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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB9vvxYocW0

I had managed to avoid hearing that until now, but yes, it's spectacularly horrible. Baez's fifty-year record may have been broken. That said, at least JBJ gets the chords right in his cover version.

Just came across this via Variety - rare live footage from 1970 (filmed for a Dutch TV broadcast).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFgyD3Uk1JQ

Just a regular gig compared to The Last Waltz, they didn't film any of Richard Manuel's numbers but he looks like he's in much better health. (We do hear him thank the audience on the band's behalf.) It looks like Robbie does harmonize a lot with the group even though he's clearly not pushing himself in the spotlight. There's no sense of any individual standing out, it's clearly a far more democratic picture of the Band, just as they were meant to be.

wow great footage

as far as I can tell Robbie's mic is always pretty much turned off or mixed so far low I can't tell if he's singing or just wanted the image that he was singing

nothing in his solo material would indicate he could sing harmony

He may be mixed a little low, but you can definitely single him out during the whoops at the end of "Cripple Creek," when his voice doesn't overlap with others (plus he may or may not interject an audible and quick "thank you" immediately after a performance, like he does here at one point, and it wouldn't make sense to turn on-and-off his mic like that).

Listen to "Bessie Smith" (on the doctored Basement Tapes and later re-located as a bonus track on Cahoots), his voice was more ordinary and less whispery back then. He's not going to sing harmony like the Beatles of the Everly Brothers, that's for sure, but the Band's harmonies have often been called ragged and individualistic, with the voices sung together but not quite together as if emphasizing the idea of community without leaving behind personal identity. Within that context, it works for him to fill out those harmonies.

He sings lead on "To Kingdom Come" on the first album, and in each part of the song, each of the other singers alternates harmonizing with him, as far as I can tell.

getting irrationally angry at that tweet lol

yeah being a dismissive dummy is really rewarded on Twitter

xpost

wow I always thought To Kingdom Come was a combo of Manuel and Danko straining high on their range

Here's how I hear it:

1st verse: Robbie and Richard in unison
1st pre-chorus ("So don't you say a word..."): Rick, Robbie doing low harmony
1st chorus: Rick and Robbie, Levon doing low harmony
2nd verse: Robbie, then Robbie and Richard in unison
2nd pre-chorus: Rick, Robbie doing low harmony
2nd chorus: Rick and Robbie, Levon doing low harmony

I can't tell if the chorus is in three-part harmony, or who's on top if so!

Now listening to the remixed version, it seems to be Richard instead of Robbie doing the low harmony on the pre-chorus? And all this is assuming they didn't double-track any voices.

Viney on "Bessie Smith" and the Robertson treatment of '75 Basement Tapes---says Heylin seized on it as (among) evidence of Robertson's plot vs. Manuel's memory (as songwriter)!
https://theband.hiof.no/articles/bessie_smith_viney.html
Most interested in this:
There is a circulating tape of Band-only basement sessions, which was due to become the sixth volume in the bootleg series The Genuine Basement Tapes. It was never released. This includes unreleased items, like a guitar instrumental version of Ruben Remus as well as other versions of Orange Juice Blues and Yazoo Street Scandal. Any of yall heard it?

That link is pretty interesting, thanks.

Viney really tears down the core of Heylin's accusations. Heylin is often a good reference - he's a thorough researcher - but he can undermine that work with a tendency to lash out at people. It can be refreshing when he calls someone out for something they did, but he also does that when the evidence doesn't warrant it. It's kind of amusing - whenever I see him in a photo or an interview, he's jolly and all smiles, but in writing, he comes off as a real curmudgeon.

though I wanted to be mad at Robbie, the new Stage Fright remix sounds great and the new tracklist does work pretty well

His new Rolling Stone interview reported that "The Rumor" was always intended as the last track, even before the rest of the Band pushed him to re-sequence it, and it acknowledged without explanation that it was moved to the end of side A even though that wasn't the original intention. Whatever, he can do what he likes, but for the most part, the new tracklist does work very well. The one exception is that "Sleeping" doesn't quite work as a closing track, and I think it flows better if you swap it with "The Rumor."

yeah agreed, I do think Sleeping does feel more like a middle song

TBH the new mix feels a little too polished and too airtight for my tastes. The previous mixes felt a bit more open and loose (more on that later). Something about the new mix sands away a bit of the character that made it sound like the Band.

