3. CALENDAR

January 5	World Gone Wrong is nominated for a Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category.
January	According to the Edna Gundersen interview in USA Today on May 5, Dylan spends three weeks in January writing new songs.
February	Release of Highway 61 Interactive CD-ROM, see 4.1.2.
February	The so called Emmett Grogan acetates finally come into circulation. They were given to Emmett Grogan by Dylan sometime in late 1965 or 1966 and contain acetates from the recording sessions of ANOTHER SIDE and HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED as well as one track from the 1964 Newport Festival. Please refer to 4.3.1.
March 1	World Gone Wrong gets a Grammy as best Traditional Folk Album!
March 10	For the second time since he resumed the regular touring in 1974 Dylan has to cancel a show due to illness, in this case influenza.
March 11	Still week from his illness Dylan performs the first of no less than 116 concerts in 1996. Shortly before the concert he decides to skip his guitar for the evening and perform the entire set with hand held mike and harmonica. This pattern would prevail during most of the Spring and Summer shows, with the first two electric and the first two acoustic songs guitar-less.
	The show starts with Crash On The Levee (Down In The Flood), which is to become a regular opener. First known live version of this song, not counting the guest appearance at The Band’s New Year’s Concert 1971.
March 14	Unbelievable is included in the set for the first time since November 6, 1992 in Gainesville, Florida. Dylan plays harmonica on all songs except the last.
March 20	”A Primitive’s Portfolio”, an interview by Malcolm Jones Jr. conducted in early March, is published by Newsweek.
March 24	Elvis Costello is the support act playing an all acoustic solo set, trying out a number of new songs. This is the first of five opening shows, the other being the Brixton concerts and the concert in Dublin.
March 28	Release of the Doc Pumus album ‘TILL THE NIGHT IS GONE which includes ”Boogie Woogie Country Girl” with Bob Dylan backed by his regular touring band. The track was recorded in New Orleans in May 1994.
March 30	At the second of three shows at The Brixton Academy in London, Dylan finally starts varying the set a bit more, leaving out both Tangled Up In Blue (for the first time since October 8, 1993 in Sacramento, California in a full length concert) and Maggie’s Farm (for the first time since November 9, 1994 in Nashville, Tennessee).
	Elvis Costello joins Dylan for a great version of I Shall Be Released during the encores. Costello plays guitar and shares the vocal.
March 31	Elvis Costello again joins Dylan during I Shall Be Released and they are then accompanied by Chrissie Hynde and Carole King on back-up vocals on Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35.
April 11	The European tour ends in Dublin with a two hour show including guests Elvis Costello, Van Morrison, and Carole King during the encores. After the show Dylan hugs Carole King so hard that she falls off the stage and breaks her arm!
April 11	MTV Unplugged is released in Europe, se 4.1.1.
April 12	Dylan and Costello are filmed in a Dublin street doing I Shall Be Released presumably for some TV program.
May 5	MTV Unplugged is released in USA.
May 5	Release of MTV Unplugged commercial video.
May 5	”Dylan on Dylan, Unplugged and the birth of a song” is published in USA Today. Another Edna Gundersen interview, probably conducted in late April.
May 10	The Spring tour starts in San Diego, California. The set includes Seeing The Real You At Last, last played in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada on August 27, 1992.
May 15	At the show in McCallum Theater in Palm Desert, California, Obviously Five Believers finally makes its live debut. Also included is a slow version of Never Gonna Be The Same Again, which has only been tried once before, in Melbourne, Australia, February 21, 1986.
May 17	Pledging My Time is played again for the first time since September 9, 1990 in Austin, Texas.
May 19	Sheryl Crow, who has been opening for Dylan at the LA shows joins Dylan for yet another duet version of I Shall Be Released.
June 15	Dylan plays the first of five concerts as opening act ”a very special guest”, for the Grateful Dead.
June 21-22	In great contrast to the huge outdoors concerts with The Grateful Dead, Dylan plays two shows in the 800 all- standing Theater of The Living Arts in Philadelphia. The first night is particularly intense and ranks as one of the best concerts during the Never-Ending Tour. An acoustic Visions Of Johanna is one of the highlights. This song has not been in the set since Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 3, 1992. Tangled Up In Blue returns to the set, but now in acoustic version! At this concert it is the acoustic encore. It will be played regularly in acoustic set during the remainder if the year.
	The second show opens with Drifter’s Escape, which turn out to be a fairly common alternative to Down In The Flood as opener. Drifter’s Escape was last played November 12, 1992 in Clearwater, Florida.
June 24	The band plays about 4 minutes of an instrumental run-through of "Brownsville Girl" during the sound check.
June 25	At the last show of the spring tour in Washington DC, Jerry Garcia joins the band playing guitar on the encores.
June 29	As usual Dylan plays the summer festival circuit mixed with a number of regular shows, this time starting in Oslo, Norway.
July 15	Martin Banks from the Birmingham Evening Mail manages to get an ad-hoc interview in the hospitality tent after the Phoenix Festival show.
