The Band.

that's not a criticism

i haven't been terribly excited by the walkabouts stuff i've heard, but maybe i should listen again

It could simply be a reflection of a private passion, but at their best the Walkabouts synthesize so much in such a striking way that I'm in quiet awe (and consequently frustrated at how other bands in theoretically similar veins just don't work as well).

damn

no i would attribute it to bob dylan's horrendous voice

Ah, friend!

charlie rich seemed genuinely uncomfortable with genre categories and that hampered his music as much as it helped it i think

the band were without doubt a 'rock' band--whether or not thats endemic of the time in which they were recording, they were comfortable with the label

but yes i agree that mixture of sensibilites is really exciting

better still that the soul influence and country influence is somehow sublimated in such a fashion where it becomes exceptionally difficult to parse the songs for evidence of discrete influence

Yep that's it. Let's face it the 'grizzled old-timer' thing wouldn't have lasted. It's the extraordinary blend of soul, country, funk, rock n roll, wurlitzer/jug-band weirdness, and it all sounds uncalculated.

Classic Or Dud: The Band

Well Aretha Franklin did record a great version of "The Weight".

There's a similarity in the vocals at times (I think Rick Danko is the most Garcia-like one?), but the Band never wanked off quite like the Dead...

"Music From the Big Pink" is just about perfect, the rest a bit hit-and-miss.

"The Weight" is, of course, great - is it representative of the rest of their material. Can I just buy whatever album that's on and be set for a start?

I like the Band a lot, but I admit I like them best on The Basement Tapes. Their first several albums are all classics, though. When I was a kid, I was always put off by their muddy, murky sound. Now that's one of the things I love about them.

Yes miloauckerman, get Big Pink, it's awesome. I always found it much better than their self-titled second album, more diverse, less "reactionary" I suppose. "Life is a Carnival" from Cahoots is a party of a song, no wonder the Avalanches use it. Wouldn't qualify it as "corny" though...

how embarassing, I said the same thing on the other thread.

i feel this doubly

fritz, shame on you

And I can't believe you dissed "The Last Waltz" on the other thread, Matos - everybody knows the guest spots are mostly cack (they should have instituted a ban on performances by anyone named Neil) and Robbie was a douche, but "Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" should be proof enough that Fleetwood Mac AND Outkast together are not fit to lick Levon Helm's boots when it comes to adding brass bands to your sound for fun and profit(!!! Yeeeahh)

this isn't what i was trying to say, exactly; i was asserting (as i guess i had done on the other thread, but i forgot about that) that without having an ideological program necessarily they had a specific approach to arranging and recording and mixing which later became identified with a certain subgenre of rock music that is often called "rootsy"

i dunno about "authenticity" (a power word that doesn't really clear anything up) but robertson et al were certainly going for a certain "rooted" sense of americana, a music with a strong sense of history, and like ccr they were selfconsciously tapping into an existing mythology, adding to it besides (ccr was both more monomaniacal and i think even more successful in this regard)

i guess there was a kind of low-key program at work, perhaps not charged with the reactionary values that much subsequent "rootsy" music has adopted but purposeful and willful nonetheless

there's an interesting dynamic involved, however, that Barney Hoskins' Band book explored, that to the members of the Band, the cultures they were tapping in their music were both alien and natural to them, and the extent to which they were scholarly exploring these genres and musics, and simultaneously the closeness they felt to them (thinking mostly here of levon's arkansas roots). so their music was simultaneously an exercise in attempted authenticity, and imaginative explorations of genres they revered.

lately i've been spinning 'Rockin' Chair' a lot - love the heartsick, pleading sound of manuel's vocals, the absence of drums, the entwined mandolin and guitar, and the way the lyrics shift between 'downhome' nostalgia and a kind of resigned dread: these lines are especially devastating

Hear the sound, Willie Boy,
The Flyin' Dutchman's on the reef.
It's my belief
We've used up all our time,
This hill's to steep to climb,
And the days that remain ain't worth a dime.

god i love the band soo much

Great song

so is this really the only thread? or just a impediment of searching "The Band"?

i've been rather obsessed lately, mostly w/ the first three records. but i'm thinking of digging around for the others on the cheap. challop: Stage Fright is every bit as good as the first two. "The Rumor" and "Sleeping" are heartbreakingly awesome.

and hey, anyone remember this POS?: http://www.artistdirect.com/artist/videos/robbie-robertson/485778-811823-1

certainly some of the most creative and breathtaking uses of time signature changes in rock/popular music imo.

