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In the autumn of 1975 Bob Dylan took a ragtag gypsy circus on the road. The aim: to rekindle his lifelong love of performance. There would be clowns in whiteface, musos flying by the seat of their pants, laughter and tears and an incomprehensible four-hour movie. In 2019 Michael Simmons tracked down its survivors and felt its reverberations: \u201cIt was an amazing cultural event that we\u2019ll never see again.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Joan Baez and Bob Dylan in concert during the Rolling Thunder Revue, at the Civic Center, Springfield, MA, 1975.<\/p>\n
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DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THAT BOB DYLAN CONCERT?\u201d 19-year-old Dylan devotee Jeff Friedman had to check he\u2019d heard his friend Bruce straight. What Bob Dylan concert? Friedman had heard nothing in the press or on the rock grapevine, but Bruce booked concerts at Brooklyn College, New York, and had a friend at Southeastern Massachusetts University in North Dartmouth who\u2019d been offered a Bob Dylan\/Roger McGuinn show. It was an unheard-of combo of world-shaking rock artists and backwater New England venue.<\/p>\n
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Friedman, hyperventilating, grabbed a pile of coins and called SMU. \u201cFinally I get the right guy and I say, Are you having a Bob Dylan\/Roger McGuinn concert? And he says, \u2018No we\u2019re not.\u2019 My heart sinks.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the guy hadn\u2019t finished his sentence. \u201c\u2018\u2026we\u2019re having a Bob Dylan \/Joan Baez concert.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Friedman went from nerve-wracked to crushed to astonished in a matter of seconds. That Saturday, November 1, 1975, he borrowed his mother\u2019s car and drove with his friend Ruth to SMU. Queuing outside the college\u2019s gymnasium for four hours, he scored two tickets for $7.50 each: \u201cI\u2019m like, Is this really happening?\u201d<\/p>\n
They entered the gymnasium and grabbed two folding chairs in the sixth row. The show \u2013 the tour\u2019s third \u2013 began with a sprawling band on-stage, none of whom Friedman recognised. \u201cI was like, Is he gonna be here? Is he really gonna come out? And then that\u2019s it, he\u2019s fuckin\u2019 there!\u201d
Dylan led with When I Paint My Masterpiece, a duet with Bobby Neuwirth; it would remain the opener for the entire 1975 leg of what was destined to become one of the most storied of rock tours. Dylan\u2019s performance was focused, dynamic. \u201cAnd this was intimate,\u201d says Friedman. \u201cThere was no distance between him and the audience. He was a different musician. Totally loose, not uptight at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
A half-dozen songs from Dylan\u2019s set would be on his forthcoming LP, Desire. The rest were classics including It Ain\u2019t Me, Babe; A Hard Rain\u2019s A-Gonna Fall; Just Like A Woman. Behind the singer, the ragtag band, including a mysterious woman playing gypsy-like violin, built a wall of sound. \u201cOld songs that had been acoustic were now electric,\u201d Friedman recalls. \u201cHe turned them inside out and they fit the band perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were four duets with Baez \u2013 the first time in a decade The King and Queen Of Folk had sung together. And the show wrapped with the entire cast singing Woody Guthrie\u2019s This Land Is Your Land. It was as if a fresh autumn breeze had blown Dylan\u2019s problematic early 1970s away. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t just going through the motions,\u201d says Friedman. \u201cHe was taking his time with the material and going deep. And they were all clearly having fun.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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THE STUFF OFF THE MAIN ROAD WAS WHERE \u00a0the force of reality was,\u201d Bob Dylan told interviewer Bill Flanagan in 2009. He recounted memories of carnival acts he was drawn to in mid-century Minnesota: \u201cThe side show performers \u2013 bluegrass singers, the black cowboy with chaps and a lariat doing rope tricks. Miss Europe, Quasimodo, the Bearded Lady, the half-man half-woman\u2026 I remember it like it was yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
