Bob Dylan in 1975 (Photo: Ken Regan; used with permission)
Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings have announced the release of Bob Dylan—The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings on June 7. The 14-disc set includes more than 100 previously unreleased performances.
The collection serves as a companion piece to the new film, Rolling Thunder Revue—A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese, premiering on Netflix on June 12. Every one of Bob Dylan’s performances in the movie can be found in this boxed set.
A clip for “Hard Rain” was released on June 7. (See it below.)
“Joan Baez and me can sing together in our sleep,” says Dylan in the trailer.
Watch the trailer for Scorsese’s film
Described in a press release as “a comprehensive anthology of music from the mythic first leg of Bob Dylan’s groundbreaking Rolling Thunder Revue,” the mammoth boxed set includes all five of Dylan’s full sets from that tour that were professionally recorded. “The collection also provides the listener with an intimate insider’s seat for recently unearthed rehearsals at New York’s S.I.R. studios and the Seacrest Motel in Falmouth, Mass., plus a bonus disc showcasing one-of-a-kind performances from the tour.”
Watch a trailer for the boxed set
The collection features 148 tracks in all, with more than 100 of those never previously released.
Listen to a previously unreleased rehearsal of “One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)”
Included in the box set is a 52-page booklet featuring rare and never-before-seen Rolling Thunder Revue photos and an essay by novelist/musician Wesley Stace. Concurrent with the release of the 14-CD boxed set will be a reissue of The Bootleg Series Volume 5 on vinyl, back in print for the first time since 2002 as a 3-LP set with a 64-page booklet.
To pre-order in the U.S.: 14-CD and 3-LP. To pre-order in the U.K.: 14-CD and 3-LP.
Related: Dylan’s 1975 masterpiece Blood on the Tracks revisited
Says the announcement, “Launched in the fall of 1975, Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue flouted the touring conventions of the time by featuring an eclectic cast of characters and playing small and unusual venues with little advance notice. The shows would often stretch to more than four hours long, generating some of the artist’s most dramatic and dynamic on-stage performances ever. Dylan debuted the new songs he’d written for his forthcoming Desire album (which became one of the most acclaimed and popular in his canon) with a fire and intensity that Dylan had reached ten years earlier with his incendiary tours with musicians who became The Band. He also took wild, interpretative rides through his back catalog and broke out some unexpected covers.”
Watch the clip for “Hard Rain”
Dylan gathered friends and collaborators for his ensemble—dubbed Guam for the tour—that included T Bone Burnett, Mick Ronson, Joan Baez, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Bobby Neuwirth, Scarlett Rivera, Ronee Blakley, Steven Soles, David Mansfield, Rob Stoner, Howie Wyeth and Luther Rix. Poet Allen Ginsberg and Joni Mitchell also brought their talents to the show’s encores. “Dylan, the consummate band leader,” says the release, “managed to take these musicians from various backgrounds and sensibilities and mold them into a tight musical unit on stage.”
Bob Dylan—Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings
DISC 1: S.I.R. Rehearsals, New York, NY – October 19, 1975
DISC 2: S.I.R. Rehearsals, New York, NY – October 21, 1975
DISC 3: Seacrest Motel Rehearsals, Falmouth, MA – October 29, 1975
DISC 4-5: Memorial Auditorium, Worcester, MA – November 19, 1975
DISC 6-7: Harvard Square Theater, Cambridge, MA – November 20, 1975
DISC 8-9: Boston Music Hall, Boston, MA – November 21, 1975 (afternoon)
DISC 10-11: Boston Music Hall, Boston, MA – November 21, 1975 (evening)
DISC 12-13: Forum de Montreal, Quebec, Canada – December 4, 1975
DISC 14: Rare Performances
Watch Bob Dylan sing “Maggie’s Farm” during the Rolling Thunder Revue tour
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Jump into a conversationWould Of Loved To Have Been On That Tour And Sung ‘The Song Of Fools’