December 18, 2002

I don't remember much about 1975 – brain cells burned up with my draft card during the war – except that Nixon was gone, the NLF swept the Yankees in Saigon, and Bruce Springsteen survived life as the "new Dylan" to be crowned "the future of rock and roll." The old Dylan, knowing that his work had been mediocre for years and that no one even wanted to be the "new Dylan" anymore, cooked up the Rolling Thunder Revue. He hired a band and a film crew, recruiting some aging hipsters and a gaggle of fawning scribes, and hit the road.

The tour was booked into small clubs (to recapture the magic, you know?) around the Northeast, until someone ran the numbers and decided a few arena shows would work out well. Editors at Rolling Stone, worried that the '60s were over, issued a celebratory feature so lame and ill-conceived that the bar supporting professional standards was lowered – which took some doing. The year 1975 belonged to Bowie, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Stevies Wonder and Tyler; my friend Alphonso read the Rolling Stone piece out loud during a drive to Los Angeles. When he was done, he heaved it out the window and asked if a Gary Puckett and the Union Gap reunion would be next. We laughed at that, because in 1975 that was a pretty funny thing to say.