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In 1975, the appeal of the \u201cmain road\u201d to Bob Dylan was limited. After virtually retiring from performance in 1966 at the height of his first wave of success and becoming \u201cthe Howard Hughes of rock\u201d for eight years, he returned to live concerts in 1974 with a tour of stadiums with The Band. Yet he didn\u2019t enjoy rock star touring, deriding it as \u201cjets and limos\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerforming has always been his passion,\u201d says his friend, the writer Larry \u2018Ratso\u2019 Sloman. \u201cBut getting back on the road with The Band wasn\u2019t satisfying. It was an alienating experience, going from stadium to stadium, not knowing what city they were in. He\u2019d always been connected to the street \u2013 there\u2019s a part of him that\u2019s a street guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dylan and first aide Bobby Neuwirth had years before discussed a no-pressure musical jaunt in a station wagon. \u201cThe idea for the Rolling Thunder Revue was hatched by the two Bobs,\u201d singer-songwriter Steven Soles told MOJO in 2012: \u201cThis was spoken very clearly by Neuwirth to me.\u201d But a good idea has many fathers. Dylan songwriting collaborator Jacques Levy said he\u2019d also suggested \u201ca tour like lowest-of-the-low theatre tours. Just call it Bus & Truck. We\u2019ll hire a couple of trucks and equipment and just go on the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
With his marriage to Sara Dylan increasingly rocky, the 34-year-old Dylan was in the south of France in May \u201975 with painter pal David Oppenheim. Ratso Sloman remembers Bob\u2019s account \u00a0of \u201csitting on the back of a cart in Corsica, and he realised his destiny was to be performing in front of people.\u201d He was soon headed back to America.<\/p>\n
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ONE HALLMARK OF GENIUS IS THE ABILITY TO \u00a0realise one\u2019s wildest dreams. Throughout Dylan\u2019s career, he\u2019s moved backwards in order to move forward, as if time is fluid. By June \u201975, he was hanging out in Greenwich Village in New York, the scene of his early ascendance, seeing old friends and making new ones.<\/p>\n
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Theatrical director Jacques Levy had already co-written songs with Roger McGuinn, notably The Byrds\u2019 Chestnut Mare. He lived on LaGuardia Place, around the corner from The Other End, a hub for singer-songwriters on Bleecker Street. Dylan and Levy ran into each other on the street and Bob suggested they collaborate. Levy unleashed Dylan\u2019s theatrical inclination and worked with him to create songs that worked visually. Meanwhile, he met an artist friend of Dylan\u2019s named Claudia Carr, and they soon fell in love. When Bob and Jacques\u2019 work was done, they\u2019d head over to The Other End to drink and hang out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI bumped into Bobby Neuwirth,\u201d recalled Steven Soles. \u201cHe said, \u2018I\u2019m playing The Other End next week,\u2019 and he asked me if I\u2019d play with him.\u201d An article in the July 22, 1975 edition of The New York Times, headlined \u201cDylan Makes Other End Scene\u201d, describes Neuwirth\u2019s residency and mentions folk vet Ramblin\u2019 Jack Elliott and Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson as two guests. An unnamed friend was quoted as saying that Dylan \u201cwas elated to find that he could once again walk into a club and play music without being mobbed or distracted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neuwirth also enlisted bassist\/singer Rob Stoner, drummer\/pianist Howie Wyeth and eclectic multi-instrumentalist David Mansfield. Then there were a string of guests who\u2019d show up and play. \u201cThat was Neuwirth\u2019s idea,\u201d says Soles. \u201cHe\u2019d have a band of people who could sing their own songs and people could come sit in.\u201d One night, singer\/songwriter\/actress Ronee Blakley \u2013 widely acclaimed for her role as a depressed country singer in Robert Altman\u2019s Nashville \u2013 played four-handed piano with Dylan. After another show, Soles, Neuwirth, Stoner, Levy and Dylan went over to painter Larry Poons\u2019 crib, joined by poet\/rocker Patti Smith and Texas musician T Bone Burnett. \u201cWe all played songs,\u201d says Soles. \u201cDylan played a number of songs that would appear on Desire.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Soles, Dylan stayed up all night and the next morning visited boxer Rubin \u2018Hurricane\u2019 Carter in prison. Carter and another man named John Artis had been convicted of the 1966 murder of three patrons in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey. Carter wrote a memoir called The Sixteenth Round and had begun to amass supporters who believed he and Artis were innocent. One sent Dylan the book. He was moved by it and resolved to help Carter, declaring that \u201c\u2026the man\u2019s philosophy and my philosophy were running down the same road.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sessions for Dylan\u2019s next album began on July 14 at Columbia Recording Studios. Dylan and Levy co-wrote most of the material \u2013 including a plea for Rubin Carter\u2019s exoneration called Hurricane. Despite initial traffic jams in the studio, a core band of Stoner, Wyeth and violinist Scarlet Rivera emerged. The album Desire was released the following January and reached Number 1 on the US charts and Number 3 in the UK.<\/p>\n
