THE TOLLING THUNDER REVUE & KEINE SCHÖNHEIT –
Present a BOBFEST on Saturday, July 21 at 19:30 hrs in KULTURWERK
NEAT – New English American Theatre has many Actors who are also talented Musicians and Singers, so LIVE MUSIC has always been an important part of the DARK MONDAY series at MERLIN. Two years ago, in 2016, we created a Folk Music Group called THE GREENWICH VILLAGE PLAYERS out of our ranks, for a project entitled GREENWICH VILLAGE 1962 which featured Folk Music Veteran Dr. Erica Applezweig – Guitar & Vocals, Jenny Greenflower – Ukulele & Vocals, Michael “Mesox” Hecht – Guitar & Vocals, Michael Walsh – Recorder, Guitar & Vocals, and Charles C. Urban – Guitar & Vocals. This project was dedicated to the History of New York’s most Bohemian Quarter and the Musicians, Poets, Painters, Authors, Political Radicals who lived there. We presented firsthand accounts of the Jazz Clubs, Beatnik Clubs, Poetry Clubs and Folk Music Venues that were prevalent in the Village during the 1950’s and 1960’s.
In 2017, the second project in our Folk Music Series was called HOOTENANNY 1963 and the personnel of the band was expanded, as was the repertoire. Beyond the core of the group, the band now featured several more Musicians and Singers; Ryan Dangerfield – Guitar & Vocals, Gerhard Oberschmidt – Banjo, Robbie Iacuzzi – Flute & Recorder, Sara Conway, Angela Shirley, Karin Heinrich, John Peacock – Vocals.
The third incarnation of the Folk Music Group was inspired by Bob Dylan’s receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and we decided to present his compositions in a DARK MONDAY project called LOVE IS JUST A FOUR LETTER WORD; A BOBFEST. Recalling the huge rag-tag traveling group of musicians & singers that Bob Dylan took on the road with him in 1976 we decided to expand the group even further, adding, Steffen Kindlein – Guitar & Vocals, Silvia Stopp – Recorder, Deanya Schempp – Washboard, Sandeep Hegde – Sitar, Tiffany Estrada, Elena Gallego, Holly DeWolf, Bryan Mitchell, Derrick Jenkins – Vocals. The band was now called THE TOLLING THUNDER REVUE.
With a formation this size, there is bound to be some fluctuation and while some members have moved on, we have gained several new Musicians and Singers; Martin Schempp – Banjo, Thomas Felger – Guitar & Vocals, Georg Schubert – Violin.
The lineup of THE TOLLING THUNDER REVUE on Saturday, July 21 at KULTURWERK will be Dr. Erica Applezweig, Tiffany Estrada, Elena Gallego, Karin Heinrich, Angela Shirley, Deanya Schempp, Steffen Kindlein, Georg Oberschmidt, Thomas Felger, Martin Schempp, Georg Schubert, Charles C. Urban.
Together with the band KEINE SCHÖNHEIT, we’ll be presenting Songs that Bob Dylan wrote, recorded and became hits, Songs that he wrote but remained obscure, Songs that he wrote yet never recorded, Songs that he recorded but didn’t write, Songs that he wrote which became hits for others, Songs that were written by others and influenced him and Songs written by others that were influenced by Bob Dylan. In the past, we have presented Songs that he has claimed to have written but that’s another story and another show!
No other Songwriter of the 20th Century has been quite so influential as Bob Dylan. Over the course of his more than 55 years on stage and in the studio, he has not only changed his own personal muscial style several times but also the course of popular music in general. He is consistent in his merucrial inconsistancy and refuses to be pinpointed and labeled.
Ira Welles writes: „Bob Dylan’s two most recent albums have consisted entirely of Sinatra-era cover songs. The man who was just awarded the Nobel Prize in literature – the man with the “sand and glue” voice – has recently taken to giving us only the voice, none of the literature. If that sounds perverse, well: Let me introduce you to Bob Dylan. A brilliant, and brilliantly perverse, choice for the Nobel Prize.
What can be told about a man whose goal it has always been, to remain an enigma, a phantom? Even in his „autobiographical“ book CHRONICLES, Bob Dylan purposefully obscures his tracks and distorts his own history.
Performance: Saturday, July 21 at 19:30 hrs
On the Outdoor Stage of KULTURWERK during the LANGE OST NACHT Street Festival
New English American Theater Stuttgart 