ROLLING THUNDER LOGBOOK

by Sam Shepard ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1977

Press notices for Bob Dylan & Friends' Rolling Thunder Revue went from rapturous to outright cynical in the space of a few months. Playwright Shepard traveled with the entourage of the pilgrim harlequins, warlocks, gypsies, and Sioux warriors in the first weeks of joyous camaraderie--he was part of a film crew that never quite managed to render the road show on celluloid. Ain't it always the way. No matter, the ""fractured"" notes, set down as Rolling Thunder careened through Bicentennial New England, capture the frenzied energy of things well enough. The elusive centrepiece is always Dylan (""it's not worshipful exactly, it's revelation""), who is an Alchemist and a one-man vanishing act perpetually in motion, able to stun even a lardy group of Mah-Jongg-playing matrons in off-season Falmouth, Mass. Allen Ginsberg, Joan Baez, and a flock of musicians join in, and Shepard is all prepared to plunge headlong into mythic realms, but the cheesy motels and donut stops intrude a more mundane note. Even so, there are special scenes--Dylan and Ginsberg at Jack Kerouac's grave, a late-night visitation to a Shaker house embalmed out of time. Ninety-plus photographs of the vagabond musicians working hard at being irrepressible are included for stragglers who missed the party the first time around.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1977

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1977

Categories: NONFICTION