For those of you out in the west, including the USA, it's still the great folk singer's 73rd birthday this May 24. For Bob's fans in Asia, the birthday's almost over but you'll get a chance to see him live in Australia this August.

The times they have a-changed for the musician credited with reviving that comatose genre called folk music back in the troubled 1960s and being an inspiration to generations of musicians since. Folkies strummed to regular guitars back then but Bob changed all that by turning to electric guitars that made him a folkie with a sharper edge.

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The lean and gritty good looks girls went gaga over have more than matured five decades later. Some of you will say it's a shame Bob had to age, but the consensus is that Bob's famously nasal delivery (sometimes so nasal it got in the way of his lyrics) is still almost there.

And to those newbies in the process of getting to know why this American singer-songwriter is a legend, suffice it to say Bob's ballads are rightfully considered anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s. His ballads were unifying.

The most famous of Bob's ballads, "Blowing in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin," are classics you can't escape from if you're a folkie.

He's sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He's received numerous awards including the Grammy, Golden Globe and the Academy Awards.

The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 even awarded Bob a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."

The handwritten lyrics to one of his classics, "Like a Rolling Stone," is expected to fetch some US$1 million at an auction at Sotheby's this June.

These latter day successes were born of early failure. His first album, "Bob Dylan," in 1962 was a flop and barely broke even. Bob found success with his second album, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan." And the rest is folk music legend.

Bob's music inspired the Beatles (they said so themselves). His songs became 1960's hits for folkies like Joan Baez and Peter, Paul & Mary, both leading lights in the anti-Vietnam war movement of that era.

Next week, however, his fellow American songwriters will honor Bob at a Songwriters at Play Showcase in Pismo Beach. They'll perform some of Bob's best-known and most popular songs in the annual Bob Dylan Birthday Bash on May 29. Can't seem to get enough of Bob, can't they.

Pop quiz: What's Bob Dylan's real name? And no peeking at Wikipedia.