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As noted a few days ago, Joni Mitchell joined the Rolling Thunder Revue in New Haven. Today's show in Rochester, though, marks the first time we can actually hear her contribution. For her first couple shows, tapers only bothered to capture Dylan’s sets.

Her friend Ronee Blakley was the person who invited Joni on the tour. Blakley told the story to Variety last year:

She was my best friend from about '70 to '75. We ran together a lot all the time. So when I was on the tour, I invited her to come out and visit. She wasn't sure she wanted to. She didn't even bring a guitar at first. Then she came on stage and sang my song "Dues" with me, and that's what we did for a few shows. Then when she decided to stay, where would she fit in the show? The show was already too long… my set had to be shortened, then, because they added Mitchell for a couple of songs.

Sadly, it doesn't appear the duet Ronee mentions was ever recorded, but there is a photo:

As Blakley notes, Joni immediately got her own set, typically two songs but it would stretch to three or four by the end. Here's how Sam Shepard described the typical audience response:

Here's someone who just appears, just walks out with a plain guitar, a beret, and a history of word collage. Every single time the place goes up in smoke like a brush fire. She stands there in the midst of it, making believe she’s tuning an already well-adjusted guitar until the place calms down. No doubt the element of surprise, of the audience not knowing she’s on the bill, is partly responsible for the explosions, but there’s something more important in it - the fact that people listen to her every word.

The element of surprise he mentions is, I suspect, important. Rolling Thunder has the reputation that any night, anyone could show up onstage unannounced. But, it's struck me following these shows, that reputation is somewhat overblown. Most nights have no unannounced guests. So far, Arlo Guthrie is the only real "name" to appear in that context. And I like Arlo Guthrie, but he's no Joni Mitchell. 

However, from here on out, the promise that "anything could happen" was fulfilled each and every night, and by the same person: Joni Mitchell. She was never officially on the bill - she’d reportedly only planned to stay a day or two, but her fling with Sam Shepard kept her around - so I'm sure her appearance was still a surprise to most of the audience each night. I wonder if that’s where this tour’s somewhat unearned reputation for constant guests comes from: audience after audience telling their friends, “You’ll never believe who sat in - Joni Mitchell!”

The songs she played might also have been a surprise to people. Unlike, say, Joan Baez or Roger McGuinn knocking out a few crowd-pleasers every night, Mitchell stuck almost exclusively to new songs. Of the six different songs she played over the course of the tour, four came from The Hissing of Summer Lawns, out the same month: "Edith and the Kingpin," "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow," "Harrys House / Centerpiece," and "Shadows and Light." The first two she played a lot - including at this Rochester show - the second two only once (among her sets that were recorded, at least).

Of the two non-Hissing songs, one was the only older song she played the entire tour: "Woman of Heart and Mind" from 1972's For the Roses. And the second one was, of course, "Coyote," the song she wrote on the tour about her fling with Shepard (and his simultaneous fling with Chris O'Dell). Naturally, the song wouldn't show up until late in the tour; she had to live the story before she wrote it. The scene playing it in Gordon Lightfoot's house that got so much attention in the Scorsese doc came was filmed on one of the tour’s final days:

Joni popped up a few times on the second Rolling Thunder tour as well, though she never stayed for a long stretch like she did in '75. The most notable overlap came around the second Night of the Hurricane fundraising concert, in Houston in January '76. As Louie Kemp relates in his book Dylan & Me, Mitchell was on tour in the area, and prevailed upon Bob to come to her show in Dallas the night after his Houston show. He drove all the way there with Kemp, Kinky Friedman, and co-tour manager Gary Shafner, but they arrived in Dallas too late. The concert had just ended. Joni was pissed, so they promised to make her show the next night, in Austin. They almost missed that one too, after Gary got arrested for speeding. But they finally hustled in halfway through the show. 

To make up for his flakiness, Dylan got onstage with Joni for the encore. They sang "Girl of the North Country" together as well as Joni's “Both Sides Now.” In a dark day for the taping community, no one was on hand to record it. I can’t imagine what a Dylan-duet version of “Both Sides Now” would sound like. Nothing like that ever happened again.

