MusicRadar

The songwriter, singer, poet and painter has been the greatest voice in the cultural, political and popular music scenes for over half a century, towering over all others. A man of often deliberate mystery, he has reinvented himself countless times and is happy to let many questions about himself remain unanswered.

On 24 May 2011, Bob Dylan turns 70. Click onwards to read MusicRadar's A-Z tribute to an icon.

A is for Al(bert) Grossman

An impressario from Chicago who signed Bob Dylan just after he had secured his recording contract with Columbia Records, CBS in those days. Grossman had been around the folk scene by co-founding the Newport Folk Festival and had already taken on Peter, Paul & Mary. His may have been the background whooping voice on Rainy Day Women, which made Dylan laugh - they kept it on the record!

Grossman was loved and loathed in equal measure and was known equally for his confrontational personality and for fierce loyalty to Dylan - who described him in the Scorsese film No Direction Home as "a kind of Colonel Tom Parker figure... you could smell him coming."