Bob Dylan museum opening in Tulsa, celebrating the Nobel laureate's work

Elvis Costello, Patti Smith and Mavis Staples will be among the dignitaries expected in Tulsa, Oklahoma, this weekend for the opening of the Bob Dylan Centre, the museum and archive celebrating the Nobel laureate’s work.
 

Dylan himself won’t be among them, unless he surprises everyone.

The centre’s subject and namesake has an open invita­tion to come anytime, alth­ough his absence seems perfectly in character, said Steven Jenkins, the centre’s director. Oddly, Dylan was in Tulsa three weeks ago for a date on his concert tour, sandwiched in between Oklahoma City and Little Rock.

“I don’t want to put words in his mouth,” Jenkins said. “I can only guess at his reaso­ning. Maybe he would find it embarrassing.” It’s unusual for a living figure — Dylan is due to turn 81 on May 24 — to have a museum devoted to him, but such is the shadow he has cast over popular mu­sic since his emergence in the early 1960s.