Bob Dylan, Man of Mystery

Bob Dylan's been making music since the '60s, but biographers still don't seem to be any closer to capturing the private side of the enigmatic pop icon.

Next Sunday's two-hour A&E Biography (Aug. 13, 8 pm/ET) of Dylan ? the latest attempt at revealing what makes the singer tick ? adds little to the previous profiles on the singer-songwriter. But it might just be that fans are looking for complexity where it doesn't exist, offers fellow musician Cesar Diaz.

"He's a very simple man," says Diaz, who's toured with Dylan in recent years. "He doesn't like to be called Mr. Dylan or [his real family name] Mr. Zimmerman. He just likes to be called Bob. He likes to melt into the background and be left alone, and I think that he hates the day that he made it."

So what compels the 59-year-old Grammy winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honoree to continue touring? "He likes to be out there because he likes to feel young," Diaz continues, "and [know] that he can still do it."

Even going back to Dylan's early days as a struggling folk singer in New York's Greenwich Village, colleagues tried in vain to get a peek behind the curtain that enshrouded him. Says fellow '60s folk singer Dave Van Ronk: "There was always a core of Bobby that nobody could reach."

Journalist Al Aronowitz, meanwhile, has his own take on the music legend: "Bob is one of the most charming men I've ever met," he says. "[But] he can be the meanest bastard."