Rolling Thunder Revue

Rolling Thunder Revue
Tour by Bob Dylan
Harvard Square Theater concert poster, November 20, 1975
LocationNorth America
Start dateOctober 30, 1975 (1975-10-30)
End dateMay 25, 1976 (1976-05-25)
Legs2
No. of shows
  • 57
  • First leg: 30
  • Second leg: 27
Bob Dylan concert chronology

The Rolling Thunder Revue was a 1975–76 concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan with numerous musicians and collaborators. The purpose of the tour was to allow Dylan, who was a major recording artist and concert performer, to play in smaller auditoriums in less populated cities where he could be more intimate with his audiences.[1]

Some of the performers on the tour were Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, Joni Mitchell, Ronee Blakely and Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Bob Neuwirth assembled backing musicians from the recording sessions for Dylan's Desire album, including violinist Scarlet Rivera, bassist Rob Stoner, and drummer Howie Wyeth, plus Mick Ronson on guitar. The tour included 57 concerts in two legs—the first in the American northeast and Canada in the fall of 1975, and the second in the American South and southwest in the spring of 1976.

The release of Desire in January 1976 fell between the two legs of the tour, with many of the songs performed in the first leg taken from that yet-to-be-released album. The tour was thoroughly documented through film, sound recording, and in print.[2] A documentary about the tour, directed by Martin Scorsese, titled Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese, was released by Netflix and in select theaters in June 2019.[3][4]

  1. ^ Photo of typical tour venue
  2. ^ Notable items include two books, two albums, a TV Special and a movie:
    • Larry "Ratso" Sloman, On the Road with Bob Dylan. Helter Skelter Publishing, 2005, 466 pages. ISBN 1-900924-87-0
    • Sam Shepard, Rolling Thunder Logbook. New York: Penguin Books, 1978, ISBN 0-14-004750-6 (pbk)
    • Hard Rain 1976
    • The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue (2002)
    • Hard Rain, TV Special
    • Renaldo and Clara
    see also: Michael Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, New York:Continuum books, 2006
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Variety was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Bob Dylan Details 14-Disc Rolling Thunder Revue Box Set", Rolling Stone, April 30, 2019