1965年，當Bob Dylan在新港民歌節上接通一只電吉他，違反了“不要在教堂里吹口哨，不要在民歌節上唱搖滾”的訓條，激怒了他的大部分聽眾時，實際上標著他的民謠生涯的結束，從此進入搖滾時代。這一轉變非同小可，Bob Dylan脫胎換骨，搖滾萌發新機。Bob Dylan在新港民歌上用電聲宣布了民謠搖滾的誕生，隨后就拋出了《像一塊滾石》《伊甸園之門》《放任自流》等大量的“憤怒搖滾”。從抗議民謠走到搖滾，也反映了Bob Dylan在價值觀念上，從真誠向真實性的轉變。
在世界搖滾史上，Bob Dylan（鮑勃·迪倫）無疑是承前啟的的一位。如果說普萊斯利賦予搖滾樂以生命，那么鮑勃·迪倫則可以說賦予搖滾樂以靈魂。他以暗含譏諷、語帶象征、思想豐富、才智十足的歌詞，大大拓展了搖滾樂的領域。鮑勃·迪倫確立了自己在社會政治生活中的位置則是由搖滾樂開始的，以異常尖銳的主題，成為60年代美國青年的代言人。《滾石》雜志的詹恩·溫納說道：“搖滾樂成了我們四周發生的一切迅猛變化的動力中心，無論你把那些變化稱作社會的、政治的、文化的都行。對我們這些戰后成長起來的一代人而言，正是搖滾才把第一場革命深置于我們的內心。”
Dylan‘s own transition from folk troubadour to rock bard was not quite so smooth: debuting his new material with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he was famously booed off the stage. Such resistance notwithstanding, Dylan‘s fame had long since eclipsed Baez‘s, and their relationship was starting to crumble. He had begun to see Sara Lowndes, a friend of his manager Albert Grossman‘s wife, and by the end of the year would marry her. In the meantime, he recorded and released the album "Highway 61 Revisited", which contained the monumental single "Like a Rolling Stone." Clocking in at more than six minutes, it was the longest, angriest song ever released on a 45, and it reached No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart.
After than on Bob Dylan was not more popular at medium.He didn‘t show himself at public frequently.But he appeared at the George Harrison-organized Concert for Bangladesh--Dylan‘s first American concert appearance in 1971.After 2 years he held a nationwide tour concert at America.The concerts were the stuff of legend, and promoter Bill Graham said that there were mail-order requests for more than twelve million tickets, though only 658,000 seats were available for the forty shows. An acclaimed two-record live set, Before the Flood, came out within a few months of the tour, and made it to No. 3 on the charts.
While the tour seemed to reinvigorate Dylan‘s creative spirit, his personal life was in a shambles.In fact he was sad for separating with his wife.Later that year, a truncated version of "The Basement Tapes" was finally released, and was hailed as a found masterpiece.
Dylan released "Desire", which was his third consecutive No. 1 album; it featured the single "Hurricane," dedicated to the wrongly imprisoned boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter.While nowhere near as impressive as Blood on the Tracks, Desire was a well-crafted, evocative effort that contained at least two great songs:"Black Diamond Bay," and "Sara." The song did not win her back: Dylan and Sara divorced the following year.
Early in 1997, though, those who lived in hope of an artistically born-again Dylan had cause for optimism: musician Jim Dickinson told a Memphis newspaper that he had played on some recent, Daniel Lanois-produced Dylan sessions featuring new material Dylan had composed while stuck at home in Minnesota during a blizzard. According to Dickinson, one cut was seventeen minutes long, and overall the material was "so good, I can‘t imagine he won‘t use it."
The seventeen-minute song turned out to be "Highlands," the closing cut on the critically acclaimed "Time Out of Mind", which was released in September and became Dylan‘s first gold record of the decade. The success of the album was noteworthy, but 1997 will go down as the year that Dylan knocked on heaven‘s door:in May,he was hospitalized for potentially fatal infection in the sac surrounding the heart.Happily, the songwriter made a rapid recovery, and was back on the road by August and continued to tour through the remainder of the year, including a September date in Bologna, Italy, at the behest of Pope John Paul II. In early December, Dylan was one of five recipients of his country‘s highest award for artistic excellence, the Kennedy Center Honors.