Diehard Bob Dylan fans from around the world are expected to descend upon northeast Minnesota over the next week for the 16th edition of the annual Duluth Dylan Fest, which celebrates legendary singer and songwriter Bob Dylan’s roots in the region with a series of performances and events.
The festival kicks off Sunday with a concert on the front lawn of the home in Hibbing where Dylan’s family moved when he was six years old.
And it concludes on May 24, Dylan’s 85th birthday, with an evening concert and an afternoon birthday party on the front porch of the duplex in Duluth where Dylan’s family lived for the first several years of his life.
“We’re a group of volunteers that love that Bob Dylan is from Duluth and was born here,” said Zane Bail, one of the organizers of the festival.
Other highlights include a May 17 tour of Hibbing High School, where Dylan graduated in 1959. Five years ago a group of volunteers raised money to install a public art tribute to Dylan outside the school, featuring a series of stainless steel panels that contain lyrics from more than 50 of his songs.
Jam sessions are scheduled for venues in Duluth and Superior, Wis. during the week. A singer-songwriter contest will be held May 22 at Duluth’s Sacred Heart Music Center. The fest concludes with a birthday bash and concert featuring Paul Metsa and Sonny Earl at Alhambra Theatre in Duluth on May 24.
Every year at the front porch party at Dylan’s Duluth home, organizers ask people in the crowd where they’re from. And every year, Bail said, people come from around the country and the world.
“Last year there was somebody from Ireland. We had a couple folks from Australia, New Zealand. We never know who’s going to show up, but it's always a surprise, and it definitely attracts an international crowd,” said Bail.
While Dylan isn’t likely to make an appearance at the festival, he is scheduled to play later this summer in Minnesota, on July 6 at the Mystic Lake Amphitheater in Shakopee. Among his many honors over the years, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."
