Life Bookazines - Bob Dylan - 2020

80 LIFE BOB DYLAN

Rolling On

W

ho was Rolling Thunder? Even deep-dyed Dylanologists might be interested to know

that he was a real person: a modern-day Cherokee shaman who, through marriage

to Spotted Fawn, joined the Shoshone of Nevada. He was a medicine man, a teacher

and, eventually, a symbol. Also called John Pope in the non-Indian world, he became an activ-

ist for Native American rights, environmental causes and equality for women. In 1975 he and

Spotted Fawn founded Meta Tantay (“Go in Peace”), a 262-

acre intertribal, interracial community—a super com-

mune that would last for about a decade. He was, in the

meantime and even earlier, noticed by others out West, and

was involved in three Billy Jack films as well as on Roll-

ing Thunder, an album by the Grateful Dead drummer

Mickey Hart. So this was the Rolling Thunder for which

Bob Dylan’s famous concert tour of 1975 and ’76 was named.

But wait!

We’re dealing with Dylan here, so... Maybe not.

It has been said by others that the tour was named for

Operation Rolling Thunder, a U.S. aerial bombardment cam-

paign conducted during the Vietnam War.

But would Dylan really do that? Name a loose-limbed,

organo-groovy musical tour after a military exercise?

Well, he was Dylan, and you never know...

The man himself said, in one of those altogether-too-

easy explanations, “I was just sitting outside my house one

day thinking about a name for this tour, when all of a sud-

den, 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.”

Yeah, sure.

Right, Bobby. And the song “Sara” wasn’t about Sara.

Whatever you say.

For our part, we’re still taken with the Native American

story. We figure someone must have mentioned Rolling

Thunder and Spotted Fawn to Dylan—and besides, Rolling

Thunder himself hung with the tour for a few dates. The

Native American story seems a much neater fit consider-

ing the spirit that would imbue the tour. And when piecing

together Dylan, it’s usually a good idea to take the best avail-

able fit.

He does it himself, all the time.

IN 1975, RESTLESS TO HIT THE ROAD,

Dylan wanted a soulful, old-timey, medicine

show–type tour of the Northeast, and he

got it in spades, starting out in Plymouth,

Massachusetts, where once the Pilgrims had

struggled to weather the winter. KEN REGAN/CAMERA 5

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