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.

Dude -- the overall treatment of civilians in (a) Sherman's March to the Sea and (b) The Vietnam Fucking War were highly dissimilar.

i feel like Jericho was well-regarded when it came out but i don't really fuck w/ the Band too much after Cahoots

Jericho has the Springsteen cover right? That version of Atlantic City has come close to becoming canon for the Band.

yeah it's really good

or "AC" is, i should say. i'm sure i've heard more from Jericho but I can't say specifically what

Just gave it a listen and "Jericho" goes on a little long, and too many of the songs seem to intentionally echo past Band work. But on the plus side, it sounds pretty good, and the singing and playing are good. The guitarist, Jim Weider, does a pretty solid Robertson impression.

What a weird messy post-band history the Band had. You've got Robertson, who tried to snag all the credit, yet didn't release a solo album until 1986, with an album that sounded absolutely nothing like the Band, for that matter. The other guys scattered or, tragically, worse, and never got much momentum going. Danko managed that one album, Hudson went more or less journeyman session guy, Levon did a few albums here and there and tried acting; his solid late career recording comeback came after a 25 year gap. When the Band did reconvene to record those 17 or so years after breaking up, for "Jericho," the songwriting was almost all from outside sources, which was a strange way to counter Robertson's claims.

Maybe Ophelia should be higher idk

watching the classic albums doc on the self-titled right now. that album truly holds a special place in my heart.

glad you picked jawbone. what a weirdly enchanting little ditty.

the way it switches to the waltz time in the verses and lets loose during the chorus, along with the switch in lyrical perspective...

Manuel had some great cowrites with Robertson

he was something else, "Sleeping" is such a strange beauty

jawbone is so amazing

Jawbone has such a deep country funk. I respect the rest of the Band's canon, but I am and always have been deliriously in love with the s/t album. Fortune was smiling on them when they recorded that.

Robertson had been reading books and thought the Civil War was just about slavery, so Helm had to sit him down and explain through a southern lens the political picture of the time.

Ah the danger of reading books.

When Robbie went down to Arkansas from Canada he couldn't read. Levon made him woodshed with books until he had built up a basic literacy. After touring with Dylan, Robertson could really read, pretty much anything, but by then he was pretty sick of reading. That's why there's not a lot of reading on Band albums.

The Danko album had some good tracks, but I was more impressed pverall by the band he brought to Soundstage, the old Chicago PBS show: 50-odd minute sets, back to back, no bathroom breaks (at least in the version televised, and his crew certainly had no prob being on the same bill w Graham Parker & The Rumour, who were at their peak (this was late 70s, maybe '80). Don't remember who was in the band, but saw him on another thing in that era w Butterfield, who was maybe here for this.

There was an interview where Robertson mentioned sitting crammed into the backseat, with Hawkins at the wheel in the boondocks, and R was reading a paperback of From Here To Eternity: purty cool and wonder if it gave him some ideas for songs.

but I was more impressed pverall by the band he brought to Soundstage, the old Chicago PBS show: 50-odd minute sets, back to back

alfred otm but man

stampeding cattle
they rattle the walls

is dire

i can't get over this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaKD1Vdarnw

i usually feel like singing drummers look sort of awkward or even dumb but man is levon one cool motherfucker

That version of "King Harvest" is amazing. The guitar solo is one of my favorites ever, by anyone.

So weird to see RR pre-Telecaster. Also, is he wearing finger-picks?

i also appreciate how much crisper the drums sound in this version

great recording, Robbie looks like such a chilled hipster

I thought Robbie was wearing shorts for a minute, there. Eech.

some days the band is my favorite band, i guess this is gonna be one of those days

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/flashback-ringo-starr-and-his-all-starr-band-play-the-weight-251846/

Or just:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=187&v=bNpcms4UdMA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNpcms4UdMA

^Features Levon, RIck and Garth, along with a cavalcade of RIngo's All-Stars.

Seems like there are not one, not two but THREE drummers up there: Levon, Ringo and Jim Keltner.

I'll let you figure out for yourself who is the surprise guest vocalist/pianist taking one of the verses.

RIngo and Jim seem to do some fills along with Levon - it's almost like Antmusic.

When I saw that opening guitar playing I thought, huh, that person knows what they are doing. And ... of course it's Nils.

yup

Just rewatched video of him playing "Purple Rain" for the first time since it happened but was a little afraid to.

xxxpost, Robertson's misgivings were justified to an extent: no doubt some Johnny Reb headz heard "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" as tons of sobs for the Lost Cause. When I play it on my radio show, I'll follow it with Isbell's "White Man's World" and "Danko and Manuel."

Cool. Are you talking about something you read in Testimony?

No, a discussion upthread, but mis-remembered re Robertson's misgivings, sorry, should have re-read. Still, the proposed song sequence seems good, even though I don't have a radio show.

actually went and looked for that radio show but all I could find was an on-air personality with your same last name.

Timely revive, as I discovered today that the vinyl copy of the s/t I got on eBay was delivered to someone else at the wrong address way the hell across town.

I'm usually put off by ensemble 'all star band' stuff, but damn you can't deny that above clip.

Thought the revive would be for this:

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/8510996/robbie-robertson-the-band-documentary

The 75-year-old Robertson, who was inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame Thursday night (May 9) at Toronto's Canadian Music and Broadcast Industry Awards, has an incredibly busy year, including finishing a new solo album, scoring the music for Scorsese's new film, The Irishman, remixing music for the 50th anniversary reissue of The Band album, and writing the follow-up memoir to 2016's Testimony.

uh-oh

he might just be remixing outtakes?

Is there a good place to read about The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and if it is pro-Confederacy? Always just thought it was about how wars chew young people up into fodder regardless of the "cause", a Vietnam allegory, but as I've gotten older and learned what that war was actually about (I'm from the UK) I feel less comfortable about it.

This article pretty much covers it:

http://theband.hiof.no/articles/dixie_viney.html

The whole of Music From Big Pink got remixed by Bob Clearmountain last year though, which doesn't augur well

xxp

thanks anagram - and oh yikes, that is not good news!

Not quite as must see as the last clip- no Garth for one thing- but from the same tour, and still Levon and Rick. Like what Nils and Joe Walsh are doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUwb1ToTkpk