<3<3<3Levon @ 2:58 - "maybe they won't, you know i sure hope they don't"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8Pt_ZkGg8I

this other thread is mentioned above: Classic Or Dud: The Band
certainly some of the most creative and breathtaking uses of time signature changes in rock/popular music imo.
this is otm -- for being known as such a "down-home, authentic, straightahead" their songs are hard as fuck to play. i mean, there's straight up rockabilly, but also new orleans + appalachian + country rhythms going on, sometimes all in the same song.

mavis staples is also still alive

(i know the same caveat applies)

I never listened much or at all to any of the post-breakup studio albums or even most of the pre-breakup albums from beginning to end after the first two, although I started listening to Stage Fright after it's recent deluxe treatment, but now I am feeling a need to give some of the rest a chance. Maybe I will start with Jericho.

At the least, the "Atlantic City" cover is all time, just as the cover of "High on the Hog" is one of the all time worst.

By cover do you mean album cover in the latter case?

in both i'm assuming ... although "High on the Hog" is kind of extremely awesome depending on your perspective

Album cover! I'm not even going to post it, it would give Primus pause.

oh wait, no, i see what you mean. i do think "Jericho" has great album art though

Heh, watching those Band on Letterman videos led the algorithm to recommend me an entertaining video interview with the engineer on Time Out of Mind.

Richard has a vocal on Jericho!

Today is also the first time I ever heard Jimi Hendrix perform “Tears of Rage.”

"Atlantic City" is a great cover - tbf, it's not an entirely new arrangement, they basically embellish what Springsteen and the E Street Band played during the Born in the USA tour (albeit translating it to mostly acoustic instruments). Dylan must love their cover of "Blind Willie McTell" (it's on the same album) because when he finally included it on the occasional setlist in the '90s, it was the same arrangement, not what he had done during the Infidels sessions.

Just looking up when Robbie passed. August of '23. Really slowly feeling it more and more that all of them are gone.

Encomium and valediction from Dylan:

Sorry to hear the news about Garth Hudson. He was a beautiful guy and the real driving force behind The Band. Just listen to the original recording of The Weight and you’ll see.

— Bob Dylan (@bobdylan) January 27, 2025

xxxxposting of Jamie Saft, as James Blech was, while wondering about what else he's done, I gave him a gold star for his Vacation Bible School indie jazz paper crown in passing, while reviewing Bobby Previte's eveready to roll Coalition of the Willing:

...Charlie Hunter abstains from his Blue Note albums’ eight-string guitar, and the effects box that makes him sound like a (so-so) organist. (Why bother, when an actual organist, the judiciously theatrical Jamie Saft, is always lurking nearby, and with his own guitar as well.)

Recently played on Democracy Now:

AMY GOODMAN: “Dark Star” by Garth Hudson. The multi-instrumentalist of The Band died Tuesday at the age of 87.

Still want that shirt Levon is wearing in The Last Waltz.

Jamie Saft just posted some clips and photos from Garth's memorial.

Also, a photo from awhile back posted on a fan's account. Bittersweet to see them so young and happy, just kids happy to make a living playing the music they loved.

Jamie Saft was one of the pallbearers!

50 years later 'it makes no difference' is still incredible

mostly because of danko

last waltz version is perfection, some great soloing by robbie too

Wayyy upthread, we had a good discussion of the lyrics of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"---but come think of it, why "all the bells were ringin'" that night??

hunchback got up there

LOL...brings to mind that SNL sketch where Dolly Parton told the cast her grandmother's stories because they grew up poor with no TV and could only rely on what she made up...but little did she realize, everything her grandma "made up" was just episodes from famous TV shows she managed to see. So now I'm imaging Robbie talking about all the great stories Levon had about the South, and they're all just things he lifted from Victor Hugo books.

