Bob Dylan won’t be at the Nobel ceremony; Patti Smith singing instead

Bob Dylan, the 2016 winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, has written a speech that will be read at the annual awards banquet in Stockholm, the Nobel Foundation announced Monday.

And though Dylan won’t attend the Dec. 10 event, Patti Smith will perform his 1963 tune “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” In addition to performing at the banquet, Smith is on the 2016 Nobel Week agenda to discuss the importance of role models, including several Nobel laureates who have inspired her.

Dylan, whose songs are taught as poetry at colleges across the country, is the first musician to be awarded the Nobel for literature.

“He was talking about life, politics, civil rights — he made music the equivalent of books,” longtime music critic Robert Hilburn told The Times in October, when the honor was announced. “Look at all the great writers. When you talk about words having an effect on people around the world for generations — his words make us dream, they inspire us, they comfort us, they exhilarate us… .

“You could have given him this prize 20 years ago for the cultural revolution he created with just words.”

Follow Christie D’Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ.

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