The Royal Albert Hall show is excellent. Someone mentioned that this is the first time a complete "regular" show has ever been officially released, whereas their other live recordings were organized like special events - the Toussaint-arranged horns on the Academy shows and the big farewell (also with horns) of "The Last Waltz." The Academy shows are still my favorites though, so if you want to own just one live album, that's the one to get (especially the box set if you can splurge - I really like the "soundboard"-style mix that was done to the final show).

The Calgary hotel room recordings are actually my favorite bonuses here - they're kind of like Basement Tape-style recordings, but done in cozier surroundings. The riff on "The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show" sounds great on an acoustic guitar - if you didn't know better, you'd swear it was lifted from a down home blues standard. They do more covers than originals, and it kind of highlights how they're able to play any genre of roots music without breaking a sweat.

This may be too much detail for some, but anyone who's a collector or a huge fan of Stage Fright will probably know that it was already released in different mixes before this set. It wasn't until 2000 or so when some sense was made out it, but I wouldn't rely on anything Robbie's told in the interviews promoting the new set - I don't think he's lying, most likely he doesn't remember all the details (partly because he wasn't there when the rejected mixes were made).

Ken Scott (i.e. the engineer and producer behind Bowie's Ziggy Stardust recordings and George Harrison's All Things Must Pass) apparently wrote this in late 2006:

If my memory serves me correctly, members of the Band asked George Harrison for his recommendation as to who might be good to mix the album Stage Fright, as they, and this is the only part where my memory may be a little askew, didn't want Todd Rundgren to complete the project. Because of the work we had done together he named me. Time was booked at Trident for me to mix. Before starting I was informed that Glyn Johns was going to be mixing the same material (at a different studio) and may the best man win. Tapes were delivered to both of us.

As I started to set everything up for the first mix in walked Mr. Rundgren who promptly relegated me to gofer. Much to my regret I never got to do any more with the tapes...

---

Rundgren gave an interview to Relix, and here's what he said:

The Band made an agreement with Glyn Johns to have him mix the album. Since I had recorded the whole album, they figured I should have a shot at mixing the album as well. So they sent me, with the tapes, to London and put me in one studio and I would mix...Then I came back with two versions of the record (my mix and Glyn's mix). As it turned out, they weren’t completely happy with either one so we went into the studio and did a whole other series of remixes while the Band was there. So those were essentially the Band’s own remixes.

With you and Glyn both there?

No, no. Just me. Glyn Johns was too busy to leave England. So we went back (into the studio in New York) and essentially went through a very long, torturous remix process again because it was five guys. We spent all day mixing a tune and then they would take the references back and come back the next with all new ideas or sometimes start the mix all over again. So it took a terrifically long time because you had to satisfy five guys. So in the end, I have no idea actually which ones went on the original record or which ones might be on the reissues of the record because in the end they made decisions about which ones would go one. I’m pretty sure that on the original release, it was a combination of the three...they’re might have been one or two mixes I did, a couple that Glyn Johns did, but also many that we done in the third mix session with The Band all there. So the album that was re-released, I haven’t gone back and listened to it. I probably couldn’t tell you anyway which one was which. I felt a little uncomfortable in my own mixing situation because I was sent into a strange place with speakers I had never worked with before and so I was just kind of trying to make my way through it and hoped that I was getting it right. Just kind of following my instincts.

---

Andrew Sandoval produced the 2000 reissues, he found all of the mixes, the multi-tracks and paperwork, and he says he was able to identify which mix is which via the paperwork. But some have expressed doubt about their accuracy (they could've been misfiled or mislabeled) because Rundgren's own music has some very distinct characteristics that appear on the Stage Fright mixes identified as Johns's whereas the ones identified as Rundgren's kind of sound like Johns's work. (Specifically, many of the alleged Johns mixes have some egregious distortion and a graphic EQ pattern that's typical of, say, Rundgren's "I Saw the Light.")

maybe helpful for some context abt that tweet, his humor is largely abt him being “bad” at humor, his Trump impersonation is just him rambling in his own voice.... it’s not meant to be a hot take, wouldn’t take it too seriously

I do find the “old-timey” notion funny, however misapplied to The Weight, but obv ymmv

xp That recalls a Rolling Stone reporter's checking in on the Stage Fright sessions: Rundgren said their laid back demeanor was a cover for chronic indecision---he kept running around the studio, doing stuff to shake them up, get them pissed off and on their feet, talking to him, but the most he got during the reporter's visit was when one of them said, without looking up from his whittling, "Todd boy, if you don't settle down, you can't be in our band." "I couldn't be in your band anyway. I can't grow a beard."
(Haven't heard it, but seems like reviewers tended to consider that Cahoots was where they really went off the rails---there was a mention "the unimaginable mess" in one track.)

