In fall 1975 and spring 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".

Author Biography

Sid Griffin is ringleader of the acoustic folk/bluegrass band The Coal Porters. He is also the 'resident musicologist' on BBC 6 Music's Radcliffe & Maconie show, a freelance writer, and a solo performer whose latest album is The Trick Is To Breathe. He led alt.country pioneers The Long Ryders in the 1980s. His first book was Gram Parsons: A Music Biography (1985), and he co-wrote the 2004 BBC TV documentary Gram Parsons, Fallen Angel. He is the co-author of Bluegrass Guitar: Know The Players, Play The Music (2005) and the author of Shelter From The Storm: Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Years (2009). Griffin has written BBC Radio 2 specials and annotated over 50 reissues for labels such as Sony, Rhino, PolyGram, Universal, Mercury, EMI, A&M, and Warner Bros. A native of Kentucky, he is a graduate of the University Of South Carolina. He lives in London, England, with his daughter Esther Mae, his son Noah, his fantastic wife Rhiannon, and his pet turtle Herman Franks.