Rolling Thunder Logbook - Softcover

Shepard, Sam

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140047506 ISBN 13: 9780140047509

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1978

Synopsis

In the autumn of 1975, when "New 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.

About this title

About the Author

Sam Shepard is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of more than forty-five plays, including Buried Child and True West, as well as the story collections Great Dream of Heaven and Cruising Paradise. He has appeared in more than twenty-five films and received an Oscar nomination for his performance in The Right Stuff. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Shepard lives in Minnesota.

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

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 1978
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140047506
• ISBN 13: 9780140047509
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 184