concert fifty years to the day after the musician was accused of heresy by going electric during a gig at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall at Academy 3 on May 17, 2016 in Manchester, United Kingdom.
“Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial,” sang Bob Dylan on “Visions Of Johanna”, arguably his greatest song and the standout track on 1966’s Blonde On Blonde album.
In March 2016, Dylan sold his personal archive of around 6,000 items – including notes, drafts of lyrics, poetry, letters, artwork, photographs and more – to the University of Tulsa and the George Kaiser Foundation.
The initial purpose was to open it all up to researchers.
But the collection is finally being made accessible to the public, with the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa announcing it will open in May 2022.
TOPSHOT – A David Bowie art installation is seen at the Broadway-Lafayette subway station on April …
Dylan has been carefully curating his own past for several decades now, most notably through the ongoing Bootleg Series of albums since 1991 that offer a wealth of unreleased recordings, demos, live tracks and alternative versions of songs from particular eras of his career.
This historical wrong-footing was seen as hitting its peak with the 2019 release on Netflix of the Martin Scorsese semi-documentary Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 10: A view of signage on display during the world premiere of Netflix’s …
The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle originally opened in 2000 as Experience Music Project and was dedicated to Jimi Hendrix but has since broadened out to include more acts.
There are also official museums dedicated to Johnny Cash, Peggy Lee, Patsy Cline and recently Prince .
The most curious of all museums, however, is probably the Musée d’Édith Piaf in Paris devoted to the French singer which occupies just two rooms in a fourth-floor apartment block.
Such museums are typically the final stage in the cultural anointment of a musician – publicly proclaiming they have created a body of work of huge musical significance and lived a rich life of huge cultural significance.
I have covered all areas of the music industry since 2000 and written for a wide range of consumer and business publications including The Guardian, Music Week, Music Ally, Music Business Worldwide, Q and The Times.