Bob Dylan, the folk wailer of the 1960s whose songbook formed the basis for Twyla Tharp鈥檚 2006 Broadway musical The Times They Are A-Changin鈥�, was named winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature.
The surprise award was given for 鈥渉aving created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.鈥�
He is the first American to win the prize since Toni Morrison in 1993. The award comes with a gold medal and a $923,179.20 stipend.
Dylan鈥檚 music has also been sampled in the Broadway musicals A Night With Janis Joplin (2013), Rock 鈥橬 Roll! The First 5,000 Years (1982) and Paul Sills鈥� Story Theatre (1970).
The last American playwright to win the award was Eugene O'Neill in 1936, though several other American winners have had theatre connections.
Dylan, 75, began his career playing folk music, mostly all written by himself, in Greenwich Village clubs. After achieving international fame playing acoustical instruments, he famously scandalized the music world by adopting electronic instruments and moving toward a rock style. His numerous standards include 鈥淏lowin鈥� in the Wind,鈥� 鈥淟ike a Rolling Stone,鈥� 鈥淢r. Tambourine Man,鈥� 鈥淛ust Like a Woman,鈥� 鈥淒on鈥檛 Think Twice, It鈥檚 Alright,鈥� 鈥淎 Hard Rain鈥檚 a-Gonna Fall,鈥� 鈥淜nockin鈥� on Heaven鈥檚 Door,鈥� 鈥淟ay Lady Lay,鈥� 鈥淭angled Up in Blues鈥� and hundreds more.
However, he wrote in his autobiography, Chronicles, that he experienced an artistically transformative moment while attending a stage musical in 1963, the landmark Off-Broadway production of Bertolt Brecht鈥檚 and Kurt Weill鈥檚 The Threepenny Opera: 鈥滻n a few years鈥� time, I鈥檇 write and sing songs like 鈥業t's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding),鈥� 鈥楳r. Tambourine Man,鈥� 鈥楲onesome Death of Hattie Carroll,鈥� 鈥橶ho Killed Davey Moore,鈥� 鈥橭nly a Pawn in Their Game,鈥� 鈥橝 Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall鈥� and some others like that. If I hadn't gone to the Theatre de Lys and heard the ballad 鈥楶irate Jenny鈥� it might not have dawned on me to write them, that songs like these could be written.鈥�
