Field recordings: The Rolling Thunder Review 1976
A CS production, June 2015
CD 1:
1. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again - New Orleans, May 3, 1976
2. Isis - Oklahoma City, May 18, 1976
3. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight - Lakeland, April 18, 1976
4. One Too Many Mornings - Fort Worth, May 16, 1976
5. You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go - Oklahoma City, May 18, 1976
6. You’re A Big Girl Now - New Orleans, May 3, 1976
7. Positively 4th Street - Houston, January 25, 1976
8. Romance In Durango - San Antonio, May 11, 1976
9. I Pity The Poor Immigrant - New Orleans, May 3, 1976
10. Just Like A Woman - Clearwater, April 22, 1976
11. I Want You - Oklahoma City, May 18, 1976
12. Shelter From The Storm - New Orleans, May 3, 1976
13. Going, Going, Gone - Fort Worth, May 16, 1976
14. Idiot Wind - Fort Worth, May 16, 1976
CD 2 - Bonus Tracks:
1. Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I Go Mine) - Clearwater, May 19, 1976
2. A Hard Rain’s AGonna Fall - Fort Collins, May 23, 1976
3. (Sooner Or Later) One Of Us Must Know - Wichita, May 19, 1976
This set covers the second of the two Rolling Thunder tours. The first was in 1975, and the second was in 1976. While the first tour was fairly loose, the second was a rawer, rougherhewn affair.
The personnel were similar, but the sound had changed radically. Gone was the standard setlist, replaced by a rotating set of songs. The emphasis had been altered from Dylan’s recently released Desire record to include a wider variety of songs, particularly from Blonde On Blonde and Blood On The Tracks.
1975’s more imaginative arrangements featuring congas, mandolins, and violins were largely replaced by distorted guitar, sometimes featuring a slide. Dylan himself took over lead guitar duties on occasion, though the band included such late twentieth century notables as T-Bone Burnette and Mick Ronson. Piano remained a significant force in the arrangements, as found on this compilation on “I Pity The Poor Immigrant” and “You’re A Big Girl Now.” The violin was still present, and is particularly fierce here on a raucous oneoff performance of “Positively 4th Street.” Dylan doesn’t recall all of the words, but the song has lost none of its punch in the ten years since it was last played in concert. “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” is also rather endearing, presented as an appropriately boozy rendition.
“One Too Many Mornings” has not yet picked up the extra verse that it would by the end of the tour, and “Shelter From The Storm” features one of Dylan’s strongest voice performances.
While at the beginning of the tour, as found in the original unaired Clearwater TV special, “Isis” had lost much of the punch that it had the previous year, it had picked up a radical new arrangement by midMay. The version from May 16 seems to have been transitional, as that recording suggests a slow song that shifts tempo after a verse or two. By May 18, when the version on this set was recorded in Oklahoma City, the song was a fully rollicking, uptempo tune.
The bonus cuts here were found to be wanting in one way or another. All were very rare performances, but the sound quality on “Most Likely You Go Your Way” and “One Of Us Must Know” is very poor. “A Hard Rain’s AGonna Fall” is interesting, and more traditional in arrangement than the bluesy version from 1975, but suffers from its increased length.
Since the songs are longer, not as many could be featured from the tour. Not present are any of the fantastic acoustic performances that tended to open the sets. You can find many of the best ones on other Thousand Highwayscollections.
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