Credit: Far Out / Alamy

The 1950s trailblazer Bob Dylan views as “the Shakespeare of rock ‘n’ roll”

Thu 11 June 2026 18:32, UK

There are only a handful of figures in the history of contemporary music that could make a case for having more of a seismic impact than Bob Dylan, who singularly transformed the art of songwriting.

While he was shaped to a degree by his hero Woody Guthrie, Dylan took those ideas and ran with them, taking the art form to new heights. However, it wasn’t just folk singers armed with an acoustic guitar and a pen that Dylan admired; the trailblazing work of Chuck Berry equally took him aback.

Dylan’s interest in music across the spectrum, taking bits and pieces from all over, is what helped him stand out upon arriving in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s. From the moment he began, it was clear he possessed a different quality to his artistry than his peers in the folk scene. Soon enough, he was a mythical figure that transcended the Big Apple.

Nevertheless, to this day, he continues to pay his dues to the series of pivotal musical figures who laid the groundwork for rock ‘n’ roll before him, like Berry. Although Dylan isn’t a direct musical descendant of Chuck Berry, like The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, who both owe their careers in large part to him, he is a huge fan.

In Dylan’s view, there was no point in entering that realm, as he knew he could never surpass Berry’s brilliance, telling Rolling Stone in 1987, “Chuck Berry was a rock and roll songwriter. So I never tried to write rock and roll songs, ’cause I figured he had just done it. When I started writing songs, they had to be in a different mould.”

Chuck Berry - Far Out Magazine — Credit: Alamy

Elaborating further on this stance, Dylan added, “Because who wants to be a second-rate anybody? A new generation had come along, of which I was a part – the second generation of rock & roll people. To me, and to others like me, it was a way of life. It was an all-consuming way of life.”

Rather than being a poor man’s equivalent of Berry, Dylan, instead, inspired by the duckwalking supremo, felt inclined to set out on his own path rather than an imitation of anyone that came before him.

Berry, who died in 2017, also knew how much his work meant to Dylan, too. In 2012, Berry was celebrated with the inaugural ‘PEN New England’s Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence Award’ at the John F Kennedy Library in Boston, which gave the likes of Dylan an opportunity to share their feelings on him.

Although his health had declined by this stage, it was still a momentous evening as a litany of stars came together to pay tribute to Berry. While Dylan couldn’t be there in person, he still contributed to the occasion by sending an email, which simply hailed him as “the Shakespeare of rock ‘n’ roll”.

Similarly, at the ceremony, Paul Simon had the honour of presenting the award to Berry. He spoke on behalf of every other artist of his era, including Dylan, when he told the crowd in Boston, “No songwriter influenced my generation to a greater degree than him.”

Simon’s statement was backed up by the powerful tributes that poured in following Berry’s death. For example, Paul McCartney mourned, “To us, he was a magician making music that was exotic yet normal at the same time. We learnt so many things from him which led us into a dream world of rock ‘n’ roll music.”

That same sentiment was echoed by Mick Jagger, who remarked, “He lit up our teenage years, and blew life into our dreams of being musicians and performers.”

While the likes of Jagger, Dylan and Simon were all brought up in distinctly different worlds that were yet to be connected through the internet, they were all studying Berry’s work meticulously. If it weren’t for him, they may have mapped out a different route for their lives, which would have had an unthinkable, detrimental impact on culture.