Happy Birthday Bob Dylan

Happy Birthday to Bob Dylan, who celebrates his 72nd birthday today (May 24th)!!! Dylan, Wilco, and My Morning Jacket will team up as part of the Americanarama Festival of Music tour this summer. Additional acts at select venues include the Richard Thompson Electric Trio and Ryan Bingham. The tour kicks off on June 26th at West Palm Beach's Cruzan Amphitheatre.

Bob Dylan, who was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, first gained critical acclaim after he moved to New York City in January 1961 and became a mainstay on the Greenwich Village Folk scene. Dylan had barely written his first songs upon moving to New York, and patterned his act and early material on the work of his idol, folksinger Woody Guthrie.

Dylan's early '60s work, including the classics "Blowin' In The Wind," "The Time They Are A Changing'," "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," "Only A Pawn In Their Game," and "The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll," came to define the best of folk music's topical social commentary.

In celebration of "Record Store Day," Dylan released a seven-inch vinyl single featuring a demo of "Wigwam" -- the tune which was the single off his 1970 Self Portrait album, backed with an previously unreleased cover of folk singer Eric Anderson's Thirsty Boots." Both songs will be featured on the upcoming Bootleg Series Vol. 10 collection, which will comprise the 1969 to 1973 era, touching upon such middle era Dylan classics as Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait, New Morning, the acoustic Greatest Hits Vol. 2 sessions, and the soundtrack for Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid. No release date for Bootleg Series Vol. 10 has been announced.

Earlier this year, Dylan released new collection of 86 early-'60s outtakes and live tracks in a limited edition of 100 copies as the new four-CD set, called, 50th Anniversary Collection. The release was an effort to bypass European copyright law by Dylan's label, Sony, who pressed up the copies of the set to show that Dylan and the label are laying claim on the recordings as they fall out of copyright. As it stands now, Dylan's 1962 Bob Dylan album can be released by anyone in Europe, as its copyright has expired. The copyright law was amended in 2011 from 50 years to 70 year, protecting recordings issued post-1963 until 2033.