By October, the basic line-up for Dylan\u2019s \u201ctravelling variety carnival-type show\u201d was set in stone, a combination of established stars, Neuwirth\u2019s Other Enders and strays: Joan Baez, McGuinn, Ramblin\u2019 Jack, Blakley, Stoner, Wyeth, Rivera, Soles, T Bone, Ronson, Mansfield and drummer\/percussionist Luther Rix. Neuwirth was master of ceremonies and Beat daddy Allen Ginsberg was road poet. Joni Mitchell would join up in November and Gordon Lightfoot, Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, Robbie Robertson and Rick Danko would sit in along the route. With all these humans coming on-and-off-stage, Jacques Levy would oversee transitions and lighting.<\/p>\n
Dylan hired Duluth childhood pal Louie Kemp to manage the entire operation. Kemp had made a fortune with his seafood business and Dylan trusted him. \u201cBob said, \u2018I don\u2019t care if we make a profit as long as we break even,\u2019\u201d recalls Kemp. The singer added a rider: \u201c\u2018As long as we\u2019re going out, I wanna shoot a movie too.\u2019 So we hired a movie crew.\u201d Playwright and future movie star Sam Shepard was enlisted to write the screenplay. There was also a tour astrologer, herbalist, and the baggage handler was poet\/Ginsberg companion Peter Orlovsky. Ratso Sloman became the embedded reporter. Dylan told Ratso he came up with the name \u2018Rolling Thunder\u2019 after hearing a series of booms in the sky.<\/p>\n
Rehearsals that month were loose. \u201cDylan would start playing a song and the band would fall in behind him,\u201d says David Mansfield. \u201cThere were no band directions. It was great training as an accompanist because he was so unpredictable. As we rehearsed more, the arrangements became finely honed. It was a band dynamic as opposed to a leader-and-musicians dynamic.\u201d<\/p>\n
While there were some excellent players in the Rolling Thunder band \u2013 particularly Mansfield and bassist Stoner \u2013 flexibility and a checked ego were more valued than virtuosity. By the end of October, everyone was ready. It was an audacious combination: musical tour, film shoot and political cause to free Hurricane Carter, with a legend at the helm. But as Dylan made clear to Kemp, the F-word was foremost in his thoughts: \u201cI want the audiences and musicians to have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Thunder Road: (l-r) Roger McGuinn, Joni Mitchell, Richi Havens, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan perform the finale of the The Rolling Thunder Revue<\/p>\n
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THE FIRST TWO SHOWS WERE IN PLYMOUTH, Massachusetts on October 30-31, 1975. It was historically symbolic as the location of Plymouth Colony, one of the earliest European settlements in what would be termed North America. Kemp chose the route. \u201cI\u2019d always found New England enchanting. I thought starting this magical mystery tour there as well as on Halloween amusing and apropos. We combined the pilgrims and the goblins.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The area is also renowned for its breathtaking autumn scenery. \u201cNew England was beautiful,\u201d remembers McGuinn. \u201cIt was in the fall and the leaves were turning. The trees looked like fire \u2013 orange and red and yellow. It was crisp and cold. We\u2019d stop at these little theatres, do this four and a half hour show, jump on the bus and do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The band rode in a bus procured from Frank Zappa, dubbed \u2018Phydeaux\u2019. The film crew and others had a separate bus and Dylan had a camper to himself and invited guests. An advance team had been sent out to scout the gigs and distribute leaflets announcing the shows. Road manager and Beatles\/Stones vet Chris O\u2019Dell edited an in-house newsletter that disseminated news, gossip, in-jokes \u2013 and the location of the next gig. Ronee Blakley: \u201cOur destinations were secret. We didn\u2019t know our itinerary. We\u2019d do a show and sometimes head straight to another place without knowing where.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shows would begin with an eclectic band set in which all the singer-songwriters took turns. Highlights included Stoner\u2019s sleek rockabilly tunes; Blakley\u2019s powerhouse vocals; T Bone\u2019s rendition of Warren Zevon\u2019s Werewolves Of London (before the author\u2019s release); Ronson\u2019s Is There Life On Mars? (not the Bowie song); McGuinn\u2019s Eight Miles High; and Ramblin\u2019 Jack\u2019s masterclass in Folk 101. Then Dylan would materialise to the audience\u2019s audible glee and perform a short set. After an intermission, two anonymous voices in harmony were heard in the dark. As the lights came up, the fans were ecstatic to recognise Baez and Dylan, who would perform four or five songs as a duo. Baez followed with her solo set, then Dylan solo acoustic, finishing with band.<\/p>\n
