Louisiana Tour Stops and a Hard Rain Reappraisal
What Happened
Yesterday did not bring a new release or archival find, but it was a more grounded Dylan day than the last few. The Rough and Rowdy Ways tour moved through Louisiana, with Baton Rouge followed by Tuesday’s Shreveport stop, putting the live story back in view after a stretch dominated by anniversary talk and general commentary.
NOLA.com used those Louisiana dates to point readers toward two recent books worth keeping an eye on. Robert Polito’s After the Flood argues that Dylan’s last three decades — especially the run from Time Out of Mind through Love and Theft to Rough and Rowdy Ways — belong near the center of the story, not off in a late-career appendix. Jim Windolf’s Where the Music Had to Go revisits the Dylan-Beatles relationship with an emphasis on exchange and influence rather than simple hero worship.
The strongest criticism of the day came from Ewan Gleadow in Cult Following, who revisited Hard Rain as a record of fierce live rearrangement rather than just a chaotic 1976 artifact. That performance-first approach felt more useful than most broad legacy talk. Separately, Saving Country Music reported the death of Wayne Moss at 88, one of the Nashville session players connected to the Blonde on Blonde era.
Key Points
- The Rough and Rowdy Ways tour continued through Baton Rouge and Shreveport, bringing Dylan’s current live run back into focus.
- NOLA.com surfaced two recent books with real interpretive weight: Robert Polito’s After the Flood and Jim Windolf’s Where the Music Had to Go.
- Ewan Gleadow’s Hard Rain piece in Cult Following stood out for treating the 1976 live album as a major act of reinvention, not just a damaged moment.
- Wayne Moss, a Nashville guitarist tied to the Blonde on Blonde sessions, died at 88.
Implications
The clearest way into Dylan right now remains performance. Even on a relatively quiet day, the most worthwhile coverage stayed close to the stage — either the one he is standing on now in small theaters, or the one preserved on Hard Rain, where songs were being torn up and rebuilt in public. That is a better guide to present-day Dylan than another round of abstract “greatest songwriter” ranking.
There is also a steady broadening in how the career is being discussed. Polito’s late-period emphasis, alongside the continued attention to Rough and Rowdy Ways and Time Out of Mind, keeps nudging the conversation beyond the permanent 1965-66 freeze-frame. And with the passing of players like Wayne Moss, the value of careful session history and collaborator testimony only grows.
Things to watch
Watch
Whether fuller reviews from Shreveport add anything concrete about arrangements, pacing, or setlist shifts on this leg of the tour.
Watch
Whether the recent books on late Dylan and the Dylan-Beatles connection generate interviews, excerpts, or debate substantial enough to become more than tour-side mentions.