Bob Dylan Performs ‘Hurricane’ For First Time In this Rare TV Footage
This is a wonderful rare piece of footage of Bob Dylan doing a live debut performance of ‘Hurricane’ – two months before it was actually released – on a TV show back in 1975. Many of you probably know what the song is all about – the wrongful imprisonment of boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter – but check out this first ever public hearing of it.
Jacques Levy, the songs co – writer had this to say about the song:
Bob wasn’t sure that he could write a song [about Carter]…. He was just filled with all these feelings about Hurricane. He couldn’t make the first step. I think the first step was putting the song in a total storytelling mode. I don’t remember whose idea it was to do that. But really, the beginning of the song is like stage directions, like what you would read in a script: ‘Pistol shots ring out in a barroom night…. Here comes the story of the Hurricane.’ Boom! Titles. You know, Bob loves movies, and he can write these movies that take place in eight to ten minutes, yet seem as full or fuller than regular movies.
Dylan performs on stage with Rob Stoner on bass, Howie Wyeth on drums and Scarlet Rivera on violin and goes on to play two other classic songs, ‘Oh, Sister’ and the truly great ‘Simple Twist of Fate’ which is from my favourite Dylan album ‘Blood On The Tracks’. Infact it’s probably my favourite album ever. As a musician recently said to me when we were talking all things Dylan, ‘You’d be happy to have written just one of those songs [from Blood On The Tracks] in a lifetime’. Remind yourself of its magnificence.
Via Dangerous Minds
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