I'm Looking for Rolling Thunder Stories

An open call for a potential book

Flagging Down the Double E’s is an email newsletter exploring Bob Dylan shows of yesteryear. If you found this article online or someone forwarded you the email, subscribe here to get a new entry delivered to your inbox every week:

Hi everyone,

This newsletter won’t return until next month, but I'm using the down time to start exploring a project many of you suggested to me: Turning last fall's Rolling Thunder Revue series into a book! And for that, I need your help.

I envision this book as being primarily interview-driven. As most of you will already know, I interviewed a bunch of participants for the newsletter. To expand that into a book, I hope to talk to more people - band members, special guests, tour personnel, and beyond. And that is where you come in.

Do you have a Rolling Thunder story? Or do you know anyone who might?

In addition to the main participants, I want to include other stories and perspectives from the '75 and '76 tours. That includes anyone who attended a show, of course. That also includes anyone who interacted with the tour in some other way, even if just for a night or two - people who worked at the venues, people who handed out flyers, people the band encountered while filming a Renaldo & Clara scene, etc. Even people otherwise connected to that era: Involved in the Village hangouts of summer '75, in recording Desire, or even the Scorsese movie. 

If anyone has any sort of Rolling Thunder Revue-related story, no matter how small, please email it to me! I might use your story in the book. The address is dylanlive@substack.com

Now, if you don’t have a story yourself, but would still like to help make this book happen, there's another way you can chip in: By sharing this call far and wide. I’m talking Facebook groups, fan sites, your social media, forwarding this newsletter to the person you met at a party once who you think maybe mentioned they somehow encountered the Rolling Thunder tour, etc. I would be grateful for any and all help reaching people who may not have heard about last fall’s series - who might not even be big Dylan fans particularly (imagine that!) - but would have a story to tell.

One of the most fun parts of doing the series in the fall was hearing out of the blue from people who were there - a security guard at a venue, a bartender at The Other End, the late Jacques Levy's wife, and many fans who attended shows. I'd love more such perspectives to include in the book.

Thanks! Flagging Down the Double E's will return next month. I'm planning some new and exciting things for year two. See you then.

Ray Padgett
dylanlive@substack.com

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