Bob Dylan’s “The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1976 Live Recordings” is released on November 6th by Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment.
The 39 CD Deluxe set includes 381 tracks, 371 of which have never been released, plus a booklet with liner notes by Mikal Gilmore and rare photographs. A 22-track, 3LP set contains a complete show from May 16th, 1976 at Fort Worth.
Beginning on April 18th, 1976 in Lakeland, Florida, and concluding in Salt Lake City on May 25th, 1976, the tour spanned twenty-seven dates, almost all of which are represented in the 371 never-before-heard tracks. The tour’s tapes unveil how Dylan’s progressively furious performances all culminate in the complete Fort Collins recording on May 23rd, 1976, remixed from the original multi-track tapes, which yielded the special “Hard Rain“, broadcasted live only once before.
‘“Idiot Wind” in NBC’s “Hard Rain” is among the most rageful and brilliant performances Dylan ever committed before camera,” writes writer and music journalist Mikal Gilmore in his exclusive liner notes essay. “Yet again, it was for nought. […] One night, one hour only. It never saw any time in a theatre. It was never re-broadcast, never issued as a video tape or DVD. It’s gone. All that’s left of the Rolling Thunder movie that was never made but instead played out on stages for four-and-a-half weeks in the spring of 1976, is what you now hold in your hands.
The second leg of the legendary Rolling Thunder Revue tour saw Dylan welcome old friends and collaborators to his troupe. Dylan reunited with Joan Baez to perform a duets across many dates, including performances of “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Railroad Boy”. Dylan’s band included bassist Rob Stoner, violinist Scarlet Rivera, drummer Howie Wyeth (who had all worked on “Desire“), guitarists Mick Ronson, Steven Soles, David Mansfield and T Bone Burnett.
You can listen to “Going, Going, Gone” from Forth Worth show.
“The Rolling Thunder Revue was the first national punk rock tour,” says Burnett. “It opened a door that led to a furious explosion of new music—The Clash, Elvis Costello, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and on and on. Dylan had done it again. He is good at walking through doors that no one else even sees, doors that others think are walls.”
The Fat Angel Sings 