Santa Monica's Universal Music Acquires Bob Dylan Catalog

SANTA MONICA, CA — Santa Monica-based Universal Music Publishing Group Monday announced the acquisition of Bob Dylan's entire catalog of songs, a nearly six-decade trove including "Blowin' In The Wind," "Mr. Tambourine Man" and the Academy Award-winning "Things Have Changed."

This could be the largest music acquisition for one artist, and although the price was not disclosed for the deal, it's estimated to be more than $300M, The New York Times reports.

Dylan's songs have been recorded more than 6,000 times by an array of artists throughout the world in many musical genres. Some of his best known works also include "The Times They Are a-Changin'," "Like A Rolling Stone," "All Along the Watchtower," "Lay Lady Lay," "Forever Young," "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," "Tangled Up In Blue" and "Gotta Serve Somebody."

Sir Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, said Dylan's vast body of work has captured "the love and admiration of billions of people" all around the world.

"As someone who began his career in music publishing, it is with enormous pride that today we welcome Bob Dylan to the UMG family," Grainge said. "It's no secret that the art of songwriting is the fundamental key to all great music, nor is it a secret that Bob is one of the very greatest practitioners of that art. 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. I have no doubt that decades, even centuries from now, the words and music of Bob Dylan will continue to be sung and played — and cherished — everywhere."

Dylan, 79, has long been considered among the most influential and groundbreaking artists. In the decades since he first arrived on New York City's Greenwich Village folk music scene in the early 1960s, he has sold more than 125 million records around the world and amassed a body of work that includes some of the greatest and most popular songs ever.

The Malibu resident continues to tour, performing nearly 100 concerts annually in front of audiences who embrace both his new music and his many classics. Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 — the first songwriter to receive such a distinction — cited by the Swedish Academy "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."

- City News Service and Patch Editor Nicole Charky contributed to this report.