Million-dollar bash for Bob Dylan as Universal buys up his back pages

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Million-dollar bash for Bob Dylan as Universal buys up his back pages

By Angus MacSwan

 

FILE PHOTO: Bob Dylan performs during the Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Delaware, U.S. June 17, 2017. Picture taken June 17, 2017 REUTERS/Mark Makela

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Universal Music Group's publishing arm has bought Bob Dylan's entire back catalogue of more than 600 songs, from towering classics such as 1965's "Like a Rolling Stone" to this year's 17-minute epic "Murder Most Foul".

 

"The deal is the most significant music publishing agreement this century and one of the most important of all time," UMG said in a press release.

 

UMG declined to say how much the deal was worth but it was likely to have swelled the coffers of the man who once wrote "money doesn't talk, it swears" by many millions of dollars. The Financial Times said it could be in nine figures.

 

A Universal spokesperson told Reuters: "Can't discuss specific deal terms but essentially rights were with him."

Dylan, who emerged from the Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 1960s to become arguably the most acclaimed and influential artist of the rock era, is still going strong at the age of 79.

 

His latest album "Rough and Rowdy Ways", released this year, was a critical and commercial success. Rolling Stone magazine said in its review: "Dylan is exploring a terrain nobody else had reached before yet he just keeps pushing on into the future."

 

The first songwriter to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, he was also playing about 100 dates a year on his "Never Ending Tour" until the coronavirus pandemic forced him to cancel his schedule. In recent years, he also a produced his own whiskey, named "Heaven's Door" after one of his best-known songs.

 

The copyrights for songs spanning his 60-year career include such anthems as "Blowin' In The Wind", "The Times They Are A-Changin" and "Tangled Up In Blue," as well as "Make You Feel My Love", which was huge hit for Adele, and "Things Have Changed", for which he won an Oscar.

 

UMG Chairman Sir Lucian Grainge said Dylan had "amassed a singular body of work that includes some of the greatest and most popular songs the world has ever known." 

 

  "Brilliant and moving, inspiring and beautiful, insightful and provocative, his songs are timeless — whether they were written more than half a century ago or yesterday," Grainge said in the press releaee. "It is no exaggeration to say that his vast body of work has captured the love and admiration of billions of people all around the world."

 

His songs have been recorded more than 6,000 times by hundreds of artists and he has sold more than 125 million records globally.

 

(Additional reporting by Ayanti Bera in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-12-08

 

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[Tarteso]

So , the answer is in the Bank, wasn’t in the wind. ????

Edited December 7, 2020 by Tarteso

[RichardColeman]

Good plan, since nobody under 30 knows who he is  or can name any of his songs

[sammieuk1]

Now he just wants to stay forever young to spend it ????

[gunderhill]

I always thought his  stuff  was  awful,  could  never  see the attraction.

[herwin1234]

If Bob sells for 300 million , Lemmy should sell for 300 billion...

[camble]

The Thai Visa forum is the only place you’ll see negative comments about this talented legend.

[bendejo]

With the Dylan I liked his last good album was Blonde on Blonde.  A begrudging nod to Blood on the Tracks.  I would think he's had some commercial success with his newer stuff these past 45 years, but I haven't been following.  I doubt the stuff from the Civil Rights-Vietnam War era (which, to me, is what he was about) will find any audience outside of history researchers.

 

Kinda strange that Mr D survived a motorcycle accident and his creativity dried up IMO.  Stevie Wonder survives a car accident and produces four incredible, innovative albums in the following six years.

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

5 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

Good plan, since nobody under 30 knows who he is  or can name any of his songs

Their loss and nothing to be proud of.

[khunPer]

It's Okay to get $300 million at this stage, when he is still alive. The songs has probably seen their best days of earning income, and probably already have earned Dylan hundreds of millions of dollars. He decided to keep the publishing rights for himself, and only let Sony (originally CBS) administer collection of copyright fees outside US. However Dylan's net worth is "only" recorded as $200 million, before the Universal deal, so he might have had a good life so far from his music earnings...????

[khunPer]

 

 

[harada]

His songs still bring back some fond memories for me, especially the 1970’s, at least the parts that are not still a bit hazy and it’s not as if he hasn’t worked for it, well done Bob.

[Pique Dard]

i've composed a lot of songs and i wish universal music group could buy them as well! ????