Bob Dylan released his first Christmas album ever- Christmas in the Heart- in the first week of December.
Christmas In The Heart will be the 47th album from Bob Dylan, and follows his worldwide chart-topping Together Through Life, released earlier this year. Songs performed by Dylan on this new album include, “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Little Drummer Boy” and “Must Be Santa.” Till date, his albums have sold over 110 million copies.
He made the release of the album special by making a commitment to end hunger and homelessness and affiliating himself with leading charity organizations in the world. All of Bob Dylan’s current and future U.S. royalties from sales of ‘Christmas in the Heart’ will be donated in perpetuity to Feeding America, guaranteeing more than 4 million meals to over 1.4 million people in the need in the holiday season. All the international royalties will be donated to World Food Programme and Crisis UK in perpetuity, providing 500,000 meals to the school children in the developing world.
Feeding America is the America’s largest domestic hunger relief charity, and its network of affiliates supplies food to more than 25 million Americans each year, including 9 million Children and 3 million seniors. The WFP is the world’s largest humanitarian organization fighting hunger worldwide, aiming to feed 108 million people in 74 countries in 2009. Crisis is the United Kingdom’s national charity for single homeless people, dedicated to ending homelessness by delivering life-changing services and campaigning for change.
Bob Dylan commented, “That the problem of hunger is ultimately solvable means we must each do what we can to help feed those who are suffering and support efforts to find long-term solutions. I’m honored to partner with the Feeding America, World Food Programme and Crisis in their fight against hunger and homelessness.”
Bob Dylan’s four previous studio albums have been universally hailed as among the best of his storied career, achieving new levels of commercial success and critical acclaim for the artist. The Platinum-selling Time Out Of Mind from 1997 earned multiple Grammy Awards, including “Album Of The Year”, while “Love and Theft” continued Dylan’s Platinum streak and earned several Grammy nominations and a statue for Best Contemporary Folk album. Modern Times, released in 2006, became one of the artist’s biggest albums worldwide, selling more than 2.5 million copies and earning Dylan two more Grammys.
Those four releases fell within a 12-year creative span that also included an Oscar- and Golden Globe-winning tune, “Things Have Changed,” from the film Wonder Boys, in 2001; a worldwide best selling memoir, Chronicles Vol. 1, which spent 19 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List, in 2004; a Martin Scorsese-directed documentary, No Direction Home, in 2005; and several volumes of the best-selling Bootleg Series, which culminated in last year’s highly-acclaimed Tell Tale Signs.
Dylan was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.” He was also the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1997, the French Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 1990, Sweden’s Polar Music Award in 2000 and numerous other awards and accolades.
The album is already topping the Christmas album sales in India as well.
