Tag Archives: rolling thunder revue

Nov 20: Bob Dylan Harvard Square Theatre, Cambridge, Massachusetts – 1975





bob dylan cambridge 1975

….this concert is filmed, with three songs appearing in Renaldo and Clara: “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” which appears on the promotional EP as well, “Just Like a Woman,” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” It is a relatively intimate venue with just 1,850 capacity; and the whole Revue responds with a particularly fine show. Before the concert, a scene is filmed of Sara Dylan as a hitchhiker being picked up in a Rolls Royce. Again, this is not included in the film.
~Clinton Heylin (Bob Dylan: A Life in Stolen Moments Day by Day 1941-1995)

Yet another wonderful Rolling Thunder 75 concert.

Harvard Square Theatre
Cambridge, Massachusetts
20 November 1975

  • Bob Dylan (vocal, guitar)
  • Bob Neuwirth (guitar)
  • T-bone J. Henry Burnett (guitar)
  • Roger McGuinn (guitar)
  • Steven Soles (guitar)
  • Mick Ronson (guitar)
  • David Mansfield (steel guitar, violin, mandolin ,dobro)
  • Rob Stoner (bass)
  • Howie Wyeth (piano, drums)
  • Luther Rix (drums, percussion)
  • Ronee Blakeley (vocal)

Continue reading Nov 20: Bob Dylan Harvard Square Theatre, Cambridge, Massachusetts – 1975

Nov 26: The Bootleg Series Vol 5 Bob Dylan Live 1975 was released in 2002

bootlegseries5

“I was just sitting outside my house one day thinking about a name for this tour, when all of a sudden, I looked into the sky and I heard a boom! Then, boom, boom, boom, boom, rolling from west to east. So I figured that should be the name.”
– Bob Dylan

This is my favorite of Bob Dylan’s bootleg series, and one of the best live albums ever released.

The Rolling Thunder Revue was a concert tour  Bob Dylan with a traveling caravan of notable musicians, including Joan Baez,Roger McGuinn, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. Bob Neuwirth assembled the backing musicians, including T-Bone Burnett, Mick Ronson, David Mansfield, Steven Soles, and from the Desire sessions, violinist Scarlet Rivera, bassist Rob Stoner, and drummer Howie Wyeth. 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.

rolling_TORONTO

Tangled up in Blue:

Continue reading Nov 26: The Bootleg Series Vol 5 Bob Dylan Live 1975 was released in 2002

December 1: Gordon Lightfoot live with Dylan´s Rolling Thunder Revue at Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto 1975 (audio)

bob dylan & gordon lightfoot 1975

I’ve always liked Gordon Lightfoot…
~Bob Dylan (to Paul Gambaccini, June 1981)

Maple Leaf Gardens
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
1 December 1975

  1. Race Among The Ruins
  2. The Watchman’s Gone
  3. Sundown

Continue reading December 1: Gordon Lightfoot live with Dylan´s Rolling Thunder Revue at Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto 1975 (audio)

Bob Dylan’s best songs – Tangled Up In Blue

A song that took me ten years to live and two years to write
~Bob Dylan

So that the story took place in the present and the past at the same time. When you look at a painting, you can see any part of it, or you see it altogether. I wanted that song to be like a painting.
~Bob Dylan

Joni Mitchell had an album out called Blue. And it affected me, I couldn’t get it out of my head. And it just stayed in my head and when I wrote that song I wondered, what’s that mean? And then I figured that it was just there, and I guess that’s what happened, y’know.
~Bob Dylan (to Craig McGregor, March 1978)

This masterpiece in number 3 on my list of Dylans 200 best songs. Listening to it almost never fails to put me in a state of flow.. time stops.. there is nothing except this beautiful piece of art occupying my attention.. best form of mindful meditation if you ask me.

It is the best song from one of his best albums: “Blood On The Tracks” (1975):

We allow our past to exist. Our credibility is based on our past. But deep in our soul we have no past. I don’t think we have a past anymore than we have a name. You can say we have a past if we have a future. Do we have a future? No. So how can our past exist if the future doesn’t exist?
~Bob Dylan (to Jonathan Cott, Dec 1977)

But we’re only dealing with the past in terms of being able to be healed by it. We can communicate only because we both agree that this is a glass and this is a bowl and that’s a candle and there’s a window here and there are lights out in the city. Now I might not agree with that. Turn this glass around and it’s something else. Now I’m hiding it in a napkin. Watch it now. Now you don’t even know it’s there. It’s the past… I don’t even deal with it. I don’t think seriously about the past, the present or the future. I’ve spent enough time thinking about these things and have gotten nowhere.
~Bob Dylan (to Jonathan Cott, Dec 1977)

Continue reading Bob Dylan’s best songs – Tangled Up In Blue