| Hard Rain | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Live album by | ||||
| Released | September 13, 1976 (1976-09-13) | |||
| Recorded | May 16 and 23, 1976 | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 51:06 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Producer |
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| Bob Dylan chronology | ||||
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| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
| Christgau's Record Guide | B−[2] |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [3] |
| Rolling Stone | [4] |
Hard Rain is a live album by American singer-songwriterBob Dylan, released on September 13, 1976, byColumbia Records. The album was recorded during two concerts in May 1976 during the second leg of theRolling Thunder Revue. The second of these concerts was recorded byNBC and released as a television special to coincide with the album's release.Hard Rain received mixed reviews.
The album was partly recorded on May 23, 1976, during a concert atHughes Stadium inFort Collins, Colorado; the penultimate show of the tour, the concert was also filmed and broadcast byNBC as a one-hour television special in September. (Hard Rain's release coincided with this broadcast). Despite heavy promotion that placed it on the cover ofTV Guide,NBC's television broadcast of the May 23rd concert drew disappointing ratings.
Four tracks from the album ("I Threw It All Away", "Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again", "Oh, Sister", and "Lay, Lady, Lay") were recorded on May 16, 1976, inFort Worth, Texas.[5]
Hard Rain remains the only official release of the 1976 Rolling Thunder tour. A representation of the earlier 1975 portion of the Rolling Thunder Revue was released in 2002 onThe Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue. A more comprehensive 14-disc collection titledBob Dylan – The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings was released in 2019 to coincide with the Netflix documentary-filmRolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese.
Hard Rain received mixed reviews. The album peaked atNo. 17 in the U.S. andNo. 3 in the UK.Hard Rain eventually earned gold certification.
"Although the band has been playing together longer, the charm has gone out of their exchanges," writes music criticTim Riley. "Hard Rain...seemed to come at a time when the Rolling Thunder Revue, so joyful and electrifying in its first performances, had just plain run out of steam," wroteJanet Maslin, then a music critic forRolling Stone. In his mixed review forHard Rain,Robert Christgau criticized the Rolling Thunder Revue as "folkies whose idea of rock and roll is rock and roll clichés."
Three of the recordings onHard Rain ("Lay, Lady, Lay", "Idiot Wind", and "Maggie's Farm") were included on theMasterpieces compilation (1978), and "Shelter from the Storm" was included on theLive 1961–2000 compilation (2000).
All tracks are written byBob Dylan, except where noted.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Recorded | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Maggie's Farm" | May 23, 1976 | 5:23 | |
| 2. | "One Too Many Mornings" | May 23, 1976 | 3:47 | |
| 3. | "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" | May 16, 1976 | 6:01 | |
| 4. | "Oh, Sister" | Dylan,Jacques Levy | May 16, 1976 | 5:08 |
| 5. | "Lay Lady Lay" | May 16, 1976 | 4:47 | |
| Total length: | 25:06 | |||
| No. | Title | Recorded | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Shelter from the Storm" | May 23, 1976 | 5:29 |
| 2. | "You're a Big Girl Now" | May 23, 1976 | 7:01 |
| 3. | "I Threw It All Away" | May 16, 1976 | 3:18 |
| 4. | "Idiot Wind" | May 23, 1976 | 10:21 |
| Total length: | 26:09 | ||
| Chart (1976) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)[8] | 10 |
| German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[9] | 38 |
| New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)[10] | 24 |
| Norwegian Albums (VG-lista)[11] | 15 |
| Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[12] | 41 |
| UK Albums (OCC)[13] | 3 |
| USBillboard 200[14] | 17 |
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Canada (Music Canada)[15] | Gold | 50,000^ |
| United Kingdom (BPI)[16] | Gold | 100,000^ |
| United States (RIAA)[17] | Gold | 500,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. | ||
