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Duluth celebrates Bob Dylan’s birthday with week-long music festival

May 14, 2025

The early days of Bob DylanDon Hunstein / Columbia Records

Earlier this year, Duluth saw bulldozers demolish the former St. Mary’s Hospital, where legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan was born in 1941. A humble duplex where he spent his childhood as Robert Zimmerman still stands nearby and serves as a centerpiece to an annual Northland birthday celebration.

The 15th annual Duluth Dylan Fest features nightly Bob-centric music, historic landmark visits, and a lecture series drawing fans from all over the world. From May 18 to May 25, a wide range of events are scheduled around Dylan’s May 24 birthday and serve as a launchpad to explore his deep Minnesota roots.

Festival organizers say the event grew out of respect for Dylan’s culture-changing music career, which earned him a 2016 Nobel Prize, and serves to guide people to the important places that shaped his early life.

Duluth Dylan Fest Committee volunteer Zane Bail says Dylan fans have long made pilgrimages to Duluth, Hibbing, and Dinkytown. She adds that a well-programmed festival makes the trip easy for visitors and more entertaining for music lovers.

A white two-story house with upper and lower front porches. — Bob Dylan lived the first six years of his life at 519 N. Third Avenue East in Duluth. The duplex is the site of the Duluth Dylan Fest Front Porch Birthday Party at 11 am Saturday, May 24.
Mark Nicklawske

“I think that having something recognizing that Bob Dylan — Robert Zimmerman — was born here in Duluth is pretty significant,” says Bail.

Bail says a festival highlight is a birthday gathering outside the Duluth home where Dylan spent his first six years. The house, now owned by a Dylan memorabilia collector, is a side-by-side duplex built in the city hillside neighborhood more than 100 years ago. Dylan music is performed on the front porch and cake is served after a singing of “Happy Birthday.”

“When we do a shoutout: ‘Hey, where are people from?’ There are people from all over the globe, all over the country, who come to this,” says Bail.

The festival allows Dylan fans, young and old, to connect with each other, says Bail. She likens it to a Star Trek convention, but for music lovers.

“There’s a whole group of people with a shared connection that may or may not know each other, but you start from a level that you all know who Bob Dylan is and you know his music,” she says.

Two men on the front porch of a house. — Duluth Mayor Roger Reinert, left, welcomes people to the 2024 Bob Dylan Front Porch Birthday Party. Duluth musician Greg Tiburzi looks on before performing for the event. Tiburzi is scheduled to perform again this year at the May 24 event.
Michael K. Anderson

Duluth singer-songwriter Greg Tiburzi and his old band The Deja Vu Drifters started an informal, barely promoted birthday concert outside the Duluth Dylan house 10 years ago. Now solo, Tiburzi leads the birthday event every year with a front porch performance featuring a variety of Dylan cover songs.

Tiburzi grew up in Hibbing listening to Dylan’s music, and enjoys playing for other fans even though the event is staged outside during a typically cold Duluth spring.

“I’ve been heavily influenced by him, so I just thought ‘What a hoot, what an honor to play on his porch,’” he says. “I try to do his songs justice, but some years I can’t feel my hands, it's so cold.”

The volunteer-run Duluth Dylan Fest has ramped up after a similar birthday celebration in Hibbing ended in 2013. Events are scheduled each night of the week, beginning with a May 18 pre-fest party outside the Hibbing house where Dylan lived until his 1959 high school graduation. The festival ends with a live-streamed Bob Dylan tribute concert featuring the Duluth-based cover band Shelter From the Storm Saturday, May 24, and a farewell brunch on Sunday, May 25.

Here’s a full schedule of all the official Duluth Dylan Fest events:

Sunday, May 18

Hibbing Dylan Day

Birthday Celebration on the lawn of Bob Dylan’s Boyhood Home featuring live music by Gene

Lafond and Amy Grill, along with special guest Pat Eliason (10 a.m.-11 a.m.) and

Hibbing High School Tour (11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.)

2425 7th Avenue East, Hibbing

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