Life Bookazines - Bob Dylan - 2020

94 LIFE BOB DYLAN

id and harmless, threadbare, easy to get around with them.

Prophet, Messiah, Savior—those are tough ones.”

So in his seniority, he must be okay with the “anach-

ronisms” and accolades that have come his way, for he has

never been given a Lifetime Prophet or Savior Award. If he

has often been referred to as an Eternal Enigma, most of

these trophies explicitly or implicitly imply Legend. Or Icon.

He can get around with those.

Why do we know for sure that he has been more than

okay with these many tributes that finally acknowledge the

immensity of his contribution to American music and cul-

ture? Because he has shown up to accept them. He is polite

now—he has grown up; the days of that drunken rant at the

Tom Paine belong to a different, bygone man—and he is

appreciative.

The laurels come in formal and informal form. Since the

1960s, there has been a constant stream of “new Dylans,” and

in a certain way this is an accolade. Some of these perform-

ers have possessed tremendous, individualistic talent—John

Prine was once a new Dylan, and so was Bruce Springsteen—

while others were never heard from after gaining the appel-

lation. The intrinsically impossible search for a new Dylan,

when we have the authentic (if self-invented) Dylan quite in

our midst, has grown to be such a cottage industry that at one

point a group called itself, perhaps hoping for attention, the

New Dylans. It didn’t work. Finally comes Sara and Bobby’s

youngest child, Jakob Dylan—a literal new Dylan—and he is

the goods, without ever having to say so.

Bob Dylan’s name and story and words have become

American touchstones. According to a 2007 study by a

University of Tennessee law professor, Alex Long, the

AFTER A LONG JOURNEY, BOBBY ZIMMERMAN

of Hibbing, Minnesota, who is now acclaimed

by just about all, is as comfortable in the

halls of power as he is in his own skin. On

this page, he is seen (above) on February 9,

2010, performing in the East Room of the

White House during “A Celebration of Music

from the Civil Rights Movement,” and then

greeting President Barack Obama and the

First Lady (top). Opposite: A last picture for

this “Rolling On” chapter: Dylan and Allen

Ginsberg, walking away, during their last

tour together. The poet, certainly one of the

reasons Dylan traveled as he did, died in

1997. He, Kerouac, Suze, Van Ronk, Albert
      Grossman, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko,
      George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Johnny
      Cash—they all have passed. Dylan—Bobby
      Zimmerman—carries the flame.

PETE SOUZA/THE WHITE HOUSE

KEVIN WINTER/GETTY

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