Just got finished watching “Trouble No More,” the documentary chronicling Dylan’s “Gospel” tour of 1980. Although short at 90 minutes, the live performances are amazing, with heart-wrenching emotion throughout.
Dylan’s band at the time was stellar, featuring some of the finest studio and touring musicians of the time including Jim Keltner on drums, Fred Tackett on guitar, the late Tim Drummond on bass and Spooner Oldham on keyboards, as well as a six-member choir who really brought it home.
The documentary was in limited theatrical release in 2017 and was included as a DVD on the nine-disc deluxe box set of the same name that focused on the ’79-’81 era Dylan, but is now widely available on the new Amazon Prime Video channel Coda Collection, which you can watch for free for seven days.
A downside of the film is that it features actor Michael Shannon in the part of an evangelical preacher giving sermons that appear between songs. And while the sermons are actually pretty good, I would rather see more singing and less talking — the songs speak for themselves — but it’s not all that terrible and the outstanding quality of the rest of the video makes up for it.
Added to the original theatrical release are tour rehearsal footage, news clippings and interviews with fans (not all favorable), and an amazing duet performance of “Abraham, Martin and John” with Clydie King and Dylan alone at the piano at the very end of the film.
I highly encourage everyone to get a free trial of the Coda Collection, if only to see this movie, although there are some other Dylan items on the channel as well including Newport Folk Festival performances.