Benefit Concert and New Trial
During the fall tour preceding Desire's release, Dylan and the Rolling Thunder Revue played a benefit concert for Carter in New York City's Madison Square Garden, raising $100,000. The following year, they played another benefit at the Houston Astrodome. Dylan met with managers Richard Flanzer and Roy Silver, who provided Stevie Wonder, Ringo Starr and Dr. John for the concert. After expenses were paid, however, the Houston event failed to raise any money.
Despite winning the right to a new trial, Carter and Artis were once again found guilty. On February 9, 1976, Carter was sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Dylan, and the other high-profile supporters, did not attend the trial. In 1985 Federal Judge H. Lee Sarokin of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, ruled that Carter had not received a fair trial and set aside the conviction, commenting that the prosecution had been "based on racism rather than reason and concealment rather than disclosure." In 1988, after the prosecution said they would not seek a third trial and filed a motion to dismiss, a Superior Court judge dropped all charges against Carter.
The song was published on the album Desire in January 1976, making the Carter case known to a broad public. "Hurricane" is credited with harvesting popular support for Carter's defense.
The song features Scarlet Rivera on violin and Vinnie Bell on Danelectro Bellzouki 12-string guitar.
Read more about this topic: Hurricane (song)
Famous quotes containing the words benefit, concert and/or trial:
“In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people no one man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“... in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one of us dies, they scarcely know where to bury him.... We have no house, no place, no people of our own. We live in the streets, in the parks, in the theatres. We sit in restaurants and concert halls and look about at the hundreds of our own kind and shudder.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“You don’t want a general houseworker, do you? Or a traveling companion, quiet, refined, speaks fluent French entirely in the present tense? Or an assistant billiard-maker? Or a private librarian? Or a lady car-washer? Because if you do, I should appreciate your giving me a trial at the job. Any minute now, I am going to become one of the Great Unemployed. I am about to leave literature flat on its face. I don’t want to review books any more. It cuts in too much on my reading.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)