The theatrical touches, like the Dylan\/Baez lighting, were the work of Jacques Levy, with input from the star, and included Dylan\u2019s whiteface make-up, a mask, an ever-present flower-bedecked gaucho hat and mysterious arm gestures (such as crossing his clenched fists during Isis). The latter gave rise to baffled gossip among onlookers, but Sloman explains them simply: \u201cThese were epic songs and Dylan was performing in character and dramatically gesticulating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levy\u2019s future-wife Claudia Carr Levy was there for the tour\u2019s duration. \u201cIt was very romantic,\u201d she says now. \u201cThe arc of the tour Bob had in his mind was going to be this drama. That\u2019s when he started wearing whiteface. Jacques worked with him to deal with the way he moved on-stage. Bob is very graceful, he moves like a dancer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the 1967 film release of Dont Look Back had made public the friction between them, Dylan and Baez\u2019s professional relationship had been considered as finished as their romantic one. But here they were, sharing a stage once more. \u201cThe audience went crazy,\u201d says Claudia. \u201cHere was Bob and Joan performing together again. It was very dramatic! Jacques was trying to keep this drama going and he lit it like a drama.\u201d But there was humour as well. \u201cAt one gig, Bob and Joan came out dressed identically, both in hats and whiteface \u2013 you couldn\u2019t tell who was who!\u201d<\/p>\n
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THE MUSIC EVOLVED ORGANICALLY AS THE TOUR progressed, but for de facto bandleader Rob Stoner it was a leap in the dark. \u201cI picked up the baton,\u201d says the bassist. \u201cIf you listen to the bootlegs of our first show in Plymouth and you compare them to a show a few weeks later you\u2019ll notice that all kinds of things were added \u2013 intros, endings, instrumental figures that complement the vocals. Much was accomplished by me staying up all night with cassettes of the rehearsal or gig.\u201d<\/p>\n
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But the mercurial star could be a challenge. Stoner: \u201cBob was enamoured of arrangements that would stop and start, that would intentionally go out of tempo, like the bridge at the end of O Sister. Maggie\u2019s Farm was another one. Romance In Durango. Every time the song stopped, I\u2019d be sweatin\u2019: Jesus \u2013 I hope everybody comes back in at the same place! There were no train wrecks, but there were a lotta close ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Stoner, not everyone was musically indispensable. \u201cThere were entirely too many guitar players, man,\u201d he says, chuckling. \u201cYou had 10 guys playin\u2019 a fuckin\u2019 G chord! But it looked good to have an army of guitar players up there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOccasionally arrangements got cluttered,\u201d says David Mansfield. \u201cBut most of these rhythm guitarists were also singer-songwriters or producers. They had a knack for staying out of the way, never elevating their own position at the expense of the arrangement. Mick Ronson was known as a guitar god, but he was a really good producer-arranger and he would never clutter up an arrangement for self-aggrandisement.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the middle of the tour, the RTR band were a well-oiled machine. The lion\u2019s share of credit \u2013 according to everyone \u2013 was the ringmaster\u2019s due. \u201cDylan was in great shape \u2013 probably the best I\u2019ve ever seen him,\u201d notes McGuinn. \u201cHis energy level was really up. His vocals were in tune and on time. He did trills. Like his vocal gymnastics on One More Cup Of Coffee \u2013 it\u2019s hard to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stoner concurs: \u201cI\u2019ve never heard Bob\u2019s chops as good as in the mid-to-late-\u201970s. He had amazing power, he conveyed a lot of emotion, his range was great \u2013 he could hold a note for a long time. As the main harmony singer, I\u2019ll tell you the guy was great to sing with. He pushed me to not only stay with him because of his unpredictable phrasing, but to try and match his raw emotional power. When you have anything to do with him, you bring your best game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dylan was also directing a feature film, with musicians doubling as actors, and friends and professional thespians like Harry Dean Stanton joining in. Bob portrayed a character named Renaldo and Sara Dylan played his beloved Clara. Despite Shepard\u2019s work, the scenes were improvised based on concepts by Dylan and others (legend has it the musicians weren\u2019t learning their lines). Fiction alternated with reality, including exchanges between Dylan and Baez that reflected back on their \u201960s romance (Baez did the same on-stage with her autobiographical song Diamonds And Rust). \u201cThey\u2019d shoot movie scenes before and after he went on-stage,\u201d says Sloman. \u201cIt was amazing that he had the stamina to do all this.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the tour wended its way, small halls made way for the arenas Dylan had so deplored in \u201974, the hike in takings needed to fund the movie and offset rising expenses. On December 7, the RTR played for prisoners, including Hurricane Carter, at the Clinton Correctional Institute in New Jersey. The following day was the Night Of The Hurricane at New York\u2019s Madison Square Garden, a benefit for the boxer\u2019s defence fund. With 30-odd shows under their belts (special commemorative belt buckles courtesy of Bob and Sara), the gang rested over the holidays.<\/p>\n
