Shelter From The Storm: Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Years

by Sid Griffin

Shelter From The Storm tells the story of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue, the gypsy caravan troupe that lit up US stages between the fall of 1975 and the bicentennial spring that followed. In the company of Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, Joni Mitchell, Allen Ginsberg, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and more, Dylan reinvented the ingenuous troubadour tradition for the cynical 70s - and delivered some of the most thrilling live performances of his career along the way. Throughout this period, however, Dylan's personal life was in meltdown. His tortuous love life would be laid bare in improvised acting scenes filmed for Renaldo & Clara. The movie marked his full debut as a director and was shot as Rolling Thunder navigated between New England towns. The bafflingly edited final cut is perhaps Dylan's most enigmatic and misunderstood work. Musician and author Sid Griffin examines the genesis of Rolling Thunder, the writing and recording of the 1976 album Desire, for which several key ensemble players were first marshaled, and the influences and implications around Renaldo & Clara. In a plethora of new interviews, unique behind-the-scenes accounts, and deconstructions of tour documents such as the NBC television special Hard Rain, Griffin provides new insight into Dylan's most legendary tour and offers unprecedented analysis of the musical torrents that came pouring forth as the Thunder rolled. By the tour's conclusion, both Dylan and the wider music industry were on the verge of significant transformation.

Genres: Music, Biography

256 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2010

Reviews

[M. Sarki]

Interesting. Worth reading if one is a Dylan fan or serious student of art. Or perhaps even a child of the seventies who wants to return, briefly, back to revisit that important time.

[Kimberly]

Sid Griffin has written a compelling and fascinating narrative about a compelling, fascinating and very brief but significant period in this artist's life and work - Bob Dylan's 1975-76 Rolling Thunder Revue Tour and resulting movie, Renaldo and Clara. I especially liked Griffin's discussion of Renaldo and Clara (that movie needs to be released on dvd!) and his inclusion of the Hard Rain album and TV special (including a very humorous account, complete with strange Ingrish translations, of the Japanese Hard Rain TV special). A must for the avid Dylan fan and anyone who's ever wondered, "What WAS the deal with that white face-paint?"

[patty]

Extensively researched on many levels. The highlight of this book for me was the scene-by-scene description of the film "Renaldo and Clara." The film is available on YouTube but it's grainy and hard to tell at times who is in the shot.

It's the perfect book for Dylanologists (which I am not).

Though I like the sturdiness of Jawbone Press books, I found this book hard to hold in my hand for any length of time. The page corners are sharp as a tack. But since this book in new condition cost me a quarter of a dollar, I really shouldn't complain.

[Sko Buffs]

LOVE IT! All about Rolling Thunder including reviews on a song by song basis of numerous concerts and the ones you can catch on Youtube. GREAT!

[Bob Peru]

for hardcore bobster fans only. but for us? a treasure.
ya either get what bob does right off.
or ya don't.
this is for those who do.

[Wes F]

Good read about the tour, film, and other goings-on in Dylan's life around the Rolling Thunder Review Tour years (gave it 3-1/2 stars)

[Allan Heron]

Focusing on the events of 1975 and the first quarter of 1976, Griffin's book covers an important period in Dylan's life - certainly a personal turning point, and very probably an artistic one too.

This is not a book for the casual Dylan observer, and even the devoted may find the lengthy (but unavoidable given it's importance to the period) dissection of the influences at play behind the making of Renaldo & Clara hard going. And then there's the scene by scene analysis of the film itself.

Nevertheless, it may well be the only book that covers this period in such depth and, as such, forms an important part of the Dylan bibliography.