July 27	Dylan opens for The Rolling Stones in Montpellier, France, playing one of his shortest sets ever, just 9 songs and no encores. Later Dylan joins The Rolling Stone on, you guessed it, Like A Rolling Stone. The whole thing was recorded and filmed by The Rolling Stones for a possible later single & video release, but as could be expected, Dylan’s contribution was less than impressive, so in the end they had to use another live version for their fall release of the Stripped album and the accompanying CD single.
July 30	The Summer tour ends with a show in Nyon, Switzerland.
August 9	Jerry Garcia dies of a heart-attack at a California drug rehabilitation center, Serenity Drug Treatment Center in Marin Co., California.
August 10	The Bob Dylan press statement on Jerry Garcia is issued: ”There’s no way to measure his greatness or magnitude as a person or as a player. I don’t think any eulogizing will do him justice. He was that great, much more than a superb musician, with an uncanny ear and dexterity. He’s the very spirit personified of whatever is Muddy River country at its core and screams up into the spheres. He really had no equal. To me he wasn’t only a musician and friend, he was more like a big brother who taught and showed me more than he’ll ever know. There’s a lot of spaces and advances between The Carter Family, Buddy Holly and, say, Ornette Coleman, a lot of universes, but he filled them all without being a member of any school. His playing was moody, awesome, sophisticated, hypnotic and subtle. There’s no way to convey the loss. It just digs down really deep. ”
August 11	Dylan attends the Jerry Garcia funeral service at the St. Stephan church in Belvedere, California.
September 2	At the concert that opened the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Museum in Cleveland, Dylan and the band plays a five song set. Bruce Springsteen is the main attraction during this whole shebang and duets with most artists as well as playing his own set with the E-Street band. Dylan and Springsteen sings Forever Young as the last song in Dylan’s set, which also includes a powerful Seeing The Real You At Last.
September 23	The Fall Classics Tour (yes, the tours seem to have names again!) starts with a kind of public rehearsal at a small club in Fort Lauderdale, Florida called The Edge. The 14-song set contains no less than 8 covers. Most notable is that the acoustic set includes no Dylan song.
September 27	At the show at Lee Civic Center in Fort Myers, Florida, Dylan signs about a dozen autographs for people who climbs on-stage between the encore numbers. He even signs a guitar that someone had brought into the show.
September 29	The Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale publishes an interview by journalist John Dolen called ”A Midnight Chat with Bob Dylan”. The interview takes place at Dylan’s hotel in Fort Lauderdale after a band rehearsal.
	At the show in Sunrise Music Center, Alison Krauss, who is the opening act, joins Dylan on-stage and plays fiddle on One More Night, which makes its live debut with vocals by Dylan.
September 30	Dickey Betts joins Dylan on-stage at the show in Tampa, Florida, playing guitar in the second electric sets and on the electric encores. He also sings his own Ramblin’ Man as the first encore.
October 16	Sheryl Crow returns to play accordion on 5 songs as well as sing back-up on Alabama Getaway at the show in New Orleans, Louisiana.
October 24	The enhanced CD version (”CD+” in Sonyspeak) of Greatest Hits Volume 3 is finally released. Unfortunately it is impossible to access it on most computers, even though the 2-disc set is accompanied by a third disc only containing drivers for various CD-ROM reading devices. The music is the same as on the regular music CD release and in addition there is a lot of lyrics and two videos, one is Tangled Up In Blue from Renaldo & Clara and one is the promo video for Jokerman. For more details please refer to 4.1.3.
November 4-5	The shows in Austin, Texas see a number of guests: On the first night Charlie Sexton on electric guitar in the second electric set and the last encore, and Ian Moore also playing electric guitar on the electric encores. The second night Ian Moore returns and again plays electric guitar on the electric encores. Doug Sahm plays electric guitar in the second electric set and the last encore and sings on Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.
November 9	Yet another duet takes place in the Symphony Hall in Phoenix, Arizona, when Stevie Nicks joins Dylan on I Shall Be Released (what else?).
November 19	The Frank Sinatra 80th Birthday Tribute is recorded at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. Dylan intends to play That’s Life but instead, at Sinatra’s request, performs a beautiful version of Restless Farewell backed by the touring band and a string quartet. A live version of this song is known only from the 1964 Canadian TV-program Quest. At the post-show party at Sinatra’s home only four musical guests are invited. Eydie Gorme, Steve Lawrence, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.
November 26	Dylan attends the Bruce Springsteen solo acoustic concert at Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles, California.
December 7-17	Contrary to his habit of ending the touring after Thanksgiving, Dylan plays 10 shows in December with Patti Smith as opening act. The tour is billed as ”Paradise Lost Tour”. Although the tour with Patti Smith was set up after a request from Dylan, it takes three shows before they meet, but during the last 7 shows the acoustic set is augmented by a duet with Patti Smith on Dark Eyes.
December 11	Music critic, journalist and biographer Robert Shelton dies after a severe stroke a week earlier in his home in Brighton, England. Robert Shelton wrote the influential New York Times review of Dylan’s performance (opening act for The Greenbriar Boys) at Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village on September 29, 1961. In 1986 he published his biography No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan.
December 14	Former band-leader on The Never-Ending Tour (1988, 1989 and most of 1990) G.E. Smith joins Dylan on stage at The Beacon Theatre in New York City for the last encore, as always on this tour, Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35.

With One Hand Waving Free