Rolling Thunder Revue
The Rolling Thunder Revue - named after the Indian Rolling Thunder - was a concert tour by a group of musicians initiated and led by Bob Dylan . It took place in the fall of 1975 and spring of 1976, interrupted by a winter break in which Dylan released his previously produced album Desire . Excerpts from the tour were used for Dylan's film Renaldo and Clara .
In addition to Dylan, the musicians included Joan Baez , Roger McGuinn , Kinky Friedman , T-Bone Burnett , Mick Ronson , David Mansfield , Scarlet Rivera , Rob Stoner , Howie Wyeth , Ramblin 'Jack Elliott and Bob Neuwirth .
Preparations
After producing Desire , Bob Dylan began rehearsing for a new tour in New York in October 1975. In addition to the Desire musicians Rob Stoner (bass), Howie Wyeth (drums) and Scarlet Rivera (violin) T-Bone Burnett , Steven Soles and David Mansfield took part in the rehearsals.
Dylan asked a friend, filmmaker Howard Alk , to film the tour, which started during rehearsals. Dylan also contacted actor and screenwriter Sam Shepard to talk to him about a cinematic realization, as well as Allen Ginsberg . Ginsberg later withdrew the promise he had initially given. In the course of rehearsals, Dylan asked other musicians to join him, especially those who should be integrated into his film project - Joan Baez , Roger McGuinn , Emmylou Harris , Ronee Blakley or Mick Ronson .
Fall 1975
The first concert took place on October 30th at the War Memorial Auditorium in Plymouth , Massachusetts . 29 concerts followed, exclusively on the northeast coast of the USA and Canada . Dylan also introduced songs from his unreleased album Desire . The first part of the tour ended with a benefit concert in front of 14,000 spectators in Madison Square Garden with the participation of Muhammad Ali and Roberta Flack in favor of the boxer Rubin Carter . On January 25, 1976, another benefit concert was held in Houston , Texas for the benefit of Rubin Carter .
Spring 1976
In April the Revue rehearsed in Clearwater , Florida . The first concert then took place on April 18 in the Civic Center in Lakeland , Florida, the tour led in April and May 1976 through the south and southwest of the USA, but could not build on the success of the previous autumn tour; some concerts even had to be canceled. The last concert of the tour took place at the half-empty Salt Palace in Salt Lake City , Utah . It was Dylan's last concert in almost two years.
Recordings / publications
As part of the so-called Bootleg Series , recordings of several concerts in November and December 1975 were released on a double CD under the title The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue .
The live album Hard Rain was already released in 1976 as a compilation of some songs from the 1976 tour section.
A 14-CD anthology was published on June 7, 2019. The box contains a total of 148 tracks from 1975, of which more than a hundred have remained unreleased. The enclosed 52-page booklet contains a large number of never-seen photos and an essay by the writer and musician Wesley Stace.
Martin Scorsese released a pseudo documentary film on Netflix in 2019 under the title Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese , which mixes facts and fiction around the tour.
supporting documents
Web links
- Les Kokay: Songs of the Underground - a collectors guide to the Rolling Thunder Revue 1975-1976 (PDF; 4.1 MB)
- https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/poprock/detail/-/art/bob-dylan-the-rolling-thunder-revue-the-1975-live-recordings/hnum/9212698
