Today is Mr Bob Dylan’s birthday. So, as you might expect, there are a few things going on that mark the occasion quite nicely. Last Friday, an exhibition at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in New York opened to celebrate Mr DA Pennebaker’s landmark film Don’t Look Back – which documented Mr Dylan’s tumultuous 1965 tour of England. Last Friday, the man himself released his 37th studio album Fallen Angels (despite being 75, Mr Dylan continues to release and tour as if he never kicked the amphetamines). And earlier this month, The New York Times announced that the mercurial artist had sold a 6,000-piece archive of work to the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. The treasure trove of material includes rare master recording tapes, notes, poems and artwork that even the biggest Dylan fans didn’t know existed. Indeed, despite being one of the world’s most famous artists, the personal ephemera of Mr Dylan has often been kept out of the limelight. Which means we should all be rather excited about the release of Taschen’s Bob Dylan: A Year And A Day – a book which collates some never-before-seen shots taken by photographer Mr Daniel Kramer during a pivotal time in Mr Dylan’s career. Mr Kramer first met Mr Dylan in Woodstock when he was 23. He was rising to prominence in the civil rights movement, but he was still relatively unknown as a musician. From 1964 to 1965, the year Mr Dylan controversially “went electric”, Mr Kramer gained unparalleled access to him as he crept into stardom. Here, we look at some of the more stylish moments caught on Mr Kramer’s camera.

This shot shows Mr Dylan recording his first ever electric material, and, in the process, embarking on a controversial departure from the more traditional folk heard on the likes of The Freewheelin Bob Dylan’ and The Times They Are A-Changin’. For a man about to rewrite the rules of rock (and annoy huge sections of his fans in the process) – he looks rather relaxed. Perhaps it’s his trademark Wayfarer sunglasses (he is one of very few artists, never mind bog standard “people”, who look like they have a god-given right to wear shades indoors). Perhaps it’s his perfectly fitted blazer with that light-blue shirt beneath. Perhaps it’s because he’s recording the instant classics “Hey Mr Tambourine Man” and “Subterranean Homesick Blues” – both of which featured on the iconic album Bringing It All Back Home. We’re not sure, but if we could bottle the essence of this photograph, you wouldn’t hear from us again.

In the same year, a black and white photograph shows Mr Dylan sound checking before a show in Queens, New York, where he performed songs showcasing his Highway 61 Revisited album, which was released two days after this photo was taken, and has since been named by Rolling Stone as the fourth greatest album ever made. His clothes show off the pared-back, all-black, slim silhouette he made his own during the mid-1960s – one that is still copied by musicians to this day, and forms the identity of brands such as Saint Laurent. His outfit didn’t need to say much when he was singing the likes of “Ballad Of A Thin Man” – an angry letter to the bourgeois journalists trying to make sense of Mr Dylan’s world.

About 40 miles away from the dairy farm where the iconic Woodstock festival would take place just four years later, this shot sees Mr Dylan and Mr Kramer photograph each other in a display which shows the personal level of access Mr Kramer was granted, even in the year his subject shot to fame. Mr Dylan cuts a more mature figure in this never-before-published image, which shows him sans sunglasses, dressed in a smart black coat, scarf and jeans. Off-stage and out of the recording studio, it’s a look we mere mortals may feel a little more confident in attempting to pull off.

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