Dylan Rolling Thunder Review documentary

is it his voice?

I watched 1/2 so far, I was bored, yrmv

saw it last night at castro theater.

fucking brilliant, the patti scenes ,allen,  the ira hayes, ALL the dylan songs(my god the hattie carroll and isis), joni doing coyote in gordon lightfoots living room with bob and mcguinn on guitar oh and more allen. 

it plays with time(and the truth).

bob smiles early on in an interview segment in a way that i have not seen since the dont look back era or the kramer photo session from 64.

his voice cuts in that way only he can. 

the concert footage of his eyes and voice are magnificent.

this film should be played loud

i'm about half way through and am very much enjoying it.

the Isis is great.

I'm really looking forward to watching and hearing it. Thanks for the reviews.

Here's a pretty good review NPR posted a couple of days ago:

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/10/731305441/to-capture-bob-dylans-rolling-t...

Looking forward to seeing this!

There is some fiction in the film...

https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-news/rolling-thunder-revue-bob...

here's a good article about what is real and what is not.

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/06/rolling-thunder-revue-secrets-scorsese...

btw scarlet has a blues for allah sticker on her violin. pretty hip of her with the record having only been out a few months.

anyone know if that bluess for allah violin player artwork appeared way before the album on merch?

I believe the album was waiting for the artwork to be completed.

Just watched a five-minute tease last night but stopped because my wife wants me to wait for her to watch it. Looked awesome, though. What a character, what a trip. So psyched to watch this...

Amazing footage. 10 out of 10.

A well spent two hours.  Being in on the jokes helps.

I agree with everything Rene Fountaine says.

Some great footage in there. Strikes me that most (if not all) of the performances are different from the ones in 'Renaldo & Clara'.

Hard to say if Dylan is being Dylan in the interviews, or is playing some caricature of himself for Scorsese - or a mix of the two.

Fact or fiction, it's pretty damn entertaining, and the music is incredible.

I watched it last night after the basketball game, it’s an excellent film!

I watched it last night after the basketball game, it’s an excellent film!

I watched it and was enchanted, excited, entertained (and probably some other "e"s). I will probably watch some of the music again - I loved it. Wow!

This was written by Ramblin' Jack Elliot's daughter, posted and shared on Facebook.

Aiyana Elliott Partland

June 12 at 7:19 PM

"Prisoner of the White Lines

When I was six my dad got invited on Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review. Actually- to hear Bobby Neuwirth tell it- the scheme for the tour was cooked up at one of my dad’s gigs. Legend goes that Jack was playing the Bitter End one night, when the two Bobs happened to catch part of his set and got to reminiscing about the good old days at Gerdes Folk City, and how great it would be to assemble a few of their favorite performers and figure out a way to play small clubs again. Like, ‘What if we just showed up in a town unannounced, handed out a few fliers, and performed for whoever showed up?’

My mother, Martha, got a call from Jack, saying Bob had decided to bring his kids along. And Jack too, now wanted me to join. My mom bundled me up like some kind of Christmas sausage in my frilly dress and furry pink jacket and shipped me off on a 747 to join the tour back east.

When we landed, there was snow on the ground and my dad in his hat—always the cowboy hat. He would sometimes let me wear the hat, but he would shock me with his bark when I made the mistake of placing it brim side down on the dresser. ‘A cowboy never set his hat on it’s brim! It must be placed carefully on it’s top, otherwise it would loose it’s shape, and then what would become of the cowboy?’ This seemed to be among the most vital lessons my dad had to impart to me.

By 1975 Jack’s psychedelic-cowboy look had caught on and there was a whole troupe of lanky musicians in felt hats and scruffy bell-bottoms. We’d tumble out of a caravan of Greyhound busses- I know they were Greyhounds because the emblem of the racing dog caught my eye. I must have asked my dad about it because I can hear him explaining how fast they were- that they were raced for sport. The make of the bus would have been another detail of vital importance to my father, who was even more taken with the mechanics of trucks than he was with vagaries of contemporary Folk Music.

It would be night and there would be the lights of the buses and the stink of diesel and the performers would tumble off the buses with their guitar cases and hats. We’d push through the revolving doors into a hotel lobby where bellhops and reporters would be waiting. I’d barely been out from under the Santa Cruz redwoods, and these hotels, with their red velvet carpets and glowing lamps, seemed like palaces- like some fairy godmother had twirled her magic wand and transported me to the king’s ball. And it was clear, the way everyone hovered around him in his hat and scarf, that Dylan was the King.

I can remember watching the evening’s performance from behind the velvet curtains. The theaters were bigger than the smoky bars Jack usually played. And the applause that greeted him came in waves. Still it was nothing like the applause that greeted Bob, which was thunderous. Bob sang with all the personality and intensity of an actor- mesmerizing in his part. His cool sarcasm punctuated by Howie's drums and made more poignant by the soulful insistence of Scarlet Rivera’s wailing fiddle. And when he sang about Isis and Joey and Hurricane, the stories in the songs unfurled like movies in my mind. The movies continued to play in my head for weeks after the tour ended. Back home all I’d have to do was hold up the Desire album and I’d see hot chili peppers roasting in the blistering sun, Isis in the tomb and Joe in the streets. Those songs were so cinematic, that I’m sure by 1975 Francis Ford Coppola was as big an influence on Dylan as Woody Guthrie.

