Shelter from the Storm

In the fall of 1975 and spring of 1976, Bob Dylan led a travelling retinue of musicians around America on the two legs of the Rolling Thunder tour. Along for the ride were Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, David Blue, Kinky Friedman, T-Bone Burnett, Allen Ginsberg, Sam Sheppard, Mick Ronson, and dozens more musicians, friends, family and hangers-on. The circus was documented in the film Renaldo and Clara, the live album Hard Rain, and a TV concert special of the same name, while in between the two legs of the tour Dylan released the classic Desire album. It is this period of heightened creativity and personal drama that Dylan-authority, author, and musician Sid Griffin examines in "Shelter from the Storm." Interviewing many of the tour's participants, including musicians Roger McGuinn, T-Bone Burnett, Arlo Guthrie, and Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and tour manager Louie Kemp, Griffin mixes meticulous musical analysis into a gripping narrative in this definitive account of the Rolling Thunder years. Paperback, 256 p.