The Band.

Mistyped, should only be This was from his attorney Michael Pinsky in 2007: because Levon was still alive.

The Midnight Rambles DID save him financially, but those did not begin until January 2004. (Levon was first diagnosed with cancer in 1997 and went through surgery and radiation treatment the following year, all before Danko died in 1999, and it was awhile before Levon could really speak and sing again. Basically, a long stretch of time before he could right the ship.

xp I can't find a link, but watch the Spectacle episode with Springsteen, because he brings THAT up. As reported at the time:

The most amusing segment comes when they talk about the way Springsteen’s songwriting changed between 1975’s "Born to Run" and 1978’s "Darkness on the Edge of Town," becoming ... well, darker.

"One reason it was different is there was some young English songwriter at the time who said the songs on ‘Born To Run’ were too romantic," says Springsteen. "I can’t remember his name right now, but ..."

Costello looks genuinely surprised. "Was it me?" he asks. "It wasn’t me."

"I’ve been waiting 30 years for this moment," says Springsteen, with delight. "What do you think? Of course it was."

IIRC Elvis then says something like "I had very strange ideas about romance back then."

There was a really good Rolling Stone profile on Levon in 2000, including Danko's funeral, and--Drudge sirens gif--Robbie doesn't come off well at all in his own direct quotes.

springsteen is 5 years older than costello that's hardly a generation

EC in poorly thought out off the cuff shit-talking SHOCKAH

Couple of things:
Basically it seemed like everyone in the UK was really into The Band at one point, including Costello, the aforementioned Brinsleys and probably lots of pub rockers as well, if not Barney Bubbles himself, but also people like The Fairport Convention, Eric Clapton and of course The Beatles, George at least.

I’m not sure if one exists, much less a good one, but the roots revival that happened in the wake of Dylan and the Band’s “basement tape” sessions really deserves one or at least a series of album profiles that could make up a book. In the UK alone it influenced Fairport Convention (albeit to do a British equivalent), The Beatles, Clapton, etc., and in the U.S. it would encompass acts that may not have been directly influenced by Dylan or the Band but certainly flourished within that emerging revival, like Gram Parsons or CCR.

*really deserves a book

Other thing was: despite all the obvious bad blood between Lee & the others vs Robbie, it’s a similar situation to Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine or Lou Reed and John Cale, there’s some super-duper Gorilla Glue deep bond in there, both between the personalities themselves as well as with them and the us and them fanboys who often feel compelled to take sides whilst these battles are taking place but still will feel more than a pang of grief when the enemy party finally dies. Maybe some kind of Wild Bunch stuff as well. I’ve got the style it takes.

Now trying to recall anything about what The Byrds, Mike Nesmith or Rick Nelson might have said about The Band but I’m coming up all Edwin Starr with absolutely nothing.

Maybe some people got at them as an offshoot of Dylan.

Traffic worshipped the Band, too. Maybe the Kinks as well, c. "Muswell Hillbillies." And probably the Byrds, when they shifted from folk and psych-folk to kind of a jammy Americana adjacent sound with Clarence White.

Also, everyone liked Bruce as well, fwiw. Elvis was covering him by the '90s, Joe Strummer for sure liked Bruce, and Bruce in turn cited punk generally (if not EC specifically) for the more pared down sound of "Darkness," and "London Calling" as the/a inspiration for "The River."

This thread needs the broken link video at the beginning of this other thread: John Sebastian/Ronnie Spector/McGuinn: Literally The Most Un-Cool Song & Video In Rock History

Because Richard Manuel is in it, for one thing.

I don't know about the Byrds taking cues from the Band, they had a folk background and already had some country elements, the Gene Clark/Gosdin Brothers album is from before Big Pink...I think International Submarine Band formed in 65 or 66

Beau Brummel's Bradley's Barn was 68 too, a few months after Big Pink but probably developed in parallel, I feel like the hippie country thing was kind of in the air already

Right, feel like the hippie country thing didn’t really need The Band for inspiration the way those in the UK did since they already had pretty much direct access to Buck Owens and George Jones etc.

I mean, the Beatles covered Buck Owens, but clearly the Band clicked with them/George and others in a different way a couple of years later.

Traffic worshipped the Band, too.

They did, but if I’m not mistaken, Traffic Got Their Heads Together In The Country during the time Dylan and The Band were recording the Basement Tapes, before the tapes (and the legend) circulated.

Other UK band-worshippers: Jack Bruce (“Theme For An Imaginary Western”); and Steve Marriott, who recorded “The Autumn Stone” with the Small Faces, broke up that band, and later made Town and Country with Humble Pie.

No doubt Ginger Baker was the lone Cream holdout, pronouncing Levon Helm’s playing “rubbish.”

I'm no expert on Traffic, but I think the band started to really shift around 1970. I found an article online that summed it up thus:

As the 70s opened, the sound of folk rock had been blown across the Atlantic in the gusts made by The Band’s first two albums, the Byrds’ Gram Parsons-enhanced Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, and Bob Dylan’s rustic-hued one-two of John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline. Just a few months before Winwood, Capaldi and Wood got their act together again the home‑grown, Sandy Denny-fronted Fairport Convention had picked up the baton on their transformative Liege & Lief album. Traffic duly took in this agelessness-seeking spirit, but as a starting point rather than the ultimate destination.