B-but no Lez Miz!?

I used to see it as the union soldiers who had captured the town Caine lives in got into the town church and were ringing the bells to proclaim their victory; equally it could be a service held by the defeated towndwellers (they were singing hymns "la la la" to deal with the defeat). It's ambiguous though, the bells are simultaneously victory and defeat. But anyway, church bells, is my guess.

xp That was the original draft of “The Weight” but “take a load off, Fantine“ didn’t quite work.

^^Then, in the next draft, all the characters were from the Andy Griffith Show ("Pulled into Maybury...", "Take a load off, Aunt Bea..." etc.)

Think you nailed it, glumdalclitch. Thanks.

A nonzero number of southern bells (church bells, that is) would have been melted down for ammunition by that stage of the war. But I don't think any of it is supposed to be fact-checked.

For example, Levon Helm wasn't even born yet

Are we sure about that?
Anyway, makes sense that both sides would be singing like that, with some relief, release, re: it's over, if it is, but at what horrible cost--

Are we sure it isn’t “the belles were ringing”? Southern ladies calling the narrator for ice tea tips?

While a detachment of cavalry under Maj. Gen. George Stoneman did raid the Richmond-Danville railroad, they only did so once, in March 1865.

Oho. Yeah, as pointed out by a guy linked upthread, that was a military supply train, so Virgil was no virgin when it came to war complicity; yeah you "served," podner (doesn't explain what happened to his brother beyond getting shot, right?)
Also, he's like Dante's Virgil, our tour guide in Hell. But not like Cain Caine, cos didn't shoot his brother (he says).

He could have poisoned him---no visible wound, and prob no autopsies at that point---propped him up with a gun, so the Yankees would shoot him---

He also doesn’t care if his money’s no good. Sounds like he’s a crypto- holder.

He and his brother found a stash of goods---things got so bad, Virgil didn't wanta share no more.

I hold the minority opinion that Mrs. Caine may have been referring to the steam vessel THE Robert E. Lee, which would have passed western Tennessee on its way from New Orleans to St. Louis in circa 1870. As opposed to seeing the famous general and educator.

Is it "the" or "ol'" ? My hears ain't good enough to tell. Anyway, good call, and it's been pointed out, once again via links upthread, that ol' Robert hisself never did get that way after the war, if at all, so that this is like an Elvis sighting---but either way, Virgil is past caring (word to the Lost Cause etc., is I guess what Robertson meant).

(He musta shoulda known some would still take that money shot chorus as Confed-friendly, but)

Listening to this a day late:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBlLN5HQJhY

Listening to "The Weight" now, trying to hear all the parts. The basic track is actually kind of spare. Seems like probably Richard is playing the low rhythmic piano part and then Garth arrives on the chorus with the higher gospel-like Paul Griffin fireworks. Love how Richard's voice shows up only for the last high harmony of the chorus and then sticks around for the "eee eee eee" wail. Robbie's opening licks reminding me of the way the Everly Brothers would always have those guitar rhythmic guitar intros, originally inspired by Bo Diddley iirc.

Levon's pocket is as deep as the Big Muddy and as wide as a church door, or whatever other Marcusian/Xgauvian mixed metaphor you prefer.

Just noticed what seems to be some very faint other, elecronic keyboard part from Garth in the space after the chorus.

Did Cissy Houston really do a Ronnie Hawkins session early in her career as it says on her Wikipedia page, I wonder

https://www.toppermost.co.uk/hawkins-ronnie/

Come Love (Oliver)
1961. Robbie Robertson on stinging waspish guitar, but the other treat is Dionne Warwick, Dee Warwick and Cissy Houston on backing vocals behind a lascivious Ronnie vocal.

just gonna drop it here if'n ye don't mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AIzldTazYY

Wow!

Better than I was hoping for

Wait until y'all hear Whitney Houston's first appearance, with Bill Laswell's Material:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNd4hmK0vqQ