'Rock Hall's Patti Smith to fill in for Bob Dylan at Nobel prize ceremony

This year's 'Nobel Prize in Literature' honoree Bob Dylan will reportedly not attend the December 10th gala in Stockholm, but his music will still be performed.

Nobel organizers recently announced that 'Rock Hall' singer-songwriter Patti Smith, who was previously set to perform her own song, will cover the 75-year-old star's 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' at the ceremony, reports rollingstone.com.

Dylan may not be accepting the 2016 'Nobel Prize' in person, but in the past, the singer-songwriter has showed up to claim many prestigious awards.

While Dylan will not attend the Nobel ceremony due to "other commitments" that "make it unfortunately impossible," the Nobel committee tweeted that Dylan has "provided a speech which will be read at the Nobel banquet" on December 10.

Smith revealed that organizers approached her in September to sing at the ceremony, prior to the announcement of this year's award recipients.

"I had planned to perform one of my own songs with the orchestra. But after Bob Dylan was announced as the winner and he accepted it, it seemed appropriate to set my own song aside and choose one of his," she shared.

Talking of her choice, Smith explained that it was because 'A Hard Rain' "combines his Rimbaudian mastery of language with a deep understanding of the causes of suffering and ultimately human resilience."

"I have been following him since I was a teenager, half a century to be exact. I am very proud to be doing so and will approach the task with a sense of gratitude for having him as our distant, but present, cultural shepherd," Smith added.