The closest was her and Van Morrison joining Bob in 1998 for "I Shall Be Released," as discussed in an earlier newsletter. (Bob also kinda strummed along during that "Coyote" video at Lightfoot's house, but he didn't add much.) So, without a “Both Sides Now” with Bob to share, here's Joni singing it to Mama Cass and Mary Travers a few years earlier:

Rolling Thunder XII: Rochester

The Venue

I've found you can tell how cool a venue probably was by what it's named now. If it still has the same name as it did in 1975? That's a good sign. If it's got some new corporate name? Not good. The Rochester Community War Memorial Auditorium - sounds cool right? - is now called the Blue Cross Arena. Bummer.

Fun fact for all you Deadheads though: the 34th volume of the “Dick's Picks” series was recorded almost exactly two years later at this venue. I'm sure Rob Mitchum and Steve Hyden will fill in more detail when they eventually get to that volume in their Dick's Picks podcast. Apparently the War Memorial employees were less than thrilled:

Show/Setlist Changes

If you've been reading all of these newsletters, you know by now how much I like the covers Bob & Joan performed together. So I'm pleased to report another has been added to the repertoire: "Wild Mountain Thyme."

Speaking of Joan, she's mixing up her own set too. Thus far she'd done "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" as her a cappella showstopper, but now she's switched that slot to Aretha’s "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," which she'd recorded (with a band) on 1971 album Carry It On. She's also added another of her own compositions to her set: "Sweet Sir Galahad."

Onstage Comments

Bob dedicates "Mama, You Been On My Mind" to his mother. She wasn't there to hear it - yet. Beatty Zimmerman would join the touring party pretty soon though.

Contemporary Reviews

"The Rolling Thunder Revue had something for everyone. If Dylan was the light that attracted the fans, Joan Baez transfused the show. Dancing, teasing, frolicking, she at one point said she was being asked over and over, 'How can you two look like you're having such a great time up there?' She answered that though she has not enjoyed all concerts, she was indeed having a great time at this one." - Ithaca Journal

"Some of the most incredible music heard in the War Memorial in some time." - Rochester Democract and Chronicle

"I'm sure anyone who saw the Revue will have favorite moments - these are mine: Baez's 'Diamonds & Rust,' a touching lovelost song about Dylan made even more poignant because it followed a beautiful duet set by Dylan and Baez (who in reality are indeed former lovers); Dylan's solo version of 'A Simple Twist of Fate;' Mick Ronson's guitar solos, generally; Jack Elliott's touching reading of 'If I Were a Carpenter,' and two of Dylan's new rockers, 'Isis' and 'Hurricane.'" - The Sun-Telegram

What'd they do before the show?

On their day off, the Revue visited the Tuscarora Indian Reservation. Dylan, Joni, Joan, and Ramblin’ Jack each performed at least one song on guitar, without amplification. Here's Bob doing Peter La Farge's extremely topical "The Ballad of Ira Hayes":

The song was clearly on his mind this year; he also rehearsed it on piano with the band a few weeks prior, though they never played it in an actual concert. This would not be the last time this happened either. Twelve years later, he rehearsed it with the Grateful Dead for their tour together. Once again, it never made an actual concert. But here's that Dead rehearsal, near the end of this compilation:

There's a lot more info about Peter La Farge and his most famous song in the book A Heartbeat and a Guitar: Johnny Cash and the Making of Bitter Tears.

Renaldo & Clara footage

The Tuscarora Reservation footage is used a good bit in Renaldo and Clara - though, confusingly, a lot of it is video footage of the crowd watching the performance synched with the audio of the band playing "People Get Ready" from the pre-tour rehearsals. 

Here's a contemporary account of how this visit came to be, from the trade magazine Record World:

That last bit’s pretty intriguing; can you imagine a Rolling Thunder West with Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks? Unfortunately, tour producer Louie Kemp tells me there wasn’t anything to that rumor.

Clinton Heylin’s Bob Dylan Day By Day notes another scene filmed the day of the show, though not used in the final film, in which Allen Ginsberg played the “Teacher” at the hotel, “required to outshout drunken playwrights and actors.”

What's on the tape?

The early show has everything (including, as mentioned, Joni!). This full tape only surfaced in 2011 and hasn't circulated much - thanks to Les Kokay for sharing it with me. The late show just has Bob's set.

1975-11-17, War Memorial Coliseum, Rochester, NY (Early Show)

1975-11-17, War Memorial Coliseum, Rochester, NY (Late Show)

Find the index to all shows covered so far here. Subscribe to get future newsletters delivered straight to your inbox here:

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