BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME

Just as we’re preparing to celebrate Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday (5/24), The Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Okla., has announced it will open its doors before the bard turns 81, on 5/10/22.

The center contains the more than 100,000 cultural treasures found in The Bob Dylan Archive, including handwritten lyrics, previously unreleased recordings, film performances, rare and unseen photographs, visual art and other artifacts.

Among the highlights: An ever-evolving display of pieces from The Bob Dylan Archive; an immersive film experience; a recreation of a studio environment; the Columbia Records Gallery, which will provide an in-depth look at the creation, performance and production of songs such as “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Tangled Up in Blue” and “Chimes of Freedom”; and a screening room showcasing Dylan-related films.

To provide a taste of the obscurities, the center has shared a rare Barry Feinstein photo of Dylan performing with The Band in 1974.

The three-story facade of The Bob Dylan Center will face downtown Tulsa’s Guthrie Green and will depict a rare 1965 image of Dylan donated to the center by photographer Jerry Schatzberg.

Founding membership in The Bob Dylan Center, which includes lifetime membership to the BDC and The Woody Guthrie Center as well as permanent recognition on the center’s donor wall, is available now at bobdylancenter.com. Annual membership and public-admission info will become available later this year.

In other Dylan news:

More than 120 of Dylan’s paintings, drawings and sculptures will be on display at Florida International University beginning 11/30. Retrospectrum, the most expansive and detailed exhibition of Dylan's artwork ever seen on U.S. soil, will run through 4/17/22.

Clinton Heylin, who has written eight books on Dylan, has revisited the first 25 years of Robert Zimmerman’s life in The Double Life of Bob Dylan, which he discusses with Rolling Stone.

Chrissie Hynde’s next album, Standing in the Doorway, is a collection of Dylan covers; it's out 5/21. A documentary on the making of the album, Tomorrow Is a Long Time, will screen on the U.K.’s Sky Arts on Dylan’s 80th.