Bob Dylan: Chimes of Freedom

Bob Dylan is indisputably one of the major musicians of our time. He is a complicated and paradoxical figure that defies categorization. Although his work has undergone some ironic transmutations over the years, his musical development has often been a response to his rebellious and restless nature and refusal to be typecast. Like Picasso and other great cultural figures he has constantly reinvented himself. For Dylan, the times are always changin’ and no moss will gather under his rolling stone. In October 2016 he was honored with the Nobel Prize. The Swedish Academy praised Dylan, “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” and compared him to ancient Greek poets. Leonard Cohen, the marvelous Canadian singer-songwriter who sadly passed away about a month after the Nobel announcement said, awarding Dylan the prize “is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain.”