Rolling Thunder Logbook (Paperback)

by Sam Shepard (Author)
Key Phrases: Rolling Thunder, New York, New England (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"A great read" -- Harp November 2004

"A narrative collage of short stories, notes, poems, hypothetical film scenes, and fan's dreams...visually and intellectually vivid writing." -- Flaunt Magazine March, 2005

"Entertaining as well as a fascinating look at a particular cultural moment." -- Creative Loafing-Charlotte 1/26/05

"Everyone was pretty stoned at the time, so the book is a bit strange." -- Library Journal 9/15/04

"Fascinating because it skips the minutiae and offers its own moodily entertaining narrative...Shepard captures Dylan and his motley circle." -- New York Times Book Review 10/24/04

"Shepard is equally wise to Dylan's fundamental mystery and his rock star bullshit. Shepard's vignettes are part awe, part irony." -- Relix February / March 2005

"[A] fascinating book filled with snippets of dialogue, lists, and random chunks of narrative." -- St. Paul Pioneer Press 1/27/05

Product Description
In the autumn of 1975, ew England is festering with Bicentennial madness," Bob Dylan and his Rolling Thunder Revue-a rag-tag variety show that Dylan envisioned as a traveling gypsy circus-toured twenty-two cities across the Northeast. Swept up in the motley crew, which included Joni Mitchell, Mick Ronson, Allen Ginsberg, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, and Ramblin' Jack Elliot, was playwright Sam Shepard, ostensibly hired to write, on the spot, the script for a Fellini-esque, surreal movie that would come out of the tour. The script never materialized, but throughout the many moods and moments of his travels with Dylan and his troupe, Shepard kept an impressionistic Rolling Thunder Logbook of life on the road. Illuminated by forty candid photographs by official tour photographer Ken Regan, Shepard's mental-snap shots capture the camaraderie, isolation, head games, and pill-popping mayhem of the tour, providing a window into Dylan's singular talent, enigmatic charisma, and vision of America.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (December 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306813718
• ISBN-13: 978-0306813719
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #646,639 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #50 in

  Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( D ) > Dylan, Bob

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars True East, April 2, 2007

By	Gord Wilson "alivingdog.com" (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

I gave this four stars because I don't think Sam would want it to get five. That would make it too perfect, and once you read Jack Kerouac's On the Road, you're always wary of making things too perfect. That also seemed to be the idea of the Rolling Thunder Revue: to let things fall together even though that means they may fall apart (and by Sam's reckoning they eventually did).

Coupled with J. D. Salinger stream of consciousness writing, Sam dragged Kerouac's real time typing into the deconstructed stage with all four walls down. I only know Sam from his portrayl of Chuck Yeager in the Right Stuff from the book by Tom Wolfe-- the book full of Wolfian gimmicks but the film made the old fashioned way, his plays like True West, and the fact that his mom once toasted my fledgeling writing career-- I hope one day to make her proud.

Sam was hired to make a film of the Revue tour, and wound up making a book. While that means it has pages, photos, and a cover, within that loose definition, it falls apart as much as it can. Sam uses the "f" word, but as a word, not for effect (it is a word). There are bits of writing like this: "Fans are more dangerous than a man with a weapon because they're after something invisible."

The thing that galvanized the tour was fighting to get Rubin Carter released (which eventually happened), and Dylan penned the amazing "Hurricane", an absolutely riveting song when you hear it on the Bootleg Vols 1-3 CD set (or various other ways it exists), not only for the lyrics and music, but Dylan's delivery, at once cool and impassioned, the crazy quilt of images, skewed syntax, sprung rhythms, and well, Sam Shepardness of the whole thing.

But was it all a museum set piece? More safely enshrined rock history? Or can it happen now? Will someone rise up today for Eric Volz? Let the thunder roll on.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars VINTAGE DYLAN, January 5, 2001

By	M. R. ZOGLIO (CROFTON, MD) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Rolling Thunder Logbook (Paperback)

This book is an excellent look behind the scenes of Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review which made it's way through New England back in the Fall of '75. Sam Shepard has done a great job of capturing the feel and characters that surrounded this historic tour. Not to be missed by any true Dylan fan.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Keeper, August 24, 2006

By	G. E. Mantel "RCM-Maki" (Mesabi Iron Range) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The perfect companion to Sloman's book, especially given the great photography.

Arm yourself with these two books and a circulating audience tape from late '75 and you will treated to the Essence of Bob Dylan.