Songwriting legend Bob Dylan was awarded an honorary Pulitzer Prize on Monday to recognize his astonishing five-decade career, making him the first Rock and Roll artist in history to garner such applause. The iconic singer/songwriter was acknowledged for his “profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.” According to the Associated Press, it is the first time Pulitzer judges, who “have long favored classical music, and, more recently, jazz… awarded an art form once dismissed as barbaric, even subversive.”
Songwriting legend Bob Dylan was awarded an honorary Pulitzer Prize on Monday to recognize his astonishing five-decade career, making him the first Rock and Roll artist in history to garner such applause. The iconic singer/songwriter was acknowledged for his “profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.” According to the Associated Press, it is the first time Pulitzer judges, who “have long favored classical music, and, more recently, jazz… awarded an art form once dismissed as barbaric, even subversive.”
Long after many of his contemporaries have kicked the bucket or quit the business, Dylan continues to tour relentlessly and cut critically acclaimed albums, most recently Modern Times, released in 2006. His memoir, Chronicles, Volume One, also received a National Book Critics Circle nomination in 2005 and is widely recognized as esteemed literature that exceeds the “celebrity book.” The award also comes on the heels of Todd Haynes’ film I’m Not There, a Golden Globe Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated biopic inspired by Dylan’s life. The film made many Top 10 lists in 2007, including The Village Voice, Entertainment Weekly, Salon and The Boston Globe.
Composer David Lang was also awarded the annual Pulitzer Music Award for his composition The Little Match Girl Passion, based on the Hans Christian Anderson fable, The Little Match Girl. Though he told the Los Angeles Times Tuesday that he’s “not fit to touch the hem of [Dylan’s] shoes,” he is no stranger to the limelight; Lang co-founded New York’s experimental music collective Bang On A Can, and his work has been performed at Carnegie Hall, the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony and at the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, to name a few.
Quite a resume, fellas! Ever try your hand at writing news pieces?