(AFP/Getty Images)
Bob Dylan’s prolific career has garnered him 10 Grammy Awards, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Arts, France’s Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres and even a Pulitzer Prize. Now, the rock legend is making room on his resume for one more after being voted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as announced Tuesday (March 12).
The 115-year-old organization grants what they call “the highest formal recognition of artistic merit in the United States” to an elite group of artists, authors, composers and architects. Dylan is the first rock musician to gain membership and will be joining the likes of Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Because Dylan gave rich contributions to the arts with both his music and his words, the academy named him an honorary member, as they did previously with Woody Allen, Meryl Streep and Martin Scorsese.
“The board of directors considered the diversity of his work and acknowledged his iconic place in the American culture,” Virginia Dajani, the academy’s executive director, said. “Bob Dylan is a multi-talented artist whose work so thoroughly crosses several disciplines that it defies categorization.”
- Nee-Sa Lossing, Radio.com
