Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, did you hear the news? Robert Zimmerman, better known to the public as Bob Dylan, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature this morning in Stockholm, Sweden. The Minnesota native who has been a great influence to not just musicians but the arts as a whole (as a songwriter, poet, sculptor, painter, et al.), becomes the first American to win a Nobel Prize in literature since 1993, when novelist Toni Morrison won.
Dylan’s body of work matured when he moved from Minnesota to New York’s Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, and again when he switched from acoustic to electric guitar – considered blasphemous at the time. But with Dylan being recognized with a Nobel this year, I guess you could say that the times are a changin’; typically the group in Stockholm awards an artist that is unfamiliar to most of the public. But everyone knows Bob Dylan. And if they don’t, they should.
His recognizable songs include “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” (from the western Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid), “The Time They Are a-Changin’,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and “All Along the Watchtower,” (which has been covered by the likes of Jimi Hendrix).
The timing of the award couldn’t be better as October 28th sees the Blu-ray release of Martin Scorsese’s documentary No Direction Home. A magnum opus of a documentary with a 207-minute run time, the film celebrates its 10th anniversary in a deluxe edition, and includes never-seen performance footage and Dylan talks extensively about his earliest years as a musician.
