BOB DYLAN
Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Review
2CD, Columbia
By
all means, try to get the double-CD-version of this record, and not the
watered-down single-CD-version, that is often promoted in big stores with
special prices. You won’t regret paying a few more euros for what you get,
and I am not talking about a wonderfully packaged 56-pages booklet with
liner-notes that deserve the name (written by legendary Rolling Stone-author
Larry Sloman. I am talking about the music. I am talking about the best
live-shows Bob Dylan has ever done. I am talking about a concept put to work
that fulfilled all the dreams and hopes of the hippie-era and keeping the
vision of Bob Dylan alive at the same time. I am talking about legendary
stuff, Ratso!
You
can read all the wheres, whens and hows in the liner-notes, I’ll
concentrate on watering your mouth by telling you what you get. In 1975 Bob
Dylan took a veritable circus on the road, almost 70 people (complete with a
15-heads film team) that contained the most legendary and profound
songwriters and musicians around. There was Bobby Neuwirth and Rambling Jack
Elliot (both immortalized by Kris Kristofferson in his opening lines to
“Me and Bobby McGee” but great artists in their own right as well), Mick
Ronson (who played with David Bowie and also the Stones for a short stint),
T-Bone Burnett (who I shouldn’t have to mention as being the greatest
R&B-guitarist around), parts of The Band and on and on and on. The band
also contained a violin-player called Scarlett Rivera, who – the legend
tells it – Bob Dylan saw walking down the street in New York with a violin
under her arm and he invited her to the first sessions for the show just
like that. For some songs Joan Baez comes out to sing with Bob Dylan and the
first time around I am not bored by her. Even Allen Ginsberg accompanied the
circus. During the show he was also joined by various musicians from the
places they were playing in at the time and a duet of “Knockin’ on
heaven’s door” with Roger McGuinn (Ex-Byrd, “Eve of destruction”) is
documented as finale on this CD. It might have been the best time Bob Dylan
had after his break with the folk-purists-league in the years before. There
are no shouts of “Judas” on this recording. There is one man shouting
out “Play a protest song” and after a short pause Bob Dylan replies
“Here is one for you.” And he breaks into “Oh Sister”. Yes, this CD
is full of magic moments like this one. Little details Bob Dylan-fans like
to talk about for hours and hours.
Even
though I like to fall for these anecdotes as well, what really amazes me is
the music. The big, electric band behind Dylan follows his every step, move
and sparkle of the moment. Right from the beginning with “Tonight I’ll
be staying here with you” you get the feeling that you have never heard
Dylan sing so powerfully, so mighty and emotional. And on the next step they
take songs such as “It ain’t me babe” or “A hard rains a gonna
fall” and turn them into something completely new, big time rockers with a
very positive and happy feeling. Making “A hard rain” into a song of joy
and expectation. Later on, Bob Dylan will also be alone on stage and make
people nostalgic with acoustic renditions of “Mr. Tambourine Man” and
heartsick of nostalgia when Joan Baez joins him for “Blowin’ in the
wind”. Which makes you wonder, is it just the pure of joy of being alive
or a political statement of some kind because why is it exactly this song?
The song that started the whole hippie-thing that now, in 1975, had
definitely gone down the drain? We’ll never know, I guess. Back then, the
people were hungry and starving for Bob Dylan, who had kept his fans waiting
with new album (the last having been the “Pat Garret and Billy The
Kid”-soundtrack which was mostly instrumental). This was a time at which
the simple fact, that Bob Dylan started donning white mask-like make up on
his face during shows made the headlines.
Sure,
there are great songs on here in new and interesting (and really great)
live-versions (as the sticker on the cover tells us), which is not at all
surprising, because as most people know, Bob Dylan has always been busy
turning his songs around and around, adding new lyrics, new harmonies and
even new melodies, which makes his live-recordings so interesting. With some
live-records you ask yourself what their meaning of existence is, expect to
prove that a band can sound just like on record on stage. Which is
completely besides the point in a live-concert situation. Anyway, to me the
greatest songs on here are some written together with Jacques Levy, an
off-Broadway director and ex-clinical psychologist, and played for the first
time in the sessions that ensued to find the perfect collaborations for this
show. There is the tex-mex ballad of “Romance in Durango” and the epic
“one more cup of coffee (valley below) which are both renditions of
stories, real narrative pieces and a new step forward for Bob Dylan. Sure,
songs like “Tangled up in Blue” or “I shall be released” will always
get to me, no matter in what version they come in.