Dylan had been in a good place, something remarked on by everyone. \u201cBob was very happy,\u201d says Claudia Levy. \u201cHe was accessible and having a real good time.\u201d Uncharacteristically garrulous on-stage, he repeatedly dedicated songs to friends and joked with fans. When one loudly requested Just Like A Woman, he responded with \u201cWhat\u2019s just like a woman? [There\u2019s] nothing like a woman!\u201d Dylan\u2019s enthusiasm helped maintain the mood. \u201cThe spirit of camaraderie was very intense,\u201d recalls Mansfield. Dylan had realised his dream of a \u201cdifferent\u201d tour with \u201cfun\u201d for all \u2013 including himself. Things would soon change.<\/p>\n
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THE FIRST GIG OF THE ROLLING THUNDER restart began in Los Angeles on January 22, 1976, but was primarily a tour of the American South. While Ramblin\u2019 Jack, Ginsberg, Joni and Ronee were all gone (with occasional return appearances by some) \u2013 and Texas country singer\/humourist Kinky Friedman joined up \u2013 the line-up was otherwise the same, but the mood was not. A frustrated Sam Shepard had left after his movie script was discarded. David Mansfield: \u201cIt felt like we were trying to recapture what we did in \u201975, with varying degrees of success.\u201d The region may have had something to do with it. \u201cThe South wasn\u2019t enamoured of Bob the same way the North-east was,\u201d notes Claudia.<\/p>\n
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But it was Dylan\u2019s personal life that was the biggest problem: his marriage was falling apart. The fun, accessible Bob was gone. \u201cBob\u2019s interactions with the band were sometimes difficult,\u201d says Mansfield. \u201cHe had a black cloud over his head \u2013 the band could feel that. And the music had a more aggressive, harder-edged sound than \u201975.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sound is evident on the Hard Rain TV special and album that was filmed\/recorded in Colorado at the end of the tour on May 23. Channelled anger can make for compelling art, and the music remained first-rate, yet that black cloud hovered throughout.<\/p>\n
Claudia Levy recalls one night on leg two: \u201cI was backstage and it hadn\u2019t been a good performance. And Bob had a towel and he was wiping his face. There was something about the way that he was. And I said something about it being a really interesting performance. He looked at me and said, \u2018Ya think so?\u2019 And then he just walked away. Bob took a chair and moved it away from everybody and sat by himself. Nobody would talk to him and he didn\u2019t want anybody near him.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were still some good times. \u201cI remember singing I\u2019m Proud To Be An Asshole From El Paso with Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell singing on either side of me wearing big sombreros,\u201d says Kinky Friedman. \u201cThat was classic.\u201d McGuinn recounts the troupe\u2019s visit to swamp rocker Bobby Charles\u2019s house in Louisiana. \u201cHe had this alligator on a platter in his hallway and kegs of beer. Beer and alligator for breakfast!\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rolling Thunder Revue ended in Salt Lake City on May 25. Bob and Kinky flew to Yelapa in Mexico to unwind. Kinky chuckles at the memory. \u201cThere was no first class. Bob was sitting next to a civilian \u2013 this woman. And she starts shouting, \u2018I\u2019m sitting next to Bob Dylan! I can\u2019t believe it! I\u2019m sitting next to Bob Dylan \u2013 I can\u2019t believe it!\u2019 And without missing a beat, Bob said: \u2018Pinch yourself.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The four-hour film Renaldo & Clara was eventually released in 1978 to disparaging reviews. A combination dramatic art film, surreal documentary and rock concert, the New York Times called it \u201ca film no one is likely to find altogether comprehensible.\u201d (T Bone Burnett half-jokes that \u201cEverybody was playing [variations of] Bob or Sara.\u201d) It\u2019s certainly not a mainstream movie, just as Tarantula was not a mainstream novel. \u201cI made it for a specific group of people and myself, and that\u2019s all,\u201d Dylan told Jonathan Cott in 1978. \u201cThat\u2019s how I wrote Blowin\u2019 In The Wind and The Times They Are A-Changin\u2019. They were written for a certain crowd of people and for certain artists. Who knew they were going to be big songs?\u201d<\/p>\n
