In 2016 Bob Dylan was presented with the Nobel Prize in Literature; the first American to receive this award since Toni Morrison in 1993. For more than six decades Bob Dylan has remained a mythical force in music, his gravelly voice and poetic lyrics musing over love, war, heartbreak, betrayal, death and moral faithlessness in songs that brought beauty to life’s greatest tragedies. The Nobel committee recognizes Bob Dylan for “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. We take this opportunity to pay tribute to the most influential Songwriter of the 20th Century with a stylistically wide ranging concert presenting many of his most popular songs.
THE TOLLING THUNDER REVUE presents Songs that Bob Dylan wrote, recorded and became hits, Songs that he wrote but remained obscure, Songs that he wrote yet never recorded, Songs that he recorded but didn’t write, Songs that he wrote which became hits for others, Songs that were written by others and influenced him and Songs written by others that were influenced by Bob Dylan. In the past, we have presented Songs that he has claimed to have written but that’s another story and another show!
What can be told about a man whose goal it has always been, to remain an enigma, a phantom? Even in his „autobiographical“ book CHRONICLS, Bob Dylan purposefully obscures his tracks and distorts his own history.
No other Songwriter of the 20th Century has been quite so influential as Bob Dylan. Over the course of his more than 55 years on stage and in the studio, he has not only changed his own personal muscial style several times but also the course of popular music in general. He is consistent in his merucrial inconsistancy and refuses to be pinpointed and labeled.
Ira Welles writes: „Bob Dylan’s two most recent albums have consisted entirely of Sinatra-era cover songs. The man who was just awarded the Nobel Prize in literature – the man with the “sand and glue” voice – has recently taken to giving us only the voice, none of the literature. If that sounds perverse, well: Let me introduce you to Bob Dylan. A brilliant, and brilliantly perverse, choice for the Nobel Prize.
Featuring the TOLLING THUNDER REVUE; Holly DeWolf, Tiffany Marie Estrada, Elena Gallego, Karin Heinrich, Sara Conway, Erica Applezweig, Deanya Schempp, Silvia Stopp, Michael “Mesox” Hecht, Sandeep Hegde, Gerhad Oberschmidt, Steffen Kindlein, Bryan Mitchell, Derrick Jenkins, Charles C. Urban
Show time: Monday, 8 May, 8 PM @ Kulturzentrum Merlin
New English American Theater Stuttgart 