Bob and Joan and Scarlett and Joni... Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue

Jack Elliott, Joan Baez, Dylan, Mick Ronson, Ronee Blakley, David Mansfield

Martin Scorsese's Rolling Thunder Revue movie is a magical snapshot of a musical legend. How can something so special have been kept under wraps for so long?

The film footage of Bob Dylan's 1975/76 Rolling Thunder Revue tour has been available in unofficial rough-looking clips in the Youtube era. Some of it was even included in Dylan's obscure and quite awful 1978 film 'Renaldo and Clara'.

But it's taken over 40 years for the full treatment to be given to this unique gathering. Thankfully, Scorsese was at hand to work his magic on it. It's not perfect, and on second viewing I skipped over the fake narrative bits. But the concert footage is just so vivid it's almost breathtaking.

Just as he did with 'No Direction Home', his documentary on Dylan's early career, Scorsese has collated this amazingly vibrant footage to showcase Dylan's remarkable artistry and charisma.

Rolling Thunder Revue contains some of the most thrilling performances of Dylan's long career. If you liked the 'Desire' album, it's a kick seeing many of those songs performed by the same band, with the same intensity and warmth. On stage, Dylan is more animated than he's ever been.

It's a lot of fun to watch. The up-to-date Dylan is as enigmatic as ever and there's a lot of his customary misdirection in the narrative. But the real riches lie in the onstage and backstage interactions. You get a strong sense of the collective spirit among the musicians involved.

Joan Baez has a strong supporting role, as do several other women on the tour, such as violinist Scarlett Rivera, singer Ronee Blakley and the amazing Joni Mitchell.

The relationship between Bob and Joan Baez has an enduring fascination. It is one of the great examples of unrequited love in the history of art. Bob used Joan as his jumping off platform early in his career - she invited him to share her stage and became his muse and his musical sidekick.

But, as we saw in the movie Don't Look Back ten years earlier, Joan’s love for Bob goes way beyond the music and it's really not clear how far Bob's love for Joan extends. The interaction in Rolling Thunder Revue, where they discuss how their lives diverged in the mid-60s, is poignant because it's clear even then that Joan still holds a candle for him.

Bob and Joan in the early 1960s

Dylan acknowledged the debt he owed to Baez, but he did a poor job of repaying it in 1965, when Joan accompanied him to the UK. It was fairly obvious he didn't want her there. The circus that surrounded him just made her feel even more marginalised.

Bob would later say he was just trying to deal with the craziness of his life at that point; and it was crazy. Joan should never have gone with him to the UK. She described it as hell (everyone else was on drugs - she was straight). And Bob didn't - as she had expected - reciprocate Joan's generosity by inviting her onstage to perform with him.

For more insight into their complex relationship, I'd recommend David Hadju's excellent book 'Positively 4th Street'. It interweaves Bob and Joan's lives and their relationship, with Joan's sister Mimi and her partner Richard Fariña.

For her part, Joan was guilty only of blind devotion. As Hadju's book notes: "This gorgeous woman, who is an icon in her own right, latches onto you and says, 'I'll be your everything, including being your lover'. She adopted him. She found this guy who gave voice to all that powerful stuff, and she nurtured him in that role. He made out on every level."

Hadju's book also gives a glimpse of their happier side, noting how they had a similar sense of the absurd and at times it appeared as if they were having a private joke against the world. "A lovely thing was happening and I didn't want it to end," she said later.

Joni not easily intimidated

The most noteworthy cameo in Scorsese's Rolling Thunder Revue comes from Joni Mitchell. We see her playing an early version of Coyote - which appeared on her next album Hejira - in an upstairs room at Gordon Lightfoot's house in Toronto.

She had just written the song and the words are ever so slightly different, on the section "he's got a woman at home...". It's astonishing that all these years later we get to see it like this. Joni handles the situation with such assurance. How many other artists could have done that - come into Dylan's world and match him stride for stride?

Joni said, "I joined Rolling Thunder as a spectator. I would have been content to follow it for three cities just as an observer, but since I was there I was asked to participate. Then, for mystical reasons of my own, I made a pact with myself that I would stay on until it was over. 

"It was a trial of sorts for me. I went out in a foot soldier position. I made up songs onstage. I sang in French, badly. I did a lot of things to prevent myself from getting in the way. What was in it for me hadn’t anything to do with applause or the performing aspect. It was simply to be allowed to remain an observer and a witness to an incredible spectacle."

Sensibly, she requested that any footage of her not be used in Renaldo & Clara. "I preferred to be invisible. I’ve got my own reasons why."

Although Joni obviously enjoyed the experience, it took a toll on her health and caused her to cancel some of her own shows soon after. She said, "Rolling Thunder was mad. Heavy drama, no sleep – a circus. (Afterwards) I had bronchitis. A bone in my spine was out of place and was pinching like crazy. So I was in physical pain."

Dylan and Scarlett Rivera

The other key female interaction among the musicians on the tour was the mysterious violinist Scarlett Rivera. She provides wonderful accompaniment to Dylan on stage, showing a fine sense of taste in her playing on several of the featured performances.

She describes their meeting in the movie as an audition followed by a surreal evening jamming with Muddy Waters at the Bottom Line club in New York.

Dylan had such faith in Rivera's ability that she became the foil for all his recording and live dates during this highly productive time, including a memorable performance of Simple Twist of Fate, Hurricane and Oh Sister at a tribute TV show for legendary CBS executive, John Hammond, the man who signed Dylan.

The recording of the album Desire involved the other core musicians on the Rolling Thunder Tour, bassist Rob Stoner, drummer Howie Wyeth and guitarist singer Bob Neuwirth. But it was Rivera who captivated everyone, by virtue of the amazing musical understanding she had with Dylan. 

The song 'One More Cup of Coffee', for example, was recorded in one take. Emmylou Harris was caught off-guard by this and had wanted another run-through to get her vocal right. But that was it. Bob was happy with the first one. Onto the next song. 

The insight and magic shown in the Rolling Thunder Revue movie is quite unbelievable for those of us who have lived with the music and legend for over 40 years. I still have my copy of Sam Shepherd's Rolling Thunder Logbook and the movie fills in a lot of the gaps in Shepherd's sketches of the tour, like Dylan and Allen Ginsberg visiting Jack Kerouac's grave.

As a follow-on from Scorsese's No Direction Home, which finished after Bob's 1966 tour of the UK - and his withdrawal from music - the Rolling Thunder Revue is a perfect complement.

A bonus item this, from Acoustic Guitar magazine (see my recommended blogs at the side here) is a clip of Bob and Joan in 1976 on the second leg of the Rolling Thunder Revue, duetting on Blowin' In The Wind.

Joan Baez talks about Dylan and her activist life on Desert Island Discs.

For more on life on the road with the Rolling Thunder Revue, check out this interview with tour manager Chris O'Dell.  

ALSO ON THIS BLOG:
Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan's artistic peak in the 1960s 

Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton at Blackbushe, UK 1978