Bob Dylan Center: The Bob Dylan Center is located in a three-story brick building in the Tulsa Arts District near downtown Tulsa. This image of Dylan is painted on the brick wall of the building. I believe that the image is flat with little contrast to create a more vague photo of Dylan. Dylan’s lyrics, music and persona were sometimes a mystery and could be interpreted various ways. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Not So Quiet: An example of a wall featuring Dylan’s life in chronological order. The displays featured video, photos, written explanations, and audio to correspond with the events in the photos. The display was very interactive and gave visitors a chance to hear Dylan’s music as well as spoken word. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
By GARY WARREN
Photographer
Formerly of Los Alamos
When preparing these “Posts From the Road” columns, I usually choose photos on a subject and back that up with a short written story or explanation of the event or circumstances. However, this week I will deviate and write a post that has photos, but primarily photos of photos in a museum setting.
As we travel about in new territory, we often ask locals for suggestions for things to see or do in the area. We learn about a lot of new or different sites by listening to the suggestions of locals. Along the way, store owners, visitor center hosts, and sometimes it may be someone we meet in a casual conversation, almost always have suggestions of sites or places that are a “must see, cannot miss” when visiting their part of the country. We appreciate the recommendations and usually attempt to work them into our travels along the way, and most of the time, they become some of our most enjoyable visits in the area.
The Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Okla. is a stop that I was unaware of until we began traveling Route 66 through Oklahoma last fall. We receive many suggestions regarding Route 66 but sometimes it may be a site that is totally unrelated to the real reason we are traveling through the area. We kept hearing about the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa.
When I heard of the Bob Dylan Center it piqued my interest, having grown up listening to the music of the 1960s. While in Tulsa we set aside time to visit the center. It happens to be located next door to the Woody Guthrie Center. Guthrie was a folk singer who was nearing the end of his career as Bob Dylan was beginning his. Guthrie and his music were an inspiration and idol of Bob Dylan so it is fitting that the two centers be located next to each other.
Bob Dylan sold his complete archive to the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Tulsa in 2016. Kaiser is a billionaire businessman and philanthropist who lives in Tulsa. The Bob Dylan Center and the Woody Guthrie Center are anchors in the vibrant Tulsa Arts District in downtown Tulsa.
Why Tulsa? Bob Dylan preferred a location with the “casual hum of the heartland rather than the coasts”.
The Bob Dylan Center is dedicated to the life and works of Bob Dylan.
The center celebrates the work and artistry of Bob Dylan and inspires and educates visitors about fearless creativity. There are more than 100,000 various items in the archives housed in the center covering all aspects of Dylan’s life and work.
The facility has 29,000 square feet in the three-story building. The museum covers two floors of the building, and the extensive remainder of the archives is on the third floor. The museum is the major draw for visitors, and it is a modern, interactive museum where visitors can listen to Dylan’s music and words as they move about the exhibits. Visitors are given a headset to listen to the music and other features of Dylan’s life and work.
A multi-media timeline of Dylan’s life from his early years in Minnesota up to the present can be enjoyed. A chronicle of Dylan’s music is covered from early on through the most active recording years of his musical career and into his senior years. Dylan will turn 85 this year, and he is still touring and playing his music.
Visitors get to see original manuscripts, notes, photographs, films and various items of interest from Dylan’s life and work. Most of the items on display in the museum were not available to the public until the center’s opening in 2022.
“Going Electric: Bob Dylan ‘65” was a special exhibition featuring a film, photos, and events leading up to and the commotion following Dylan’s performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Bob Dylan performed his set with an electric guitar. This was considered one of the most controversial and influential moments in the history of popular music. The special exhibit is scheduled through the spring of 2026.
After spending a couple of hours in the museum, I was very grateful for the suggestions that we visit the center. I will return when I visit Tulsa again. One visit is not enough. It is a fabulous experience for any music fan.
In addition to the museum and extensive archives of Dylan, the Bob Dylan Center also offers additional exhibits, public programs, performances, and lectures.
I love this quote about the center: “Our intention is not to explain Dylan. If anything, it is to create even more questions.” –Steven Jenkins, Director of the Bob Dylan Center.
Editor’s note: Longtime Los Alamos photographer Gary Warren and his wife Marilyn are traveling around the country, and he shares his photographs, which appear in the “Posts from the Road” series published in the Sunday edition of the Los Alamos Daily Post.
Gallery: A gallery of images from Bob Dylan’s groundbreaking performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. This was the performance where Dylan used an electric guitar at the festival. This was the first time an electric guitar was played at the festival and was a turning point in popular music at the time.
Jacket: The black leather jacket that Dylan wore when he performed at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 was part of the ‘Going Electric: Bob Dylan ‘65’ exhibit, which also features a film of the event and some of the reactions it received following the performance. You will see Dylan wearing the jacket in the photo above.
Concert Photos: There are hundreds of concert photos on display throughout the museum at the Bob Dylan Center. Many of the photos and other manuscripts and business correspondence on display had never been shared with the public before the center opened in 2022.
Columbia Gallery: Bob Dylan’s recordings were on Columbia Records. The record company has an exhibit at the center featuring his creativity and talent. Dylan brought creativity to his music that was far beyond the average during the 1960s. It was a transformative decade for Dylan.
Stairway Gallery: As visitors move from floor to floor, the stairway is lined with photos of a roll of film enlarged to about 30- to 36-inch images, including the frame number and film type, giving visitors a chance to see the progression of a photo shoot with Dylan.
Exit Photo: As visitors exit the museum to return to the main lobby, this image appears larger than life size as it stretches from the floor to the ceiling, easily 10-12 feet high. I can’t say for sure but the image looks like it is part of the photo shoot for the cover of Bob Dylan’s album ‘Freewheelin’.