SourceRock legend Bob Dylan was treated like a complete unknown by police in a New Jersey shore community when a resident called to report someone wandering around the neighborhood.
Dylan was in Long Branch, about a two-hour drive south of New York City, on July 23 as part of a tour with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp that was to play at a baseball stadium in nearby Lakewood.
A 24-year-old police officer apparently was unaware of who Dylan is and asked him for identification, Long Branch business administrator Howard Woolley said Friday.
"I don't think she was familiar with his entire body of work," Woolley said.
The incident began at 5 p.m. when a resident said a man was wandering around a low-income, predominantly minority neighborhood several blocks from the oceanfront looking at houses.
The police officer drove up to Dylan, who was wearing a blue jacket, and asked him his name. According to Woolley, the following exchange ensued:
"What is your name, sir?" the officer asked.
"Bob Dylan," Dylan said.
"OK, what are you doing here?" the officer asked.
"I'm on tour," the singer replied.
A second officer, also in his 20s, responded to assist the first officer. He, too, apparently was unfamiliar with Dylan, Woolley said.
The officers asked Dylan for identification. The singer of such classics as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Blowin' in the Wind" said that he didn't have any ID with him, that he was just walking around looking at houses to pass some time before that night's show.
The officers asked Dylan, 68, to accompany them back to the Ocean Place Resort and Spa, where the performers were staying. Once there, tour staff vouched for Dylan.
The officers thanked him for his cooperation.
"He couldn't have been any nicer to them," Woolley added.
How did it feel? A Dylan publicist did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Friday.
You're Bob Dylan? NJ police want to see some ID
- Thread starter Vinyl
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Of course! I definitely don't disagree... but it is good that he acted very chill -- he probably thought the same thing.
I can imagine some celebrities would throw a fit, LOL!
yeah, i agree he had a good attitude
BTW, i am a huge Dylan fan, but i saw this picture of him a while ago
that is definitely not how i remembered him, so i guess that if i saw him in the street i would've not recognized him either. i kind of remembered him more like this;
:shame:
BTW, i am a huge Dylan fan, but i saw this picture of him a while ago
that is definitely not how i remembered him, so i guess that if i saw him in the street i would've not recognized him either. i kind of remembered him more like this;
:shame:
From NPR:
Bob Dylan, Titan Of American Music, Wins 2016 Nobel Prize In Literature
Bob Dylan, Titan Of American Music, Wins 2016 Nobel Prize In Literature
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Bob Dylan performs in Chicago in 1978. He is the first American to claim the Nobel Prize in literature since Toni Morrison won in 1993.
Paul Natkin/Getty Images
Bob Dylan has won the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature. The prolific musician is the first Nobel winner to have forged a career primarily as a singer-songwriter. What's more, he's also the first American to have won the prize in more than two decades. Not since novelist Toni Morrison won in 1993 has an American claimed the prize.
Dylan earned the prize "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition," according to the citation by the Swedish Academy, the committee that annually decides the recipient of the Nobel Prize. The academy's permanent secretary, Sara Danius, announced the news Thursday.
The win comes as something of a shock. As usual, the Swedish Academy did not announce a shortlist of nominees, leaving the betting markets to their best guesses. And while Dylan has enjoyed perennial favor as an outside shot for the award, the prospect that the musician would be the one to break the Americans' long dry spell was regarded as far-fetched — not least because he made his career foremost on the stage, not the printed page.
Yet few would argue Dylan has been anything but influential, both in the U.S. and beyond its borders. The prolific singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has produced dozens of albums, including The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited and Blood on the Tracks. His track "Like a Rolling Stone" has taken on mythic standing in the decades since its release; many, including Dylan himself, have pointed to it as emblematic of a sea change in American music.
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'Like a Rolling Stone'
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"Tin Pan Alley is gone," Dylan proclaimed in 1985, referring the dominant conventions established by music publishers of the early 20th century. "I put an end to it. People can record their own songs now."
Dylan, who was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in 1941, "has the status of an icon," the Swedish Academy wrote in a biographical note. "His influence on contemporary music is profound, and he is the object of a steady stream of secondary literature."
In an interview following the announcement, Danius elaborated on the Swedish Academy's decision: "He is a great poet in the English-speaking tradition, and he is a wonderful sampler — a very original sampler," Danius explained. "For 54 years now he has been at it and reinventing himself, constantly creating a new identity."
And for his work, he has been amply recognized by critical community. Dylan has won Grammys, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S. Now, to that trove of honors Dylan has added a Nobel.
The Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded since 1901 to writers who have produced "the most outstanding work in an ideal direction." In that time, 109 prizes have been distributed to 113 writers. This year, the prize carries with it a purse of approximately $900,000 and, as usual, inclusion on literature's most illustrious list — the pantheon of Nobel winners.
The 75-year-old artist will receive his award in Stockholm on Dec. 10.