An Examination of the Physics of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

"I don't remember a thing about Rolling Thunder. It was before I was even born." --Bob Dylan

The film begins with some nostalgic footage of a magician making his assistant disappear and re-appear. It's a metaphor for the story you are about to see, of course. A little hocus pocus as we go back in time, and maybe a little hokum, too.

Then we find ourselves at the 200th Bicentennial, the tall ships and the mayhem of that mid-Seventies moment in time. There's a bit of Nixon footage, then Gerald Ford, and the stage is set with a reference to Bob as Mr. Tambourine Man who states, "Life isn't about finding yourself. It's about creating yourself." (Best line in the film? Maybe one of the best lines ever?)

It's a great place to begin. If that statement doesn't sum up the 78 years of Bob Dylan's life and career, then you haven't been paying attention.

Much has already been made of the mixing of reality and fiction in Martin Scorsese's second Dylan documentary on the Rolling Thunder Revue, so I will just make comments on some things that jumped out for me personally.

Early on, Bob mentioned "the idea of having a jug band." That jug band feel, on a grand carnival scale, was part of what he did in fact create. A hallmark of jug bands is the informality and the camaraderie.

Publicity still that everyone seems to be using.

When asked where the name Rolling Thunder came from, he described the sound of rolling thunder that rumbled across the stratosphere one evening while thinking about all these things. I am sure that it happens in all parts of the country, but the rolling thunder in Northern Minnesota's skies can be exceptionally powerful when the arctic and equatorially driven weather fronts collide. It was only later that he learned that Rolling Thunder was also the code name for Nixon's carpet bombing of Cambodia a few years earlier.

Masks and "Truth" were two of the threads running through the story here. As Dylan explains, "When somebody's wearing a mask, he's gonna tell you the truth." Of course with so much fictional flak getting flung into the mix, you don't know if he's being earnest here or just playing with our heads.

The manner in which the story is told, like a traditional documentary, gave the whole of it a feel of veracity, even when the characters were bogus. The snippet interviews did achieve one thing for sure: we gained a range of perspectives so as to see this flash from history in a variety of ways. Even when incoherent the collage/montage made an impression.

Ronnie Hawkins compares Bob to a gladiator. Sizzling violinist Scarlet Rivera's summing up was priceless: "Mr. tambourine man gives us the opportunity to be whoever we wish."

In my notes I scribbled the words, "High holy gypsy holiday" which was either something someone said or my interpretation of what I was seeing.

Another feature of the film was its ability to convey the chaos of the tour as well as the love affair between the players and their audiences. The rough edges of this Revue undoubtedly contributed to the remarkable music that was generated. I'll try to explain this by contrasting with a couple other performers I'd seen in 1973-74 Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick tour and Emerson Lake and Palmer. In both cases they were in the spotlight to showcase their music and their talent. ELP were exceptional. In both cases, however, the shows were so scripted one wonders where the "heart" was.

By way of contrast, Dylan seriously comes off as from another galaxy. The RTR was the complete antithesis of a scripted concert tour.

As you watch Dylan singing and moving about, interacting with the various performers, you can't help but be struck by the energy. This energy emerges from the tension created by its lack of structure, its freedom within form, its uncertain destination.

The concert camera work was exceptional, too. Look at those eyes. At times you can see lightning flashin' out from Dylan's eyeballs as he sings about Isis, Hurricane and all those other great themes from his Desire album.

Because of Scarlet Rivera's visits to perform in the Northland in recent years I have no doubt that many of us here were especially thrilled to see so much footage featuring her violin-work that so contributed to the unique Desire sound.

The film has received much fanfare from the critics, though not all have been equally on board. Olivia Elston's review in the Indiana Daily Student had this to say regarding what she saw as a shortcoming: "While 'Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story' will be welcomed by Dylan fans who may want to relive the tour or even see it for the first time, it tends to be a little lackluster. Behind the scene clips do not offer much excitement or insight to the concert tour as a whole."

Being a Dylan fan, these little side eddies were not an impediment, though I understand how they could be for some.

As for the physics behind the tour, it's based on the formula e=mc2. Albert Einstein demonstrated that there is a relationship between mass and energy. The conversion of rest energy to other forms of energy occurs in ordinary chemical reactions, but much larger conversions occur in nuclear reactions. What Dylan did with the RTR was to bring all these various elements into play, creating a chemistry whose chemical reactions resulted in some remarkably explosive releases of energy.

