50 years ago today (1/5/76), Bob Dylan released one of his most distinctive-sounding albums – Desire. What helps this seventeenth effort stand out is Scarlet Rivera’s violin, giving the album a gypsy-folk swirl. The rhythm section is loose but propulsive, and the effort feels closer to a traveling band than a studio project. Thus, that atmosphere mirrors the Rolling Thunder Revue era—face paint, rotating musicians, and a sense of communal storytelling that Dylan would create amongst some of his strongest songs, including “Hurricane,” “One More Cup of Coffee,” “Mozambique,” “Isis,” and “Joey.” Wacth the master perform “One More Cup of Coffee” during the Rolling Thunder Revue.