That reminds me of a story of Levon chasing Todd around the studio, yelling "I'm gonna kill him!," after Todd said something insulting to Garth.
Rick and Levon liked him enough to play on one of the songs on Runt, though.

Cahoots is where Robbie's songwriting took a dive, though I enjoy "Last of the Blacksmiths" and the much-disliked "The Moon Struck One", which has the same hazy Great Depression feel as Altman's Thieves Like Us.

like the song, but "w.s. wolcott's medicine show" is the first time Robbie's old weird Americana feels forced and put on, or at least feels like the beginning of the problems his later stuff had

Xgau's take on both---thought he might haaate Cahoots but no, just not that interested:

Stage Fright [Capitol, 1970]
I've gone both ways with this group--if Music from Big Pink didn't tempt me away from my urban fastness, The Band did manage to make me jump around in my apartment. What gets in the way of this follow-up, however, is neither natural alienation nor critical overanticipation--it's the music itself, which simply overmatches the words. The tunes are so bright and doughty, and the musicians pitch in with so much will, that the domestic banalities of side one seem out of place in a way those of Delaney & Bonnie, say, never do. And if the settings are too complex for what Robbie Robertson knows, they're too unfocused for what he doesn't know, as the confused politico-philosophical grapplings on side two make agonizingly clear. Memorable as most of these songs are, they never hook in--never give up the musical-verbal phrase that might encapsulate their every-which-way power. Which perhaps means that they don't have much to say. B+

Maybe a little too tough, but I guess lack of hookiness on an Age of Rock album can make the diff between A- and B+---fair enough, if you really must issue a letter grade, jeez.

Cahoots [Capitol, 1971]
Whew, these fellows can really play. They cook on "Smoke Signal," and you should hear the guitar solo on "Last of the Blacksmiths." Seem overly worried about the passing of the world as they know it, though--not just blacksmiths, but eagles, rivers, trains, the works. B-
Seems even more like a legit worry now, and people were talking bout ecology and planting Earth Day etc. back then.

That's a good point about "Walcott", and it and "Daniel and the Sacred Harp" are the only songs on Stage Fright that really have that "old-timey" conceit.

Rick and Levon liked him enough to play on one of the songs on Runt, though. Didn't know this! So they were in on TR's window of opp for those, like Chilton, who glimpsed the proto-jangle-power-psych-pop etc. possibilities ( indeed, as I mentioned on the main Big Star thread: "a note to self on Twitter:
In radio interview on @BigStarBand's Live at Lafayette's Music Room, AC worries that forthcoming #1 Record is too much like Rundgren...") Would like to check out more of their guesting pop-rock gifts---they certainly sparkle 'n' burble on Bobby Charles's '72 s/t, released on Bearsville, their and Rundgren's neck o' the woods---and they showed up on at least one of Ringo's albums, right? With for instance Nilsson in there somewhere--?!

Energetic new review of Stage Fright---dunno that it was really "small stakes," seems fairly ambitious to me, w some of that making-of stress sublimated, or subliminal, but "they would never sound so happy again"---so overall happy, in sum of alb---seems plausiblehttps://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-band-stage-fright-50th-anniversary-edition/

Robertson says he's working on Cahoots next. It'll be interesting to see how he'll try to rehabilitate it, but I'm not expecting a salvage job on par with Dead Man's Pop. To be fair, even though it's mediocre by their standards, but there's some good stuff on there. I'd like to say they should have held off until they came up with more, but it would have been a four year wait.

The title of "Life Is a Carnival" alone is too corny, but it's still a fun track with a great horn arrangement from Toussaint. "4% Pantomime" with Van Morrison is a lot of fun, and "When I Paint My Masterpiece" is another excellent Dylan cover. I never liked "Smoke Signal" until I heard it again on the newly mixed Academy shows where it held its own - it's probably better on there, but it's not a complete reinvention of the album version, just a better recording and a better performance. "Don't Do It" should have been included, it's one of my favorite Motown covers and would've helped a lot.

