Rock Poet Bob Dylan's Life in Photos

Poet, folk singer and songwriter, Bob Dylan won the Nobel Literature Prize on Oct. 13, 2016. Dylan is the first songwriter to win the prestigious award and an announcement that surprised prize watchers. Above, Dylan performs in France on July 22, 2012.

Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, left, open their "True Confessions Tour" in the San Diego Sports Arena in 1986,

Dylan has forged a career upon defiance – from penning seminal protest songs to going electric to bucking traditional definitions of age. 

Bob Dylan plays acoustic guitar and smokes a cigarette in this headshot from September 1961 in New York City.

Dylan performs on the BBC in 1965.

Dylan sits with folk star Joan Baez in London in 1965. The "King and Queen of Folk" collaborated musically and were also romantically involved in the early 1960s.

Dylan smiles during a meeting with the British press in 1965.

Bob Dylan smokes a cigarette in 1966. 

Dylan plays a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar as he records the album "Bringing It All Back Home" at Columbia's Studio A, in Jan. 1965 in New York City.

Dylan shocked folk traditionalists when he played an electric set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

READ: Bob Dylan's famed electric guitar from 1965 folk fest sells for $965,000

Dylan performs on stage with The Band for "The Last Waltz," billed as the group's "farewell concert appearance, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, Nov. 26, 1976.

The event was filmed by director Martin Scorsese and made into a documentary of the same name.

Dylan performs circa 1978 in New York City.

Dylan is joined onstage by Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards during the Live Aid famine relief concert at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia in 1985.

Dylan accepts a Golden Globe on January 21, 2001, for best song. He won the award for the "Things Have Changed," from the film "Wonder Boys."

Dylan performs at the Newport Folk Festival in in Newport, R.I., Aug. 3, 2002.

President Barack Obama presents Dylan with a Medal of Freedom during a ceremony at the White House in 2012.