ARCHIVE RELEASE OF THE YEAR
1 BOB DYLAN The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings COLUMBIA RECORDS/LEGACY RECORDINGS
FOR Bobcats fretting over the absence of any new material from Dylan – it’s been seven long years since Tempest – 2019 at least provided some consolation via a rich bounty of archival releases. At No 24 in this poll, you’ll have encountered Travelin’ Thru – but a deeper archeological dig came with The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings, released as a companion piece to Martin Scorsese’s mischievous Netflix documentary. While the film – playing with the real-or-unreal flavour of the tour, inserting mockumentary elements amid the period footage – ostensibly took us behind the scenes on Dylan’s revolutionary charabanc, this expansive boxset takes us deep into the tour itself. Expanded from 2002’s Bootleg Series Vol 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue, this new set contained three discs of rehearsals, 10 discs of the five shows professionally recorded in their entirety and a final disc of rarities. There are specific highlights that will appeal to fans of Dylan’s fluid relationship with his songs. CD 3, recorded on October 29, 1975 at the Seacrest Motel in Massachusetts, is effectively the Revue’s final dress rehearsal, where several songs are still looking for arrangements, including “Hurricane”, while a version on Disc 13 of “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You”, for instance, has a completely rewritten lyric and a careening new arrangement.
Mostly though, this set captures Dylan in motion and clearly enjoying himself. After a successful but unhappy arena tour with The Band in 1974, the whimsical nature of the Revue’s travelling carnival vibe and the colourful cast of old friends (Mcguinn, Baez, Neuwirth) encourages Dylan to engage once more with his songs. There are theatrical performances of “Just Like A Woman”, roadhouse-style versions of “A Hard Rain’s A-gonna Fall” and furious takes on “Isis”. The band – including Mick Ronson – are both loose and tight, adding a kind of drunken lilt to proceedings that’s entirely in keeping with the tour’s chaotic magic.
For a year dominated by live archive trawls from Woodstock to the Band Of Gypsys’ Fillmore East shows, Dylan’s The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings feels like a major highlight. As much a vital snapshot of Dylan during his mid-70’s peak, as a sly meditation on quintessentially Dylanesque themes: “what’s real and what is not”.