Bob Dylan has been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, becoming the first rock star to join the prestigious institution.
Robert Allen Zimmerman joins the Academy’s list of successful, upper-crust Americans, Sinclair Lewis, Kurt Vonnegut, Duke Ellington, Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Rothko, Frank Lloyd Wright and Roy Lichtenstein.
Additions to the Academy come from categories of music, literature and visual arts, and Blind Boy Grunt was anointed as an honorary member, given his work’s versatile success in music as well as lyrics, according to the AP.
“The board of directors considered the diversity of his work and acknowledged his iconic place in the American culture,” said the Academy’s Virginia Dajani. “Bob Dylan is a multi-talented artist whose work so thoroughly crosses several disciplines that it defies categorization.”
Members like Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Meryl Streep have been honored with the same title in the past.
Bobby will be inducted during a May ceremony in May, but he will probably will not attend, since he’s booked tour dates for April and May.
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