Bob Dylan Announces ‘The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1976 Live Recordings’

Bob Dylan will release The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1976 Live Recordings on 6 November via Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings. The 39-CD box set documents the second leg of the 1976 tour, which ran from Lakeland, Florida on 18 April to Salt Lake City on 25 May and covered 27 dates. Of its 381 tracks, 371 are previously unreleased, drawn from original tape sources.

The collection restores nearly every show from that run, including duets with Joan Baez on “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Railroad Boy.” The band features Desire players Rob Stoner, Scarlet Rivera and Howie Wyeth, joined by Mick Ronson, Steven Soles, David Mansfield and T Bone Burnett. A separate three-LP release presents the complete 22-track Fort Worth show from 16 May, remixed from the original multi-track tapes; “Going, Going, Gone” is available now. That set also includes material previously issued on Dylan’s 1976 live album Hard Rain, such as “I Threw It All Away,” “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” and “Lay, Lady, Lay.”

The archive contains the full 23 May Fort Collins concert that produced the one-off NBC special Hard Rain. In liner notes for the new collection, writer Mikal Gilmore calls that performance of “Idiot Wind” “among the most rageful and brilliant performances Dylan ever committed before camera,” adding that the broadcast was never repeated or issued on videotape or DVD. Burnett remembers the Rolling Thunder Revue as “the first national punk rock tour,” arguing that it opened a door toward acts including The Clash, Elvis Costello, the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. The release arrives ahead of Dylan’s UK tour this November and December, which includes five nights at London’s Royal Festival Hall.