Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bob Dylan will be cruising through the east coast and the Midwest come fall to back-up his forthcoming release, “Dylan”, which will surface in the market around the same time as the tour.

Dylan will be bringing along fellow hall of famer Elvis Costello and folk-soul prodigy Amos Lee as support acts for the entire tour except for the first two stops in Austin (September 16) and Nashville (September 19).  The tour will run barely for a month and will close with a three-night engagement in New York; Albany on October 6, Syracuse on October 8 and lastly, Rochester on October 9.

“Dylan”, which is the artist’s 45th record to date, features 51 tracks made popular by Dylan throughout his career.  The three-disc set, which also includes other deluxe paraphernalia like a postcard and booklet set enclosed in a specially clothed case, is slated for an October 1 release.  A more concise version of “Dylan”, an 18-track eponymous single-disc set, will also be released on the same date.

Meanwhile, Dylan’s most recent studio effort, “Modern Times”, which was released in 2006 and featured all new material, is still out in the market and there are no reports yet for a follow-up studio set in the works.

As for seasoned folk-rocker Elvis Costello, he’ll be joining Dylan’s tour to further promote his collaborative record with New Orleans’ homegrown talent Allen Toussaint entitled, “The River in Reverse”.  The Grammy nominated seven-track set was inspired by the humanitarian and rebuilding efforts being undertaken after Hurricane Katrina struck the city.  Costello and Toussaint also released a DVD, “Hot as a Pistol, Keen as a Blade”, featuring footages from “The River in Reverse” tour last year.

Bob Dylan, who is currently busy tackling a summer baseball stadium tour, shows no signs of slowing down come the lazy fall season as he lays out another set of dates running throughout fall to continue support for his much awaited studio set, “Modern Times”.

The two-month fall trek will begin with a show up north in Vancouver on October 11 and will run through the west coast for almost the entire month.  Dylan will be hitting the Midwest and will also return to the Great White North towards the end of October and early November.  After which, he will be swinging by the east coast to finally close the tour on November 18 with a show in Philadelphia’s Wachovia Spectrum.

Three bands have signed on to take turns as opening acts; Kings of Leon from the tour launch till the October 28 show in Hoffman Estates, IL, Dave Grohl and the rest of the Foo Fighters will open the October 29 to November 8 segment of the tour with an acoustic performance, and finally, The Raconteurs open from the November 9 show in Portland, ME till the tour finale on the 18th.

“Modern Times” will surface on the market in five days and has Dylan’s fans really worked up as this is the music legend’s first studio set in five years, since he released “Love and Theft”.  The self produced new release features purely raw and new material recorded over late of last year with the artist’s usual crew.

Meanwhile, Dylan, along with guitarist Jimmie Vaughn and singer Elana James, will continue their minor-league ballpark stopovers with a show tonight, August 24, at the McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, RI.   The trio will be stopping over in ten more stadiums eastward before they hit final base in Fargo, ND on September 9.  Vaughn and James perform as opening acts for the ballpark tour.

Bob Dylan is gearing up for a month-long tour this spring dubbed as “The Bob Dylan Show” and will be tagging fellow folk-country rocker Merle Haggard for the entire trip, except for a show in Las Vegas slated for March 19.

The tour entails a series of shows in the west coast throughout March which will kick off with a three-nighter on March 7 to 9 in Seattle.  The tour will also have Dylan perform for several nights in Los Angeles in late May, and in the tour’s sole Midwest stop, Chicago, come April which will also be the tour’s final stop.

Tickets for all shows will be available starting early next month, but members of Dylan’s fan club can score themselves early bird tickets by visiting the artist’s official website.

Dylan is currently taking a short break from performing after he spent the latter part of 2004 with the release of his memoir, “Chronicles: Volume 1”, and as the title implies, the book is the first of a series of memoirs to be written by the singer.  “Chronicles” is up for Outstanding Biography/Autobiography honors from the National Book Critics Circle Awards which will take place in March.

Well known publishing house Simon and Schuster, which also released Dylan’s first memoir, has also released a compilation of lyrics from almost all of the artist’s released and unreleased tracks spanning the his four-decade career.  The compilation, “Lyrics: 1962-2001” surfaced on the stands just about the same time as “Chronicles” did.

Dylan is also up for a Grammy award this year when “Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall – The Bootleg Series Volume 6”, which was released by record labels Columbia and Legacy in 2004, earned a Grammy nod for Best Album Notes honors.  The live album features the artist’s solo performance at the Philharmonic Hall in NYC on October 31, 1964 and all 19 tracks that Dylan performed acoustically in that event can be heard through the two-disc set.

Aside from Merle Haggard who is backing up his December 2004 studio release, “Unforgettable” through the Dylan tour, folk-soul artist Amos Lee will be joining the folk heavyweights throughout the tour as support act.  He is expected to perform tracks from his debut record which is slated for a March 1 release.  Lee will also be appearing as a guest performer on the March 3 episode of “The Late Show with David Letterman”.

Music legends Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Dave Matthews Band, The Dead and Tim Reynolds are among the acts who will be fronting this year’s Bonnaroo Northeast (NE) Festival happening this summer, from August 8 to 10 at the Enterprise Park in Riverhead, New York.

The music and camping event is the Northeast version of the famous and always sold-out Bonnaroo Festival which usually takes place at a large uncovered area in Manchester, Tennessee.  Among the other performers scheduled to rock on stage at the Bonnaroo NE Fest are rap-alternative group X-ecutioners, Kings of Leon, North Mississippi Allstars, String Cheese Incident, Los Amigos Invisibles, Yonder String Band, Rusted Root, J Gov’t Mule, Moe, Disco Biscuits, Grandaddy, Les Claypool’s Frog Brigade, Talib Kweli, Medeski Martin and Wood, Cut Chemist, Soulive and Yo La Tengo.

Tickets for the three-day event will be available to the public beginning on May 7, Wednesday at 9 AM ET.  Ticket prices and other details are posted via the event’s official website.

Meanwhile, the mother and the original of the Bonnaroo Festivals will take also place summer of this year in Manchester, TN from June 13 to 15, and will also feature The Dead among its front liners accompanied by the Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth, Crazy Horse, Ben Harper, Widespread Panic, The Roots and music icon Neil Young.  However, tickets for this event are completely sold-out.