In 1968, he came back with the album John Wesley Harding, ranked first in the UK and second in the US.
Bob was forced to vanish for a while as he was taken abed due to numerous fractures and partial paralysis. In June 1966, Dylan suffered a terrible accident as his motorcycle crashed near his house. By that time, Dylan had already applied electrical instruments. His albums, Highway 61 Revisted (1965), Blonde On Blonde (1966), gained incredible fame, while their songs entered the repertoires of many well-know performers of that time. By the middle of the sixties, Bob Dylan had achieved the status of a leading personality in the newborn youth subculture. Many of them, having read Dylan’s poems, came to a conclusion that their lyrics could express much more than love experience and personal feelings. His poetry changed the views of many outstanding musicians. It is right to say that Dylan broadened the universe of rock music and discovered the new opportunities for rock performers. Dylan’s recording and concert activity became the foundation for conceptual rock and influenced the music of a great variety of groups. In his lyrics, he gradually abandoned the political issues and shifted to the the philosophical research of human existence. In 1965, Dylan made an unexpected step from folk to rock and gave a performance in Newport to accompaniment of the blues band The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Having signed a contract with Columbia, he produced his first albums Bob Dylan (1962), The Freewheelin` Bob Dylan (1963) and the most popular The Times They Are A-Changin (1964), and became one of the leading figures in the civil right movement. In the sixties, Dylan recorded his most celebrated works with a strong civil right message. In 1959, he gave up the university studies, took up the pseudonym Bob Dylan (after his favorite poet Dylan Thomas) and moved to New York. In a short while, he began his own musical career performing his own repertoire to the acoustic guitar and harmonica. Just like most of his peers at that time, Bob was into rock and roll, but after entering the Minneapolis University he shifted his focus to folk music. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Hibbing, where he went to school. Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman) is an American song-writer, author, poet and painter.