The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings CD Box Set

The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings

Launched in the fall of 1975, Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue flouted the touring conventions of the time by featuring an eclectic cast of characters and playing small and unusual venues with little advance notice. The shows would often stretch to more than four hours long, generating some of the artist’s most dramatic and dynamic on-stage performances ever. Dylan debuted the new songs he’d written for his forthcoming Desire album (which became one of the most acclaimed and popular in his canon) with a fire and intensity that Dylan had reached ten years earlier with his incendiary tours with musicians who became The Band. He also took wild, interpretative rides through his back catalog and broke out some unexpected covers.

Dylan gathered amazing friends and collaborators for his ensemble – dubbed Guam for the tour – that included T Bone Burnett, Mick Ronson, Joan Baez, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Bobby Neuwirth, Scarlet Rivera, Ronee Blakely, Steven Soles, David Mansfield, Rob Stoner, Howie Wyeth and Luther Rix.

Poet Allen Ginsberg and Joni Mitchell also brought their talents to the show’s encores. Dylan, the consummate band leader, managed to take these musicians from various backgrounds and sensibilities and mold them into a tight musical unit on stage.