If you don't like that explanation, then MC in this equation represents Magical Carnival which when multiplied produced the energy that we saw flashing from Bob's eyes. You saw it, right? Inexplicably intense, riveting and empowering.

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BONUS TRACK

Louie (L) and Mr. Tambourine Man.

It may as well be noted that Bob's childhood friends Louie Kemp and Larry Kegan both appeared briefly. That was Larry in the back of the van singing "Your Cheatin' Heart" with Bob. And as for Louie, though a bit part, he had his fingerprints on a lot of what happened behind the scenes as producer of the tour.

To learn more about Louie, here's a half-hour interview on SiriusXM radio.

Themes include how the RTR got started, what Bob Dylan was like as a kid, and how his book Dylan & Me got written. The anecdotes here are a foretaste of many other stories that have yet to appear in all those other books we sifted through for "the good stuff."

How the Rolling Thunder Revue Was Different from Any Other Dylan Road Tour

Ok, let's face it. There was never anything quite like the Rolling Thunder Revue (RTR) before or since. A cross between a traveling three-ring circus and a true magical mystery tour, the RTR produced a robust quantity of music and memories for everyone who was part of it and all who experienced it.

With the release of Martin Scorsese's film on the RTR this week, much has been written about it already. Anticipation had been exceedingly high and, like the Tour itself, its apparently a film as unusual as the spirit of the RTR. Fake interviews with people who weren't there, as if they had been? Is this a cross between Zelig and Magical Realism?

While the atmosphere is heated, it seems a good time to add two cents' worth of additional insight from an angle not being fully noted. Much has already been made of the return of Joan Baez after a ten year hiatus. Their performances together were electric, as the film reveals.

The madcap manner in which the tour unfolded has also been remarked upon, including the small venues that enabled a far more intimate experience for the audiences who gathered to see and experience this adventure.

A third feature of this road show was how comprehensively it was filmed. For this reason Martin Scorsese had more than enough material to work with -- maybe too much, though some would say there's never too much Bob--as he reviewed, edited and assembled this production. No, he was not there to direct cameramen during the tour as with The Last Waltz, but he did have a clear line of sight on what was possible to achieve with more than 100 hours of film footage.

Designed by Louis Kemp, official luggage tag of the RTR.

A fourth feature of the RTR that is most unusual is how it varied in who the players were depending on when or where you saw it. When you buy tickets to a concert that is part of an ongoing tour, you pretty much expect the band today to be the same as what audiences saw in Toronto last week. But no, this traveling circus had different musicians and different setlists throughout. (Of course Dylan went on to make this a signature feature of his shows in later years, mixing up setlists, tempos and even lyrics at times.)

A fifth feature of this tour was the flavor a young Scarlet Rivera brought to the mix. Her sizzling violin was something altogether new, like a special seasoning or secret sauce on a meal at a high class Michelin-star restaurant. That Dylan discovered her almost by accident in Greenwich Village--Scarlet calls it fate--and inserted her into the mix that produced his deceptively powerful album Desire, is a much longer tale, a portion of which you can read here from the mouth of Scarlet herself.

Herzl Camp in Wisconsin. Bobby Zimmerman flanked
left and right by buddies Larry Kegan and Louis Kemp.

Sixth,  I've not seen anyone note that two friends from Bob's Camp Herzl days were there for a portion of the tour. I think it says a lot about Dylan's character that is not often remarked upon. His early friendships weren't discarded when destiny swept him up to lofty heights on fame's wheezy waxen wings.

This seems unusual. Bob was 12 when they met. Enduring friendships developed. 22 years later Louis Kemp became producer/organizer of the Rolling Thunder Revue, playing an instrumental role on several levels. (Eight years later Bob would be best man at Louis' wedding here in Duluth.)

Louis Kemp (R) with Scarlet Rivera

Young Larry Kegan and Bob--Herzl Camp days.

Another of Bob's close friends from camp, Larry Kegan, also participated in the first week of the RTR beginning in Massachusetts. At age 16 Larry had been hurt  in a diving accident, which left him in a wheelchair for life. Music was an important component of his life, and Larry was a valued friend so that Dylan invited Larry to attend Bob's shows for a week at a time several times a year for the next 15 years.

