Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, author and visual artist. Over his career he has received many accolades throughout his long career as a songwriter and performing artist. Dylan's professional career began in 1961 when he signed with Columbia Records. Fifty-five years later, in 2016, Dylan continued to release new recordings and was the first musician to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Dylan has received 10 competitive Grammy Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Grammy. He received his first Grammy Award nomination for Best Folk Recording for his debut studio album Bob Dylan (1962). Dylan has won two Grammy Awards for Album of the Year for The Concert for Bangladesh (1973) and Time Out of Mind (1997). For his song "Gotta Serve Somebody" in 1980 he won the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. He won Grammy Awards for his Folk Albums, World Gone Wrong in 1995, Time Out of Mind (1997), Love and Theft (2001), and Modern Times (2006). For the songs "Cold Irons Bound" (1998) and "Someday Baby" (2006) he won twice for Best Rock Vocal Performance.
On film, he wrote the music and composed the score for the Sam Peckinpah directed revisionist western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) for which he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Original Music. Dylan earned acclaim for writing the song "Things Have Changed" for the Curtis Hanson directed comedy-drama film Wonder Boys (2000) for which he earned the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song as well as a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media.
Throughout his career, Dylan has received various honorary awards including the National Medal of Arts in 2009 and Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 both given to him by the 44th president of the United States Barack Obama. He has also been honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1997, a Pulitzer Prize Citation in 2008, and a Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016. He was made both an Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 1990 and Officier de la Legion d'honneur in 2013. He was inducted in both The Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1982 and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. Five of his songs were listed in as being one of the 500 songs that shaped rock and roll.
Major associations Academy Awards Year Category Nominated work Result 2001 Best Original Song "Things Have Changed" (from Wonder Boys)
BAFTA Awards Year Category Nominated work Result British Academy Film Awards 1973 Best Original Music Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
Golden Globe Awards Year Category Nominated work Result 2001 Best Original Song "Things Have Changed" (from Wonder Boys)
Grammy Awards Year Category Nominated work Result 1963 Best Folk Recording Bob Dylan 1965 Best Folk Recording The Times They Are a-Changin' 1969 Best Folk Performance John Wesley Harding 1970 Best Country Instrumental Performance "Nashville Skyline Rag" 1973 Album of the Year The Concert for Bangla Desh 1974 Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid 1980 Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male "Gotta Serve Somebody" 1981 Best Inspirational Performance Saved 1982 Best Inspirational Performance Shot of Love 1989 Best Traditional Folk Recording "Pretty Boy Floyd" 1990 Album of the Year Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal 1992 Best Music Video, Short Form "Series of Dreams" Lifetime Achievement Award Himself 1994 Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo "All Along the Watchtower" Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal "My Back Pages" Best Contemporary Folk Album Good as I Been to You 1995 Best Traditional Folk Album World Gone Wrong 1996 Best Male Rock Vocal Performance "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" Best Rock Song "Dignity" Best Contemporary Folk Album MTV Unplugged 1998 Album of the Year Time Out of Mind Best Contemporary Folk Album Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male "Cold Irons Bound" 1999 Best Country Song "To Make You Feel My Love" 2001 Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male "Things Have Changed" Best Song Written for Visual Media 2002 Album of the Year Love and Theft Best Contemporary Folk Album Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male "Honest with Me" 2004 Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals "Gonna Change My Way of Thinking" Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male "Down in the Flood" 2007 Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance "Someday Baby" Best Rock Song Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album Modern Times 2010 Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance "Beyond Here Lies Nothin'" Best Americana Album Together Through Life 2016Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album Shadows in the Night 2017 Fallen Angels 2018 Triplicate Grammy Hall of Fame 1994 Folk (Single) "Blowin' in the Wind" Columbia 1998 Rock (Single) "Like a Rolling Stone" Columbia 1999 Rock (Album) Blonde on Blonde Columbia 2002 Rock (Track) "Mr. Tambourine Man" Columbia 2002 Rock (Album) Highway 61 Revisited Columbia 2006 Rock (Album) Bringing It All Back Home Columbia 2015 Rock (Album) Blood on the Tracks Columbia 2016 Rock (Album) The Basement Tapes Columbia
Other awards and nominations Organizations Year Category Nominated work Result GMA Dove Awards 1980 Album by a Secular Artist Slow Train Coming MVPA Awards 2013 Best Rock Video "Duquesne Whistle" mtvU Woodie Awards2014 Did it My Way Woodie Himself Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 1988 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll "Blowin' in the Wind" "The Times They Are a-Changin’" "Like a Rolling Stone" "Subterranean Homesick Blues" "Tangled Up in Blue" Antville Music Video Awards 2013 Best Interactive "Like a Rolling Stone" UK Music Video Awards 2014 Best Art Direction & Design Best Music AD Webby Awards 1999 Webby Awards bobdylan.com 2014 Websites - Music "Like a Rolling Stone" Online Film & Video - Best Editing Online Film & Video - Best Use of Interactive Video Online Film & Video - Music
Honorary awards
Organization Year Honor Result Nobel Prize Foundation 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature Tom Paine Foundation 1963 Thomas Paine Award Princeton University 1970 Honorary Doctorate of Music Songwriters Hall of Fame 1982 Inductee French Minister of Culture 1990 Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres The Recording Academy 1992 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts 1997 Kennedy Center Honors Gish Foundtation 1997 The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize Royal Swedish Academy of Music 2000 Polar Music Prize Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame2002 Inductee American Academy of Achievement 2003 Golden Plate Award St. Andrews University 2004 Honorary Doctorate of Music Prince of Asturias Awards 2007 Prize Pulitzer Prize 2008 Special Citation President Barack Obama 2009 National Medal of Arts White House Announces 2009 National Medal of Arts Recipients President Barack Obama 2012 Presidential Medal of Freedom Neustadt International Prize 2012 For Literature President François Hollande 2013 Officier de la Legion d'honneur MusiCares Foundation 2015 MusiCares Person of the Year Berklee College of Music 2025 Honorary Doctorate of Music
Footnotes