In a business where youth is supposed to be a big deal, someone's 60th birthday might be a surprising thing for the world to go crazy about.

But Bob Dylan is - and always has been - a special case, ever since he first picked up a guitar and began pouring out songs way back in 1962.

The Greatest Songwriter Ever is still doing his stuff, right down to winning an Oscar just last year.

If you want to impress your friends, here are BBC News Online's pass notes on the great man.

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His real name is Robert Allen Zimmerman

He has released over 40 albums since his 1962 debut, just called Bob Dylan

Dylan won an Oscar last year for his song Things Have Changed, which was used in the film Wonder Boys

The only song Dylan has recorded this year is a cover of a Dean Martin song on the soundtrack of the hit US gangster series The Sopranos

Dylan had a part in the classic 1970s Western Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid, playing a knife-throwing drifter with the mysterious name Alias

In 1966 he almost died after crashing his motorbike near his Woodstock home

Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota, but grew up in nearby Hibbing - which was also the birthplace of America's famous Greyhound bus company

In 1965, he made one of the first ever promo films, for Subterranean Homesick Blues, which included a cameo by top American poet Allen Ginsberg

His son Jakob is also in the music business with his band The Wallflowers

Key Dylan albums include Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde On Blonde, Blood On The Tracks and Time Out Of Mind

Dylan's long marriage to Sara Lowndes inspired some of the finest songs about love and loss ever. He was also married to Carol Dennis between 1986 and 1992

He has five children - Jesse, Anna, Samuel and Jakob with Sara, and Desiree (now 15) with Carol Dennis

He was the first songwriter to write serious lyrics about his own life and world - paving the way for everyone else who followed

Dylan has written around 450 songs since 1962

One of the first music movies was the 1965 documentary Don't Look Back, which followed Dylan on his 1965 tour of Britain.