Although he subsequently stepped away from the zeitgeist, his restless, occasionally messy, work of the 1970s and the 1980s expanded his formidable songbook through a combination of classic albums (Blood on the Tracks) and intriguing detours (Empire Burlesque). Over the course of 18 months, he released Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, a trio of records that broadened the vocabulary of rock & roll, placing Dylan at the cutting edge of popular culture. His flair for impressionistic, stream-of-conscious lyrics marked a shift within folk music, an evolution Dylan also introduced to rock & roll when he picked up an electric guitar in 1965. Dylan emerged from the Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 1960s, earning a reputation as a perceptive, powerful songwriter, equally capable of penning a protest anthem or a romantic love song. One of the greatest figures of the twentieth century, Bob Dylan helped shape the sound and form of popular music in the rock & roll era.
