Scarlet Rivera | |
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 Rivera at the 1976 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Donna Shea [1] |
| Born | 1950 (age 73–74) [1] Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Genres | |
| Instrument | Violin |
| Years active | 1975–present |
| Labels |
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| Website | scarletriveramusic |
Donna Shea, better known as Scarlet Rivera [2] is an American violinist. She is best known for her work with Bob Dylan, in particular on his 1976 album Desire and as part of the Rolling Thunder Revue. [2]
Born Donna Shea in Joliet, Illinois, [3] Rivera was privately trained in classical violin [3] and studied at the Mannes School of Music. [4]
Bob Dylan is said to have discovered Rivera in New York City before the rehearsal for his 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour. While being driven in his limousine around Greenwich Village, Dylan spotted Rivera walking with her violin case. Dylan stopped to converse with Rivera and invited her to his rehearsal studio where she spent the afternoon playing along with several of his new songs. [5] "If I had crossed the street seconds earlier," said Rivera in 2012, "it never would have happened." After a session with her, Dylan invited Rivera to play on the Rolling Thunder Revue tour. She played an important role in Dylan's studio album Desire .
In 1977, Rivera released her self-titled debut LP for Warner Bros. Records. According to Village Voice critic Robert Christgau, the album was regarded by some as "the worst record of the year". [6] Lindsay Planer from AllMusic praised the album, saying that Rivera "has consistently found specific and viable places for the violin in rock". [7]
Rivera has recorded multiple albums as a composer in numerous styles, instrumental, new-age, Celtic [4] and world music. She has performed in the US, Europe and Japan with her Celtic group. Rivera was a soloist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Carnival of Venice.[ citation needed ]
She has also appeared on albums by Tracy Chapman, [2] ( Crossroads ), Keb Mo', [2] ( The Door ), Dee Dee Bridgewater ( Just Family ), David Johansen, [2] ( David Johansen ), and Indigo Girls. [2]
In recent years Rivera has recorded new age, instrumental, world, and Celtic music. She has also toured in Japan with the US-based South American group Ritual with Uruguayans Federico Ramos and Eduardo Marquez del Signore. She recorded the album Celtic Mist which was released in Japan.[ citation needed ] She also played violin on the 2014 album After the Fall, by UK-based Dodson and Fogg.[ citation needed ]
She was a special guest artist in the band in Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration , a birthday concert held in honor of Joni Mitchell on November 7, 2018, in Los Angeles and also in the concert with Brandi Carlile for Mitchell's Blue album in October 2019.
Rivera was featured in Martin Scorsese's 2019 pseudo-documentary film Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story [4] and attended the premiere in New York in June 2019. [8]
Rivera released the EP All of Me in April 2020 on Bright Sun Records, singing her own songs.
In May 2021, to celebrate Bob Dylan's 80th birthday, Rivera, along with Nine Mile Station, released a new version of "Hurricane". Paul Zollo, a writer for American Songwriter said that "Her presence of sound and spirit lifts this 'Hurricane' into a higher realm. The reverence she has for the song and its songwriter shines in the purity and passion of her playing." [9]
She continues to be an active recording artist, performer and composer, and is currently working on an album Celtic Magic to be released later in 2022.[ citation needed ]
Rivera is of Irish-Sicilian ancestry. [1] She was married in 1991 to the British session keyboardist Tommy Eyre. The marriage lasted until his death in 2001. [10]
 | This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification .(November 2019) |
Desire is the seventeenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on January 5, 1976, through Columbia Records. It is one of Dylan's most collaborative efforts, featuring the same caravan of musicians as the acclaimed Rolling Thunder Revue tours the previous year. Many of the songs also featured backing vocals by Emmylou Harris and Ronee Blakley. Most of the album was co-written by Jacques Levy, and is composed of lengthy story-songs, two of which quickly generated controversy: the 11-minute-long "Joey", which is seen as glorifying the violent gangster "Crazy Joey" Gallo, and "Hurricane", the opening track that tells a passionate account of the murder case against boxer Rubin Carter, who the song asserts was framed. Carter was released in 1985, after a judge overturned his conviction on appeal.
Renaldo and Clara is a 1978 American film directed by Bob Dylan and starring Bob Dylan, Sara Dylan and Joan Baez. Written by Dylan and Sam Shepard, the film incorporates three distinct film genres: concert footage, documentary interviews, and dramatic fictional vignettes reflective of Dylan's song lyrics and life.
Hard Rain is a live album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on September 13, 1976, by Columbia Records. The album was recorded during the second leg of the Rolling Thunder Revue.
The Rolling Thunder Revue was a 1975–76 concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan with numerous musicians and collaborators. The purpose of the tour was to allow Dylan, who was a major recording artist and concert performer, to play in smaller auditoriums in less populated cities where he could be more intimate with his audiences.
"Hurricane" is a protest song by Bob Dylan co-written with Jacques Levy and released as a single in November 1975. It was also included on Dylan's 1976 album Desire as its opening track. The song is about the imprisonment of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (1937–2014). It compiles acts of racism and profiling against Carter, which Dylan describes as leading to a false trial and conviction.