Opinions of the film were mixed even among the participants. \u201cIt was misbegotten,\u201d says Claudia Levy. \u201cIt was a good effort that didn\u2019t coalesce. It lost the trajectory of what it was supposed to be.\u201d Ratso Sloman, on the other hand, dug it. \u201cWhile it may have been a little too long, I respect the ambition that went into it. It completely transcends the usual music documentary about a tour and raised huge issues about identity, fidelity and mortality.\u201d<\/p>\n
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FOOTAGE SHOT FOR \u00a0Renaldo & Clara can be seen in the forthcoming documentary Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. The long-awaited film will debut on Netflix globally in the next month or so. A veil of secrecy has prevented the few who\u2019ve seen it from discussing it. As MOJO went to press, a lone announcement described it as \u201cpart documentary, part concert film, part fever dream\u201d. We know many original participants were interviewed and that the concert footage of Dylan is rumoured to be extraordinary.<\/p>\n
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Meanwhile, a 14-CD companion box, Bob Dylan \u2013 The 1975 Live Recordings is due soon. As well as rehearsals and rarities, most of the discs capture entire Dylan sets, unlike 2002\u2019s The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975 in which performances from four cities were cherrypicked. Sonically superior to the bootlegs in circulation, the recordings are thrilling evidence of Dylan and band\u2019s relentless energy and commitment to the music night after night (dig the transformation of The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll from its topical folk origin to spitting-mad hard rocker on December 4 in Montreal). \u201cAs effortless as Dylan makes it seem, it\u2019s not magic \u2013 you have to fuckin\u2019 put in the work,\u201d notes Ratso Sloman.<\/p>\n
As well as giving Dylan a shot in the arm, Rolling Thunder boosted the careers of many of the tour\u2019s other musicians. \u201cIt was an act of deep generosity by Bob [when] he opened his stage up to us,\u201d says T Bone Burnett, pointing to the \u201ccollaborative nature\u201d of the project. \u201cRolling Thunder taught me everything I needed to know to survive for 50 years in show business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scarlet Rivera agrees: \u201cI can draw a direct line from Bob to each of the many things I have accomplished both in my continued music career and personal evolution. He saw who I could be before I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forty-three years after the last clap of Rolling Thunder, its reputation as a singular tour lives on. Ratso: \u201cIt was an amazing cultural event that we\u2019ll never see again.\u201d Roger McGuinn: \u201cMy take on the whole thing was the music business had gone very bland and commercial in the mid-\u201870s. It wasn\u2019t like the excitement of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and the \u201960s we all had.\u201d As a veteran of that era, ex-Byrd McGuinn would know. \u201cThere\u2019s always a balance between art and commerce and commerce had taken over in the \u201970s. Bob restored the art side of the balance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, Rolling Thunder still resonates powerfully. Dylan may not have been the first megastar to loathe the soulless barns that commercial success decrees, and he won\u2019t be the last. But he created an alternative, however short-lived, for subsequent musicians to learn from. Ultimately, the spirit of the Rolling Thunder Revue informed the music and we\u2019ll have the music forever.<\/p>\n
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This article originally appeared in Issue 307 of MOJO<\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-names” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”14px” text_orientation=”center” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Images: <\/strong>Getty<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Greatest Show On Earth!In the autumn of 1975 Bob Dylan took a ragtag gypsy circus on the road. The aim: to rekindle his lifelong love of performance. There would be clowns in whiteface, musos flying by the seat of their pants, laughter and tears and an incomprehensible four-hour movie. In 2019 Michael Simmons tracked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2038,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mojo-presents"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"akindell","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2037"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2058,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037\/revisions\/2058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}