1989–2005: The Wallflowers Upon moving back to Los Angeles, Dylan and childhood friend Tobi Miller formed a new band called the Apples around 1989, along with Luther Russell on bass guitar and
Aaron A. Brooks on drums. Both Russell and Brooks later departed to start their own respective bands. Dylan and Miller then recruited Barrie Maguire on bass, Peter Yanowitz on drums, and
Rami Jaffee on keyboards to fill out the new band. The Apples changed their name to The Wallflowers and began playing clubs in Los Angeles. They were eventually signed to
Virgin Records, and in 1991, The Wallflowers began recording their debut album. Dylan wrote the songs and the album was recorded live in the studio with minimal to no overdubbing. The Wallflowers'
eponymous debut was released on August 25, 1992. The album was met with mostly positive reviews but did not do well commercially, with a reported 40,000 copies sold. Despite low sales, The Wallflowers began touring nationwide, mostly as an opening act for several bands including the
Spin Doctors and
10,000 Maniacs. Upon returning from a tour in 1993, the band learned that management at Virgin had shifted, leading to the removal of
Jeff Ayeroff and Jordan Harris, who had signed The Wallflowers to the label. The new executives at Virgin were not pleased with The Wallflowers' slow sales and the band did not feel they had a future with the label, so they asked to be released from their contract; Virgin complied and by the end of the year, The Wallflowers were left without a label.
Bringing Down the Horse was produced by
T Bone Burnett and the songs were written by Dylan. The album was released on May 21, 1996, and became the band's most successful album, reaching
quadruple platinum status in the U.S. To promote the release, the band toured extensively through the rest of 1996 and through 1997. The Wallflowers now included drummer
Mario Calire and guitarist
Michael Ward, in addition to Dylan, Jaffee and Richling. The band performed shows as headliners, as well as openers for acts such as
Sheryl Crow in early 1997 and
Counting Crows in the summer of 1997. They also opened for
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in January 1997, as well as for
the Rolling Stones and
Bob Dylan in November 1997. In June 1997, Dylan was featured on the cover of
Rolling Stone. In the issue's accompanying interview, Dylan spoke at length about his lineage for the first time. The Wallflowers entered the studio towards the end of 1999 with producers
Michael Penn and Andrew Slater, The Wallflowers' manager.
(Breach) took about eight months to record and was released on October 10, 2000. The Wallflowers embarked on a tour that lasted through the end of 2000 and into 2001, making stops in Japan and
Madison Square Garden in New York for a four-night run, opening for
the Who. Dylan began writing for The Wallflowers' fourth album,
Red Letter Days, in 2001. The band recorded demos while on tour with
John Mellencamp that year before getting into the studio in
Santa Monica, California. Due to the absence of a lead guitarist during the recording for
Red Letter Days, Dylan took on more lead guitar duties than he had previously.
Red Letter Days was produced by founding Wallflowers member Tobi Miller and Bill Appleberry. Following the release of the album's first single, "When You're On Top" on August 16, 2002,
Red Letter Days was released on November 5, 2002. Following tours in the US and Europe, drummer Mario Calire announced he was leaving The Wallflowers in 2003. The Wallflowers returned to the studio in July 2004 to record their fifth album,
Rebel, Sweetheart. Instead of recording in Los Angeles, The Wallflowers instead opted to record in
Atlanta, Georgia, which was where their producer for this album,
Brendan O'Brien, was based. To replace drummer Mario Calire, Fred Eltringham joined The Wallflowers just before getting into the studio. In addition to writing the songs, Dylan also painted the cover art for this album.
Rebel, Sweetheart was released on May 24, 2005. The Wallflowers toured through the summer of 2005, joined by guitarist Stuart Mathis, on what would be their last tour for 2 years. After 2005, The Wallflowers parted ways with their longtime record label, Interscope Records.
2006–2011: Solo career Beginning in 2006, Dylan began playing shows without The Wallflowers, though he did tour with the band on numerous occasions between 2007 and 2009. In May and June 2006, Dylan toured with former Wallflowers producer
T Bone Burnett, performing solo acoustic opening sets. In fall of that year, Dylan's song "Here Comes Now" was featured as the theme song for an
ABC drama,
Six Degrees. Also in the fall of 2006, it was announced that Dylan had signed a solo recording contract with
Columbia Records. In 2007, Dylan appeared on several tribute albums, including
Endless Highway: The Music of the Band and
Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, a charity album consisting of covers of
John Lennon songs. On
Endless Highway, Dylan performed a cover of
the Band's "Whispering Pines." For
Instant Karma, Dylan performed a cover of Lennon's "
Gimme Some Truth," with
Dhani Harrison contributing backing vocals on the song.