FWIW, Greil Marcus called the self-titled Traffic album from '68 "almost a British Big Pink" or something like that.

Apropos of nothing, I decided to check out Robertson's WTF ep from '17, which ran right after Trump's travel ban, and hooboy is Maron's opening monologue angry.

Marcus also said of Fairport’s What We Did On Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking, “Had the Band been British, this is what they might have sounded like.”

xp

Re: the Beatles and the Band—McCartney ad libs lyrics from the Weight in the Hey Jude performance video

I feel like John Wesley Harding deserves mention in this mix too

No doubt Ginger Baker was the lone Cream holdout, pronouncing Levon Helm’s playing “rubbish.”

That’s pretty much the perfect characterization of Baker’s approach: he plays like he hates Levon Helm.

Traffic Got Their Heads Together In The Country during the time Dylan and The Band were recording the Basement Tapes, before the tapes (and the legend) circulated.

I saw Dave Mason a few years ago and he talked a bit about that period, fondly but also circumspectly — it was a pretty grotty and primitive existence, sounded like. (Which of course they papered over by all being high all the time.)

I suspect it was much more difficult to get one’s head together in a multi-century-year-old thatched roof cottage without indoor plumbing.

Can’t find a video or it now but weren’t Richard Thompson and Levon Helm on that Elvis Costello interview show at the same time and didn’t Richard talk about the influence of The Band before they all did “The Weight” or something?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EkrNSC3t1Q
Nick Lowe was there too!

Forgot about Allen Toussaint.

RT doing some great fills in some of hybrid Robbie/RT style. And then singing the Rick part!

Here it is: Richard Manuel, Roger McGuinn and some others. backing up none other than John Sebastian.#onethread!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM1FxU9I9YA

I saw this played that night, but just noticed the rehearsal was up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WmlUXsjSv8

Something that I think sometimes gets overlooked about the Band and at least some of its acolytes amidst all the Ol Weird Americana discussion is the huge soul music influence, especially vocally. I think Manuel worshipped Ray Charles, iirc, and a lot of British singers in particular (from Steve Winwood or Gary Brooker to Peter Gabriel to Mark Hollis) aspired to this similarly bucolic soulfuness that often got subsumed by the surrounding artiness. Not a coincidence that "Baby Don't You Do It" is the final Last Waltz encore.

Oh for sure, at heart they were always a soul/r&b band — that then incorporated a lot of other influences, folk and country and psychedelia, but that was their root. It's why Dylan loved them to start with.

OTM. The SNL Richard Manuel vocal on "Georgia On My MInd" is, um, mindblowing. (Think the video can be found but not on YouTube) Also, a lot of less attentive viewers think "Baby Don't You Do It" is the first song at the show and not the last one.
(xp)

Forgot about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHDT10DX2UQ

Does that mean I should click on it? I asked my inner voice and no was all it said.

SNL "Georgia On My Mind": https://vimeo.com/127180623

Thanks! Thought about linking to Amy Helm's FB page but waited a beat.

i'd like the band a lot more if richard manuel sang all the songs tbh

I see what you mean, but no.

Nonetheless when I walked into the place I usually eat lunch "Katie's Been Gone" was playing because they had put on a certain playlist in Robbiie's honor and I had a very brief Ozu-level moment of tearing up.

I love all three voices, wouldn't want to lose any of them.

Otm

Thanks for posting that clip, Grisso. I’d forgotten how incredible that is.

Also, I’m reminded that tubist Howard Johnson was the only member of the Rock of Ages horn section to stick with the Band all the way through to Levon’s late ‘00s solo recordings/performances.

Also if Richard sang lead on everything then he wouldn’t be able to do his special effects backing vocal magic like those ever so high and creaky “ee ee ee”s on “The Weight.”
(xp)

Have you guys ever read that great interview with Howard Johnson that is out there? It might even be linked upthread.

I was at that spectacle taping, and it sucked, in my view. The conceit was "building a band," and indeed Toussaint and Thompson were on top of their shit, but Helm (who was very weak, probly ravaged by chemo) and Lowe (who seemed as if he was completely unaccustomed to playing bass by that point) barely played, Lowe maybe not at all, and were doubled by Farragher and Thomas (Naive was present but Toussaint needed no one to cover for him). It was a cute concept, but disappointing in that the rhythm section as presented was non functional. They did multiple takes of "the weight," which by then and certainly now I consider to be the most basic bitch song anyone can possibly choose to sing in front of a bunch of basic older folks who probly went to the bottom line often and would have been thrilled to see that basic Ray Lamontagne guy, who was there and sang verses of that basic-ass song with gusto. the only thing that I was kinda tickled by was that EC (who is not a good interviewer or host onstage, and you think he would be) had the imposters do "rag Mama rag," in which he debuted additional verses that described in glowing and occasionally legit funny terms his four guests.

the producer of this show is the writer of the '87 magazine article cited above, containing the marty getting mad about partying portrayed in a mag article anecdote. this guy made a career out of buddy buddy schmoozing with guys like EC and JRR, and was employed by VH1/Viacom/other outlets for the express purpose of being able to get guys like them to do shit like that show.