Thus it was that Gene LaFond, who was a good friend of Larry's who also performed with him, had the privilege of being there for the first half dozen shows of the RTR beginning in Worcester, Mass. Gene drove the handicap van with Larry in the back. Bob rode back there for one section of the trip and they were all singing together.

How he got to be there at the launch of the RTR carnival went like this. "Larry Kegan, Bob's good friend, told me, 'There's this circus going on out there. Let's go,'" LaFond told me this week. "It was the first time I met Bob."

Gene sketched out details about how "the film crew was rolling constantly. Costumes every night... and a wide range of incredible talent. It was magical," he said. "They were having so much fun doing it. It was just exciting. They were really having a good time and it showed."

As a result of this experience on the tour "Rambling Jack and Scarlet became friends of mine over the years since," LaFond said.

If you follow through and acquire the full set of CDs from the RTR, you'll hear Larry singing "Your Cheating Heart" with Bob on disc 14, track 8.

LaFond shared how the RTR went from town to town  invading small venues. He also described his own experience. "It was incredible... Meeting everybody backstage... we (Larry and I) had access to everyone and everything. The people were so nice to us. People didn't know who we were but they knew we were Bob's friends and were really nice to us."

As for Louis, there were a lot of moving parts to manage. "That's where I met him," Gene says, "I didn't see him all too much, he had a lot on his plate. But I've known him over the years."

The past few years Louis has been assembling his own account of the lifelong friendship he's had with Bob. The soon to be published Dylan & Me will have a lot of Dylan fans sifting for new insights and stories. The RTR will be a portion of it.

Related Links
Rolling Stone story about Louis Kemp's book Dylan & Me. 
Randy Lewis in LA Times: Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue: A user’s guide
Reuters story about the Scorsese film, by Alex Dobuzinskis

This brief blog entry could easily have been titled, "Five Reasons RTR Was Different from Any Other Road Show Ever" but then... if

Inspired By Scorsese's Biopic on Dylan, Skye's Art Inspires Others in Duluth

Photo courtesy Michael Anderson

This week, a Door County artist has decorated the Great Hall in the Depot with a project that birthed in her heart and evolved into a passion. Yesterday afternoon her display "Shakespeare's in the Alley," a collection of 45 song panels hand-stenciled with lyrics from the songs of Bob Dylan, was the focus of attention on the fifth day of Duluth Dylan Fest. Around 5:30 those present gathered to hear Skye give a talk about this dramatic presentation.

Skye, a stone sculpture up till this point in her career, said that Martin Scorsese's documentary No Direction Home proved to be the seed that grew into this powerful display. Initially she did research on Dylan, checking out books from the library, and the more she learned the more she recognized in him "an amazing example of just don't stop." During a morning walk she had a vision so to speak of panels unrolling. She felt that to follow through would be a tribute to him as an artist. She would try to make it happen. The first summer, 2011, she did 15 panels. In 2012 she decided to do more.

The creation has been a very personal journey. In 2016 she knew that to publicly share it she would have to ask permission. She did not ask permission sooner because she felt it necessary to execute that which was inside of her. It proved to be a huge relief when Jeff Rosen, Bob Dylan's business manager, replied and said yes.

Skye noted that this was the first time the installation has been displayed outside of Wisconsin and only the third time in all. Because of the special occasion she added the 45th panel, "Girl from the North Country," which is also the title of the play that opened last year in London with 1930's Duluth as its "place."

Skye shared the process by which the panels were created and the materials used: pencil, rulers, tape, fabric markers. The title comes from a line in Dylan's "Stuck Inisde of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again."

There's a Japanese term that means "living national treasure" and she said it applied to Dylan who is himself "a preserver of culutural treasures and creator of them."

"How lucky you are," she said to the Duluthians gathered for her talk. "He was born here." She then read a passage from 11 Outlined Epitaphs which he wrote when he was 22.

The images here are from The Great Hall.

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Related Links
Interview with the Artist Skye
No Direction Home by Martin Scorsese

REMINDER: There will be a birthday cake and music at Bob Dylan's birth home at 3:00 p.m. in front of the yellow duplex at 519 Third Avenue East. Happy Birthday, Bob.

Meantime art goes on all around you. Engage it.