82 LIFE BOB DYLAN
“ ‘Yes, Mr. Shepard. Let me explain. Bob is going on a secret
tour in the Northeast. He’s calling it Rolling Thunder—the
Rolling Thunder Revue.’
“There’s something about the way this chump is calling
Dylan ‘Bob’ that immediately pisses me off, combined with
the confusion of trying to figure out where in the hell the
Northeast is exactly. Before I know it, something hostile is
coming out of my mouth.
“ ‘If it’s so secret, how come you’re telling me about it?’”
Dylan was telling Shepard about it because he wanted
him in New York City within a day or two to begin work on
a film of this weird tour he had planned. The singer envi-
sioned a kind of neorealistic docu-comedy, something influ-
enced by the French nouvelle vague, if we can judge by his
byplay with Shepard, as remembered by Shepard:
“ ‘Did you ever see Children of Paradise?’ he says. I admit I
have but a long time ago. I saw it with a girl who cried all the
way through so it’s hard to relate my exact impressions. ‘How
about Shoot the Piano Player?’
“ ‘Yeah, I saw that one too. Is that the kind of movie you
want to make?’
“ ‘Something like that.’ ”
The Shepard project never came to pass, although there
was a lot of film shot during the tour—concert footage as
well as improvised scenes starring Dylan and his friends.
This would all wind up in Renaldo and Clara, a nearly five-
hour movie for which Shepard can scarcely be blamed.
Nonetheless, even as his role as screenwriter was quietly
dissolving because musicians who were performing each
evening would hardly be memorizing dialogue at breakfast,
Shepard continued to hang out, and thereby piled up the
reminiscences and observations contained in his logbook.
We are all the richer for this.
What was the Rolling Thunder Revue all about? The
quick answer is, “Hard to say... this and that.. .”—but that’s
a cop-out. It was, in fact, one of Dylan’s smartest notions.
It was a fun, friendly get-together with his musical friends
and most devoted fans, a barnstorming musical caravan and
nightly revival meeting. It was, in a way that some of his ear-
lier and later concerts were not, extremely generous. It was
a marvelous and surprising re-entry into the day-to-day of
show business. The music was uniformly wonderful. The
spirit was, too.
In terms of DNA, the Rolling Thunder Revue was some-
thing of a cross between an old-time medicine show, EdS
afe to say, few in New England knew much about John
Pope/Rolling Thunder in ’75. And few knew of Bob
Dylan’s latest move, which was heading their way.
Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Sam Shepard’s
impressionistic Rolling Thunder Logbook remains the best
(and certainly the most fun) delineation of those crazy days
and that crazy tour.
Some brief preface material to Shepard’s remembrances:
Bobby and Sara were on the rocks, they were fighting over
custody of the kids, he was itching to get out on the road
again. The Rolling Thunder Revue, under whatever name,
had been boiling in his head for years, and it started to seem
like the next idea to act upon.
There was a message on a green piece of notepaper wait-
ing for Shepard at his California ranch: “Dylan called.” It had
a return number.
Shepard was thoroughly mystified. He didn’t know Dylan,
any Dylan, certainly not the Dylan. He returned the call, and:
“I get an entangled series of secretaries, lawyers, business
managers, each one with a guarded approach.
“ ‘Shepard? Shepard who? Are you the one who killed his
wife?’
“ ‘No, I’m the astronaut.’
“ ‘Oh. Well, what’s this all about? Why did Dylan call you?’
“ ‘That’s what I’m calling you about.’
“ ‘Oh. Well, just a minute. I’ll see if I can find somebody.’
“The phone goes blank and then a new voice. A man voice.
Then blank again. Then a woman voice. Then back to a man.LEFT: DYLAN WITH ALLEN GINSBERG,
Rolling Thunder’s resident poet. Below:
Meeting with the ex-boxer Rubin “Hurricane”
Carter, who had been convicted in a triple-
murder and became one of the tour’s chief
causes when Dylan sang his new protest
song, “Hurricane,” night after night. (Carter
was eventually freed, and went on to become
an advocate for the wrongfully accused.)
Opposite: Dylan listening to a recording
during a break in a Rolling Thunder rehearsal.BETTMANN/GETTY
KEN REGAN/CAMER A 5 (2)
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