harmonica and an acoustic guitar, Dylan wrestled with social injustice, war and racism, quickly becoming a prominent civil rights campaigner -- and recording an astonishing 300 songs in his first three years.
In 1965 Dylan's first British tour was captured in the classic documentary "Don't Look Back" -- the same year he outraged his folk fans by playing with an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival on Rhode Island.
The following albums "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Blonde on Blonde" won rave reviews, but Dylan's career was interrupted in 1966 when he was badly injured in a motorcycle accident, and his recording output slowed in the 1970s.
By the early 1980s Dylan's music was reflecting his born-again Christianity, although this was tempered in successive albums, with many fans seeing a resurgence of his explosive early-career talent in the 1990s.
Since the turn of millennium, as well as his regular recording output and touring, Dylan has also found time to host a regular radio show, Theme Time Radio Hour, and published a well-received book "Chronicles," in 2004.
He was the focus of at least two more films, Martin Scorsese's 2005 "No Direction Home" and "I'm not There" in 2007 starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger and Cate Blanchett.
Over the years Dylan has won 11 Grammy awards, as well as one Golden Globe and even an Oscar in 2001, for best original song "Things have Changed" in the movie "Wonder Boys."
While Dylan is feted by his peers and generations of fans for his songs, his live shows are notoriously patchy -- his voice, never the smoothest, has grown rougher over the years, and he rarely sings a tune the same way twice.
But the singer, who has a home in Malibu north of Los Angeles, has said he has no plans to retire anytime soon.
"Critics might be uncomfortable with me (working so much). Maybe they can't figure it out," he said in a 2009 interview with Rolling Stone.
"But nobody in my particular audience feels that way about what I do. Anybody with a trade can work as long as they want. A welder, a carpenter, an electrician. They don't necessarily need to retire.
"People who have jobs on an assembly line, or are doing some kind of drudgery work, they might be thinking of retiring every day. Every man should learn a trade. It's different than a job.
"My music wasn't made to take me from one place to another so I can retire early."
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