Hard Rain & Slow Trains: Bob Dylan & Fellow Travelers

As 1975 began for Bob Dylan, BLOOD ON THE TRACKS was released. He spent the year converting private upheaval, old friendships, and a burst of new writing into the most carnivalesque project of his career. He appeared with Neil Young and members of The Band at San Francisco’s SNACK benefit in March; traveled briefly to the French Alps; visited the imprisoned boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter in prison; and became unusually visible again in Greenwich Village. There he renewed acquaintances with Bob Neuwirth, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Allen Ginsberg, Roger McGuinn, and others, while meeting or drawing in new collaborators including Ronee Blakley, Jacques Levy, Scarlet Rivera, Sam Shepard, Patti Smith, and Rob Stoner. During ten concentrated days beginning July 5, Dylan and Levy wrote the songs that became DESIRE, which he mostly recorded in a two-day sprint in late July. On Chicago television, he debuted “Hurricane” and “Oh, Sister.” Then he assembled the cast that would become the Rolling Thunder Revue: not merely a tour but a traveling musical, cinematic, and aesthetic world. Beginning a half-mile from the Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts on October 30, Dylan, Baez, Blakley, Elliott, McGuinn, Neuwirth, Stoner, T-Bone Burnett, Mick Ronson, and others would “take the rock” through New England, Canada, and New York, while Dylan simultaneously filmed Renaldo & Clara. Visit these events and more from Dylan’s life in 1975, along with “20 Pounds of Headlines” surveying the wider world of 1975 and the latest news from Dylan’s world in 2026. In “Who Did It Better?” we ask listeners to vote at @RainTrains: Eric Clapton’s 1975 reggae-inflected “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” or Dylan and the Rolling Thunder Revue’s December 4 Montreal version? Join us for the golden anniversary of the year when the Thunder Rolled.

Take a “Highway of Diamonds” back 62 years to the pivotal developments of Bob Dylan's professional life in November of 1963. At this time, having completed his third album the previous month, his creative energy becomes more directed toward poetry, prose, and playwriting than songwriting. Also, this month he performed six concerts. In "20 Pounds of Headlines," we bring you news from the world of Bob Dylan, both in November of 1963 and today, including a reconstruction of Dylan’s days before and after the Kennedy assassination and his response to it. In "Who Did It Better?" we ask you to vote and tell us who did "Fixin’ to Die" better: Bukka White in November of 1963 or Bob Dylan in November of 1961. Listen to the episode, then go to our Twitter page @RainTrains to vote!

50 years ago, Bob Dylan and The Band returned to the road after precisely 7 years, 7 months, and 7 days since their previous tour concluded. Having jumped from Columbia Records to David Geffen’s Asylum Records, Dylan released two albums under the new label in 1974. He spent the year intermittently living in Los Angeles (where he owned a new home north of the city in Malibu), San Francisco (where he and new intimate Ellen Bernstein spent time together), and New York (where Dylan studied painting with Norman Raeben and was romantically involved with a fellow student). He wrote the bulk of the songs for a new album between March and July, at which point he liberally shared the new songs with friends and acquaintances like Bernstein, Stephen Stills, Tim Drummond, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, Neil Young, Shel Silverstein, Mike Bloomfield, Peter Rowan, and John Hammond, Jr. When he went into the former Columbia Studio A where he had recorded his first five albums in order to record the new album in September, he was fully prepared to capture these compositions for posterity. However, BLOOD ON THE TRACKS would not be finished until Dylan rerecorded five of the songs at the end of the year in Minneapolis. When it was finally released the following January, it was on Columbia Records. Visit these events and more from the life of Bob Dylan in 1974, as well as a summary of important events from 1974 in "20 Pounds of Headlines," and – as usual – important news from the world of Bob Dylan in 2024. This episode is an ideal listening experience to prepare for the new Live 1974 box set due out September 20th. In "Who Did It Better?" we ask you to go to our Twitter page @RainTrains to vote for which version of "If You See Her, Say Hello" is better: The September 19, 1974 version recorded in New York City that was originally slated for BLOOD ON THE TRACKS or the December 30, 1974 version recorded in Minneapolis that replaced it. It's the golden (50th) anniversary of Dylan’s return to touring, so we are pausing half-way through our own calendar year of 2024 to look back.

We celebrate the 200th episode of Hard Rain & Slow Trains by first catching up with news about Bob Dylan and his fellow travelers since the previous episode in February. Then, things take an odd turn: the radio show is taken over by Ms. Maria and Miss Lucy who run things the way they want. Ms. Maria offers a detailed breakdown and analysis of the new teaser trailer for A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, which is to hit theaters on Christmas. In "Who Did It Better?" you are first tasked by Ms. Maria to do better, than you are asked by Miss Lucy to vote who did "Gorgeous" better, Taylor Swift or the anonymous "Bob Dylan Taylor Swift" Youtube musician. Listen to the episode, then go to our Twitter page @RainTrains to vote!

In October of 1963, Bob Dylan performed one of his great shows on the stage of one of the great venues, he finished recording his third album, he performed in concert halls in Pennsylvania and Michigan, he dueted with Joan Baez in Los Angeles, he wrote a poem to Baez, he gave two interviews, and he was publicly humiliated by a weekly national magazine in an article that would mark a pivot in how he interacted with both his audience and the press. Take a “Highway of Diamonds” back 60 years to the pivotal developments of Bob Dylan's professional life in October of 1963. In "20 Pounds of Headlines," we bring you news from the world of Bob Dylan, both in October of 1963 and in February of 2024. In "Who Did It Better?" we ask you to vote and tell us who did "Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right" better: Bob Dylan on the stage of Carnegie Hall on October 26, 1963 or Joan Baez and Maggie Rogers on that same Carnegie Hall stage 724 months later on February 26, 2024. Listen to the episode, then go to our Twitter page @RainTrains to vote!