Bob Dylan, American Idol

Bruce Springsteen

Bob Dylan is the father of my country.

Judy Collins

I met Bob when he was still Robert Zimmerman, playing in Colorado in 1959. We met up later in the Village when he was playing Gerde's Folk City, singing old Woody Guthrie songs — not very well, quite frankly. But he was charming — very nice — and we got drunk a few times together. And then he just blew my mind when he started writing those songs. I read "Blowin' in the Wind" for the first time when it was published in Sing Out! magazine, and it was unbelievable. I couldn't believe that anybody could have written that song, but for it to come from him?I wrote him a fan letter after I read that issue.

We wanted so much to change the world; we all wanted to stop the war; we wanted to stop social injustice. They were good causes because they had an innocence about them. But there was something about what Dylan was doing, a certain sophistication, that deepened our understanding of what's really going on here. Bob dragged us from literary immaturity and made us grow up emotionally. He dragged us into the world of alliteration and metaphor in a way that nobody else could do. He was our higher education.

Mavis Staples

I met Bob when he was a little skinny kid back in the early '60s. We were all doing a television show together and his manager said, "I want to introduce you to the Staple Singers," and he said, "I've been listening to the Staple Singers since I was 12 years old."

And he proposed to me the same day we met! We all had to stand in line for lunch that day. Our family was way up in the front of the line and Dylan was way in the back, and all of a sudden you heard somebody say, "Pops, I want to marry Mavis." And everybody laughed, and Pops yelled back, "Well, don't tell me, tell Mavis." So that was the beginning of our little romance. We were glad to be on folk festivals because that's when we would see each other. He was the cutest little curly-haired guy. I often think about that, if Bobby and I had gotten married and had children, we would have had us a family of singers now. We would have had the Dylan Staples family.

Bobby, 70 is the new 60. It's the best time of our lives, whatever age we are. I'm the happiest old girl in the world, and I'm sure you will be just as happy.

Martin Scorsese

Bob is ageless because he keeps turning new corners, beating down new paths, redefining himself and his art as he goes. "Someone had to reach for the rising star, I guess it was up to me," he once sang. That sums it up pretty well. He's still reaching — and encouraging us to do the same.

Anthony Kiedis

bob dylan is a wave.

he's a moving body of energy built of melodies, words, rhythms, ideas, and attitudes that have swept over the world since the year of my birth.

like jazz music he is an American invention. one of the best representatives we've ever had.

thank goodness for every person, place, thing, or animal that ever inspired bob to write music.

if a man is measured by the amount of suffering he eases and the amount of joy he gives the world, then bob has more than done his job.

bringing the intellect and the emotion together in song that sounds like no one else is a rare form of expression.

bob dylan is a rare artist. they don't make them likehim anymore.

Muhammad Ali

Happy birthday, Bob Dylan. Keep rolling and enjoying life.

Marianne Faithfull

When we met in 1964 I was just 17, and Bob was a few years older. He had written something for me, but I was pregnant and just about to get married, so I didn't want to go to bed with him, and he got cross. There went whatever he was writing: He tore it up in front of me.

Bob had a big influence on the Rolling Stones. I got ahold of The Basement Tapes and went on holiday with Mick and took it with me, and I played it ad nauseam. When we got back, Mick gave it to Keith: I think it affected their writing and moved them into the golden period. "Gimme Shelter" and "Street Fighting Man" and "Sympathy for the Devil" — those are all about big subjects, and what Bob was writing about all during the '60s was big subjects.

So, I give Bob all my love and congratulations, and "Well done, man."

Smokey Robinson

Bob is unique unto himself, a one-of-a-kind kind of artist. He's controversial and commercial and underground and all those things at the same time. Bob tells it like he feels it, and he's been like that for his entire career. He's never ever pulled any punches or tried to clean it up for the public or censored himself, and that's the thing I love about him.

I want to say "Happy Birthday" to you, Bob. I'm proud to know you.

Bob Weir

I was a junior in high school. Earlier, I had heard Peter, Paul and Mary doing "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are A-Changin'," and I had heard a bit about this guy who wrote them, so I was loaded and primed to hear this guy's real voice. I was thunderstruck. Compared with anything I had heard to that point, this was raw. He sang in tune and played well, but there was a notable lack of finesse to it. In its place was a gut punch. I was changed: If this guy can be so uncompromising, so direct, why can't I?

After that, I was no longer interested in being polished or accessible. I was interested only in finding something worth expressing, and doing so with clarity, animation, and color.

Dylan's a poet, at times an oracle, and a musician. The first two I won't address. As a musician, he more than gets the job done. I've played with him, and he rocked my socks. I'm gonna want to hear what Dylan has to say as long as he wants to say it.