Seeing Things In September 2007, it was reported by
The New York Times that Dylan was recording his first solo album at producer
Rick Rubin's home in the
Hollywood Hills. Regarding its sparse instrumentation and production, Dylan described the differences in the writing process for
Seeing Things, compared to writing for The Wallflowers: Following the completion of recording in 2007,
Seeing Things was released on June 10, 2008. The album received generally favorable reviews and peaked at No.24 in the US on the
Billboard 200. Following the release of
Seeing Things, Dylan made several television appearances to promote the album and toured with a backing band called the Gold Mountain Rebels, which consisted of Wallflowers drummer Fred Eltringham, guitarist
Audley Freed and bassist George Reif. In the summer and fall of 2008, Dylan and the Gold Mountain Rebels played a combination of theaters and festivals in the US, Europe, and Japan, including
Farm Aid in
Mansfield, Massachusetts, and the
Newport Folk Festival. In addition to touring with the Gold Mountain Rebels, Dylan and Eltringham also performed several shows with The Wallflowers in 2008.
Women + Country In 2009, Dylan visited T Bone Burnett at a studio where Burnett was producing the soundtrack for the film
Crazy Heart. Burnett asked Dylan if he had any new songs to show him. The only song Dylan had was one he had written for
Glen Campbell's forthcoming album,
Ghost on the Canvas, called "Nothing But the Whole Wide World." Burnett was impressed by the song and asked Dylan to come up with fifteen additional songs so they could put an album together. Dylan came back to Burnett six weeks later with the songs and in 2009 they recorded Dylan's second solo album,
Women + Country.
Women + Country had a decidedly fuller sound than
Seeing Things, thanks to the horns,
pedal steel and fiddle that were prominently featured throughout the album. Burnett also brought in
Neko Case and
Kelly Hogan to contribute background vocals on eight of the album's eleven songs. After releasing an EP version of the album earlier that year,
Women + Country was released on April 6, 2010, on Columbia Records. The album was met with generally favorable reviews and peaked at No.12 on the
Billboard 200; the highest position any of Dylan's albums – solo or with The Wallflowers – had peaked since The Wallflowers' 1996 breakthrough album,
Bringing Down the Horse. In addition to a series of television appearances to promote the album, Dylan and a backing band called Three Legs toured the U.S., the United Kingdom and Ireland in the spring and summer of 2010. At a stop at the Bearsville Theater in
Woodstock, New York, Dylan was joined on stage by
Garth Hudson of
the Band for several songs. Also in 2010, Dylan sang backing vocals on the
Court Yard Hounds' song "See You In the Spring." Along with being released on the Court Yard Hounds'
eponymous debut album, the song was specially released as a
45 RPM single for
Record Store Day, 2010. Dylan's song "Everybody's Hurting" from
Women + Country was featured as the B-side to the record. In 2011, Dylan was featured on several film and television soundtracks, including
A Little Help, for which he wrote three songs, and
True Blood: Vol.3, for which he wrote a song with
Gary Louris called "Gonna Be a Darkness." Dylan was also featured on the 2011 album,
The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams; an album featuring various artists covering previously "lost" lyrics by
Hank Williams. In August 2011, Dylan and Wallflowers keyboardist
Rami Jaffee performed at the
Farm Aid benefit concert in
Kansas City.
2012–present: Return of The Wallflowers and other projects On November 1, 2011, it was announced that The Wallflowers would be reuniting to release a sixth studio album the following year. The Wallflowers had toured on and off during their hiatus but had not made an album together since 2005's
Rebel, Sweetheart. The Wallflowers recorded their sixth studio album,
Glad All Over, in
Nashville, Tennessee, in early 2012. Shortly before entering the studio, the band replaced drummer Fred Eltringham with
Jack Irons. The writing process was different for this album than previous Wallflowers albums; instead of Dylan bringing in completed songs, he brought only lyrics to the studio, and as a band they wrote the music for the songs. The Wallflowers toured throughout the summer and fall of 2012.
Glad All Over was released on October 9, 2012, on Columbia Records. In the spring of 2013, The Wallflowers did an arena tour opening for
Eric Clapton. In 2013, The Wallflowers went through a number of personnel changes, beginning with longtime keyboard player Rami Jaffee. Jaffee played his last show with The Wallflowers to date in 2013 but has since not officially announced that he quit the band. Later that year, longtime bass player Greg Richling and drummer Jack Irons announced that they were leaving The Wallflowers, citing that they wanted to focus on a band they were both in called Arthur Channel. A number of drummers and bass players filled in as The Wallflowers continued to tour through the end of 2016. Aside from work with The Wallflowers, Dylan has played a key role in several other projects. In early 2013, Dylan, along with
Dave Matthews,
Charlie Sexton,
Brady Blade, and Sexton's brother Will, wrote and recorded an album in
Shreveport, Louisiana, as a new band called the Nauts. The album has yet to be released. In September 2015, Dylan released a duet online with
Cat Power covering
the Byrds' "
You Showed Me" (which was later popularized by
the Turtles). The song is a track on the 2019 studio album called
Echo in the Canyon, in which Dylan covers songs in duets by 1960s-era Southern California folk rock artists, such as the Turtles,
the Mamas & the Papas,
Buffalo Springfield, and
the Beach Boys. Dylan, along with
Regina Spektor, Cat Power,
Beck,
Fiona Apple, and Jade Castrinos, performed these songs in a concert at the
Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles in October 2015. The creation of
Echo in the Canyon led Dylan, along with manager Andrew Slater, to create a
feature-length documentary about the project, as well as the Laurel Canyon music scene. The film premiered at the LA Film Festival on September 20, 2018, and has been positively received. ==Personal life==