Part of the fun of the tour, for us kids, was having our run of the hotels. I recall roaming the carpeted corridors of a grand hotel, with Bob’s daughter Anna and her brother’s running ahead. One such day, we found our way to a hazy hotel bar, where Bob was shooting pool in the back with some other musicians. Anna ran up to hug her dad, and I’ll never forget the startled look on her face, and way she pulled away, realizing it was not her dad beneath the white face paint, but Joan Baez, who had made some kind of game out of impersonating Bob in his felt hat, blue jeans and long scarf.

In another memory, Jack and I are riding in the bus, amidst the other musicians, when he introduces me to Joni Mitchell. She smiles bashfully at something Jack has said and invites us inside her cabin. Her angular beauty and slightly sad demeanor are not unlike my mother’s. Joni sits, twisting at the frets of her guitar and asks my dad to borrow his capo- the one he usually has riding in the pocket of his shirt. She wants to play us a song, something she’s working on. We settle into a bench beside her, and from the way my dad is patting my knee and I can tell he’s proud to have me with him.

Her rhythmic strumming begins to grip us, and she starts to sing something about a coyote- a prisoner of the white lines of the freeway. The window beside us lights up and we all turn to see a farmhouse- a lone structure set back from the road- engulfed in flames. “Wo,” someone says, as our view of the fire is replaced by the dark night.

Joni starts in on her guitar again, strumming and humming. She smiles at us and sings, “saw a farmhouse burning down… in the middle of nowhere… in the middle of the night,” and in so doing, Joni Mitchell, the itinerant sorceress, sears that brief moment on the Greyhound Bus on Rolling Thunder in my mind forever.

I was heartened to see from the new Rolling Thunder film how close it all was to the way I remembered it. There was Joan talking about impersonating Bob and Joni talking about writing the song Coyote while on tour, and even Bob, who's description of Jack as more of a sailor than a folk singer is almost apt. But in my humble opinion, the sprawling film would have benefited from a lot more Rambln’ Jack."

https://www.facebook.com/aiyana.elliottpartland/posts/10158532187966040

watched it in 2 parts, last was last night.

some killer stuff.

and yeah, that's how ya do knockin'...

i wish there were more whole songs and less interruptions.

A-

the hattie carol is worth it alone.

and man that guy can write a line..

"now all the criminals in their suits and coats are free to drink martinis and watch the sunrise"...

Really enjoyed it a lot. Any of that 75 tour I've ever heard is so good. 

coats and ties i mean...

I wish the live performance footage was uninterrupted, that Isis was insanely good.

I really enjoyed it.  It helps that Desire is one of my fave albums, and Dylan's singing is so strong in the latter half of the movie.  In the beginning they sound kinda out of tune but by the end he is just so energetic and killing it.  Other moments of note:

1- when the filmaker points out the Blues for Allah sticker on the witchy violin player's violin she acts like this is something special to her

2- shout out to my old friend "Diamond" David Whitaker.  He's the one that Dylan said had given him the Kerouac book, Mexico City Blues.  He's originally from Hibbing and went out on the road before Dylan did and came back a booked up pot-smoking beatnik and told Dylan he needed to go make the scene.  No one was really sure how true that was until Dylan came to town and hooked up Dave.  Dylan writes about him in one of his bios.  Great guy who always used to have something to say about whatever I was reading, so nice to hear Dylan talking about getting turned on to books by him.  

3- Dylan "Ginsberg is NOT a father figure."  Indeed he is not, I once listened to him do a whole reading about fucking teenage boys.  Not a father figure.  Dylan is funny the way he says that.

4 -- Dylan is just so funny in general, they will have some person say "Oh, it was like XYZ" and then Dylan will be like "No, it wasn't like that at all".  He dishes delightfully.  Especially about Ginsberg wanting to be a songwriter.  

5-- the way they shine a true light on the scene.  Talking about a bunch of posers trying to act like they are important, people who would slit their best friend's throat to be at the show.  For all this hippydippy seeming stuff, it's the usual "making the scene" jackwadery that always goes on.  Refreshing honesty. I like it.

6-- I have never seen Joan Baez look so cool. 

7-- Joni Mitchell singing Love Potion Number 9 backstage.  My dad used to sing that to me on the way to school, he will totally dig that.

.

Coyote

 https://youtu.be/zeaO5UZ5OcI

Has Joni every recorded the follow up to coyote, “Lego Hair”?

I really enjoyed it. Will watch again soon.

Noticing the manic energy in one of the concert scenes, when BINGO! It's 1975, and Dylan and the rest of the musicians are coked up to the gills. Rock on!

The Blues for Allah sticker ( new icon at the time) on Scarlet's violin just goes to show that the Grateful Dead have been following Dylan around for a long time.

Allen Ginsberg was a bodhisattva and great poet, not a father figure heh heh