Bob Dylan at Budokan is a live album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released August 1978 on Columbia Records in Japan only, followed by a worldwide release in April 1979. It was recorded during his 1978 world tour and is composed mostly of the artist's "greatest hits". The performances in the album are radically altered from the originals, using almost all the musicians that played on Street-Legal, but relying on a much larger band and stronger use of woodwind and backing singers. In some respects the arrangements are more conventional than the original arrangements, for which the album was criticized. For a few critics, such as Janet Maslin of Rolling Stone, the differences between the older and newer arrangements had become less important.
The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue is a live album by Bob Dylan released by Columbia Records in 2002. The third installment in the ongoing Bob Dylan Bootleg Series on Legacy Records, it documents the Rolling Thunder Revue led by Dylan prior to the release of the album Desire. Until the release of this album, the only official live documentation of the Rolling Thunder Revue was Hard Rain, recorded during the less critically well received second leg of the tour.
"Isis" is a ballad written by Bob Dylan in collaboration with Jacques Levy, in July 1975. The song is the second track on Dylan's 1976 album Desire. The song, which features allusions to ancient Egypt, including sharing its title with an Egyptian goddess, has been characterized by Dylan as a song "about marriage".
Sara Dylan is an American former actress and model who was the first wife of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. In 1959, Noznisky married magazine photographer Hans Lownds; during their marriage, she was known as Sara Lownds.
Eric Andersen is an American folk music singer-songwriter, who has written songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Linda Ronstadt, the Grateful Dead, Rick Nelson, and many others. Early in his career, in the 1960s, he was part of the Greenwich Village folk scene. After two decades and sixteen albums of solo performance, he formed Danko/Fjeld/Andersen with Rick Danko and Jonas Fjeld, which released two albums in the early 1990s.
Howard Pyle Wyeth, also known as Howie Wyeth, was an American drummer and pianist. Wyeth is remembered for work with the saxophonist James Moody, the rockabilly singer Robert Gordon, the electric guitarist Link Wray, the rhythm and blues singer Don Covay, and the folk singer Christine Lavin. Best known as a drummer for Bob Dylan, he was a member of the Wyeth family of American artists.
Cardiff Rose is a solo studio album by American singer/songwriter and ex-The Byrds frontman Roger McGuinn, released in 1976. The album, produced by Mick Ronson, was recorded on the heels of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue 1975 tour, in which both McGuinn and Ronson had participated. Other key members of the Rolling Thunder Revue were primary contributors: David Mansfield, Rob Stoner, Howie Wyeth, and lyricist Jacques Levy. Levy had previously co-written "Chestnut Mare" with McGuinn, and collaborated with Dylan on the album Desire.
"Simple Twist of Fate", a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, was recorded on September 19, 1974, and was released in 1975 as the second song on his 15th studio album Blood on the Tracks.
"Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You" is a song written by Bob Dylan from his 1969 album Nashville Skyline. It was the closing song of the album. The song was the third single released from the album, after "I Threw It All Away" and "Lay Lady Lay", reaching #50 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and reaching the top 20 in other countries. It was anthologized on the compilation albums Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II and Playlist: The Very Best of Bob Dylan '60s.
"Rita May" is a song by Bob Dylan, originally recorded during the sessions for the album Desire, but released only as the B-side of a single and on the compilation album, Masterpieces. The song is based on the 1957 rockabilly song "Bertha Lou". Some listeners believe that the lyrics of the song refer to writer Rita Mae Brown, who had complained of the lack of opportunities for casual lesbian sex.
"Romance in Durango" is the seventh song on Bob Dylan's 1976 album Desire. It was written by Dylan and Jacques Levy, who collaborated with Dylan on most of the songs on the album. The chorus contains several lines sung in Spanish, resulting in the song being released as a single in Spain in 1977. It was also released as a b-side to the Japanese single of "One More Cup of Coffee" in 1976. The song was produced by Don DeVito.
"Sara" is a song from Bob Dylan's 1976 album Desire. It is the closing song on the album. Unlike many of the songs on the album, which were written by Dylan and Jacques Levy, "Sara" was written solely by Dylan, as an autobiographical account of his estrangement from then-wife Sara Dylan. It was recorded on July 31, 1975.
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese is a 2019 American documentary film, composed of both fictional and non-fictional material, covering Bob Dylan's 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue concert tour. Directed by Martin Scorsese, it is the director's second film on Bob Dylan, following 2005's No Direction Home. The bulk of Rolling Thunder Revue is compiled of outtakes from Dylan's 1978 film Renaldo and Clara, which was filmed in conjunction with the tour.
Bob Dylan – The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings is a box set of 1975 live recordings by Bob Dylan, released on June 7, 2019. For this tour, Dylan assembled a loose collective of a backing band called Guam and played across North America for several dozen shows. The tie-in Netflix documentary film Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese was released the following week. A similar compilation was released in 2002 entitled Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue, as part of Dylan's ongoing Bootleg Series. That compilation was re-released on vinyl as a companion to the later release.
"One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, which was released as the fourth track on his seventeenth studio album Desire (1976). The song was written by Dylan, and produced by Don DeVito. The album version of "One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)" was recorded on July 30, 1975, and released on Desire in January 1976. Dylan said the song was influenced by his visit to a Romani celebration at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in France on his 34th birthday.
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