FWIW, it sounds like Greil Marcus really likes the new version (i.e. new mix and new order), which surprised him because he actually hated the remix of "The Shape I'm In" when it was released ahead of the rest. It's supposed to come up in his next column.

I'm sort of amazed by how much I dig this new mix/track list, like I really love it and I've always really liked the record even if it always felt a bit confused? I dunno like a funny joke that someone kind of screws up the set up when they are telling it to you.

The Calgary Hotel stuff is amazing and the live set is great.

I've always had a weird soft spot for Cahoots, album cover aside

And I've also never really dug any of Robertson's other remix jobs over the yrs

Love those Calgary Hotel sessions, immediately make me think of the Tom Waits + Replacements songs that padded out the Dead Man's Pop box.

Almost forgot about those

Now that I think about it, those 'Mats/Waits sessions took place at Bearsville. Must be something in the water up there.

drugs

fluoride

re: Robertson's bad singing… "to Kingdom Come" is leagues, miles better than "Knockin' Lost John" or "Out of The Blue." And while Cahoots has issues, I don't understand how anyone can belittle "the Moon Struck One."

Can anyone think of another example of a songwriter —who comes up with everything, particularly melodies made to be sung by really good singers— who is a legendarily bad singer? Like obviously there are Leonard Cohen/Mark E Smith-style singers who render their limitations artfully, and I've never encountered anyone alleging that in fact Manuel, Helm or Danko came up with those melodies… the songs for which Robertson is credited, he wrote every bit of them…whereas Manuel and Danko (very seldom) wrote or co-wrote with Zimmy the songs they are credited for… so Robertson had to say "OK, this is how the vocal melody to "Stage Fright" goes," to the other three, and yet everyone agreed at the time that the composer of these often really fantastically challenging melody lines shouldn't sing them… are there other examples of this? Not including pure, non performing songwriters…like did I heard that Duke Ellington kinda sucked as a singer?

Some might say Randy Newman?
I guess Robertson's vocal perceived shortcomings have to do with his somewhat whiny tone, rather than singing out of tune or having an especially limited range?

he probably worked out the melodies on his guitar

Irving Berlin?

Sorry. Was actually thinking something similar to voodoo chili.

Boston. Tom Scholz wrote music and lyrics for almost all of their songs but never sang, not even back up.

Where can I find the xpost Calgary Hotel sessions? Also still wondering about where to find this, mentioned in the Viney post I recently linked upthread: There is a circulating tape of Band-only basement sessions, which was due to become the sixth volume in the bootleg series The Genuine Basement Tapes. It was never released. This includes unreleased items, like a guitar instrumental version of Ruben Remus as well as other versions of Orange Juice Blues and Yazoo Street Scandal. Any of yall heard it?

The Calgary Hotel sessions discussed above are the ones tacked onto the recent Stage Fright reissue.

just listening to the 2020 mix and "sleeping" does sound like it could be on something anything or the ballad of todd rundgren

Nice catch! For sure--"Sleeping" particularly isn't worlds away from Rundgren's "The Range War."

indeed.. the use of those sustained* chords at the end of each stanza* bring to mind "the range war" and "torch song"... plus maybe the way the piano is mixed, as birdistheword mentioned above.

*not sure if correct terms

I guess you could call them flat 7 triads over a tonic pedal bass (D/E in "Sleeping") or 11 chords.

I love the chord progression at the start of the song, that reappears in each refrain:

C#m/B B "Where else on
Bm/A A Earth would you
F#m/E E Want to go?"

Another similar Todd song is "Boat on the Charles". It might even be the same piano the Band used at Bearsville studios.

I only know "The Range War" from a good cover version on one of DBT Patterson Hood's solo albums, Murdering Oscar (and Other Love Songs). It surprised me, considering that Lester Bangs once reported asking Rundgren what he thought of country music: " 'AH'M DUMMB, AND AH'M STEWW-PID,' he brayed, but not everybody is."

I got that there was maybe a Band influence:
Your daddy runs sheep and my uncle runs cattle
Nothing can keep us out of this battle
They wage as it burns up the plains till no one is left in the saddle
Your ranch is upstream and they've dammed up the water…
There were such wars, and may be again, as the water situation out there incl. more and more drought. (Of course it's also meta, if you like.)