FREEWHEELIN', UK

   FREEWHEELIN' was created during the Summer 1985 by three Dylan fans from the East of England, Terry Kendrick, Chris Cooper and John Stokes. It was monthly distributed to the eight (and later twelve) members of a group who called themselves the 'Freewheelers'. The members, carefully chosen among editors of Dylan publications, well known writers in the Dylan 'fraternity', widely known collectors of Dylan's recorded work and archivists of press material, had the obligation to submit a monthly written contribution relating to any particular aspect of Dylan's work.
    If they failed to this obligation for three consecutive months, they would loose their place in the group and someone else would be contacted to take their place. The members of the group also had to agree to share the Dylan recordings in their possession with any other member when requested.
    During the existence of FREEWHEELIN', thirty people became regular Freewheelers, only two of them -Chris Cooper and John Stokes- remaining with the project throughout.
    Over the years many of the articles that first appeared in FREEWHEELIN' were published in the main public Dylan fanzines and credited to FREEWHEELIN', so that the Freewheelin' project became famous among Dylanologists.
    After 128 issues of private circulation, FREEWHEELIN' became public in September 1996, with the publication of Volume 1, gathering issues #129, 130 and 131. Four volumes were published each year, each one with three new issues of the "original" FREEWHEELIN'. The last printed issue was Volume 22, (#192-194), dated January 2002.

    But, with the technical help of John Nye, the life of FREEWHEELIN' continued in the cyber space with a project named freewheelin'-on-line: on 24th May 2002 was launched the first Bob Dylan magazine on the Internet, with issue #199 of the FREEWHEELIN' Journal being placed into an Internet bookshop for viewing and downloading on subscription. There were 38 volumes published as freewheelin'-on-line, till January 2006 when the publication ceased. John Nye is the webmaster of the website, where all issues are archived and can be read.

   Many thanks to John Stokes for the information and scans of the early issues.

    Below are samples of the initial FREEWHEELIN', privately circulating only; the 7-page first issue had a photocopied black and white cover and the contributions were typed on manual typewriters. The page number varied with the issues, depending on the material sent by the contributers: issue #7, for example, had 86 pages.

#1, September 1985	#2, October 1985	#10, June 1986
#30, February 1988	#50, October 1990	#75, November 1991
#84, August 1992	#100, December 1993	#112, December 1994, photos of the then Freewheelers

    Starting September 1996, FREEWHEELIN' was launched as a quarterly fanzine, public on subscription, each volume gathering three months of contributions. After a few issues the covers became full colour printings, then thicker and glossy.

Volume 1, #129-131 September 1996	Volume 2, #132-134 January 1997	Volume 3, #135-13 April 1997
Volume 4, #138-140 July 1997	Volume 5, #141-143 October 1997	Volume 6; #144-146 January 1998
Volume 7, #148-150 April 1998	Volume 8, #151-153 July 1998	Volume 9, #154-155 October 1998
Volume 10, #156-158 January 1999	Volume 11, #159-161 April 1999	Volume 12, #162-164 July 1999
Volume 13, #165-167 October 1999	Volume 14, #168-170 January 2000	Volume 15, #171-173 April 2000
Volume 16, #174-176 July 2000	Volume 17, #177-179 October 2000	Volume 18, #180-182 January 2001
Volume 19, #183-185 April 2001	Volume 20, #186-188 July 2001	Volume 21, #189-191, October 2001
Volume 22, #192-194, January 2002	The printed publication was stopped but the venture continued on the Internet with 38 issues published, as freewheelin'-on-line, all of them having magnificent front covers.