The Band.

Yeah, those moneyshot choruses, man. I mean, when you follow them through the verses, you get it, but they lend themselves to being taken out of context, especially "Born," jeez (although sometimes he's slowed it down and done it as a growly solo performance, going from Broooce to Bruce, as much as possible, on a couple live tapes I've heard).
I gotta look at more of Robertson's lyrics, get past the personality problems.

Could also follow this w Drive-By Truckers' sequel-of-sorts, "The Night GG Allin Came To Town."

I think due to his terrible rep his lyrics get underrated a lot

Robbie i mean. GG's rep as a respected lyricist is well earned

Yeah when he hits his lyrics are amazing, just yesterday I was marveling at this insane realness in "Stage Fright"

I've got fire water right on my breath
And the doctor warned me I might catch a death
Said, "you can make it in your disguise
Just never show the fear that's in your eyes"

If we want to have a discussion about if he actually wrote these lines and wasn't helped by Danko or anyone else...I think that is a fair question

Come to think of it, in The Last Waltz, he complained pretty emphatically about The Road, man, "impossible," and remaining members indicated that was a or the bog reason for his calling it quits (for the whole Band),"he didn't wanna be sweating in some airplane hangar any more" (although the last few studio albums with him were not so hot either). So maybe at least some of that was stage fright. Has he done any post-Band shows? (Solo albums, as noted upthread, took a while---maybe some studio/writing/working fright as well?)

"big" reason, I meant, but maybe bog reason too.

xxpost Danko inhabits those lines so well when he sings them that even if he didn't write them he deserves a lot of credit for how great they come off

"stage fright" in the last waltz really gets to me, all the parts with danko or manuel really...but he's kind of frantic and pitched, you could tell those guys had no illusion in their heart of hearts - they knew the road had run out. robbie on the other hand obviously is ready to shed what he felt had become dead weight, proving he knew very little about what made the band he'd been in since he was a kid a great band.

xxpost Danko inhabits those lines so well when he sings them that even if he didn't write them he deserves a lot of credit for how great they come off

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Thursday, 17 September 2020 19:27 (sixteen minutes ago) link

For real, in fact I had to look it up to make sure cuz I was convinced Danko had to have a co-writer credit on it, same with Manuel and "The Shape I In"...now that I think about maybe the most important aspect of the Band dynamic is that Robbie needed SOMEONE to write for, that on some deeply empathic level he understood Helm, Danko, and Manuel in ways maybe they didn't and so was able to craft songs for them "Dixie", "Stage Fright", "Shape" that cut so to core that seems hard to believe the singer wasn't the writer, which speaks to both Robbie's skills and theirs, which makes his "betrayal" of them even more cutting & cruel, at least from the outside.

But obv as much as they needed him, he needed them.

Also does Robbie still have beef with Dylan (or vice versa?)

Huh maybe not

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/robbie-robertson-explains-why-he-turned-down-bob-dylans-new-album-1022791/

Right, he was writing for those guys the same way Ellington would write for his soloists
xxp

dylan asking robertson to play on his new album sounds like a tall tale to me, but who knows

I always think Robertson as one of those cases of a super talented person who knew all the right moves and absorbed all the great influences, but at the same time is just deep-down fundamentally uncool and uncharismatic, and nothing can change it.

idk if his problem is that he's uncool or uncharismatic. i think he has a bit of a capitalist/ambitious streak that makes him come across as "fake" to people like levon and co. who are all about the music, maaan

I think Manuel's decline as as songwriter (assuming caused or at least made worse by alcohol and drugs) is an unsung part of the Band's decline

For all the talk about "Robbie wrote all the songs" - on Big Pink Manuel is big presence - co-write w/Dylan on Tears of Rage, and three solo songwriting credits - In a Station, We Can Talk, and Lonesome Suzie

on The Band it's three co-writes with Robbie - When You Awake, Whispering Pines, and Jawbone

Stagefright it's down to two co-writes - Sleeping and Just Another Whistle Stop

then two co-writes (Acacian Driftwood, Ring Your Bell) and a solo (hobo jungle) - nothing on Islands (not that anyone is clamoring for credit on that)

but look at the list those are some of the truly great Band songs imo, his contribution is way underplayed by Robbie's mythmaking

xp to me

i think he actually is pretty charismatic as a speaker, and considering how much time the last waltz spent on interviewing him, scorsese thought so too.

lots of fan fiction itt. at the level of one directioner shippers tbh

Care to set things straight Robbie?

but look at the list those are some of the truly great Band songs imo, his contribution is way underplayed by Robbie's mythmaking

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, September 17, 2020 3:36 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

not only that, they're the band's most unconventional and quirkiest tracks, the ones that really feel like they connect to that old, weird america they were always going on about

definitely - "Jawbone" is just a piece of magic, so anthemic but almost falling over itself, don't know how they did that

feel like there's something weird w/the time signature but i don't know that stuff, sund4r if you are lurking let me know

Remember too on The Basement Tapes Manuel has some solo comps that were actually Big Pink outtakes.

oh yeah! that adds Rubin Remus, Katie's Been Gone, Orange Juice Blues as writes or co-writes

I quick made playlist "album" sequence on Spotify....I'd put this up against and Band record:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2YiHodVA5wIgMgcIkPmwDa?si=o_BGLHJ2T8qC-UbdM494nw

feel like there's something weird w/the time signature but i don't know that stuff, sund4r if you are lurking let me know

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, September 17, 2020 3:51 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

im not as smart as sund4r, but i can tell you that it changes time signature and key several times throughout the song. the intro, chorus, and the "oh jawbone" part of the verse are in 4/4 and in the key of E. the "three time loser you'll never win" section switches to waltz time and modulates to the key of D (mixolydian i think, but there's also a weird dominant 7th substitution on the VI (B) chord). the main riff of the chorus does some kind of three against four thing, too, which is cool.

cool thanks I figured it was something like the three against four type deal, which i sort of understand but not really

the playlist I just made is now the best Band album

Even factoring in the usual thing of the lion’s share of the credit being taken by the person who is the principal songwriter or leader, de facto or otherwise, there is still something ice cold and disturbing about the way JRR Fabulist seems to treat the rest of the band. Even Lennon/McCartney gave the other two a moment now and then. And Mick Jagger famously said “Charlie’s good tonight, isn’t he?”

“Levon wasn’t even the best drummer in The Band!”

i also just noticed for the first time that "jawbone" switches to 3/4 time on the phrase "three time" *chef's kiss*

Right, he was writing for those guys the same way Ellington would write for his soloists
xxp

Dylan said that thing about JRR being a "mathematical guitar genius." I like his playing fine with The Band, but really? I also remember reading something about him holding his own or even cutting Clapton with his solo during "Further On Up The Road" but again, really? I mean I have my reservations about EC the same as Phoebe Bridgers does but still.

Actually I think it is in that Classic Albums doc Tarfumes just mentioned where Clapton says something about Richard Manuel's charisma and (negative) energy. He could be sitting curled up in the corner of a room and you would be drawn to him or something like that.

Part of me is drawn to viewing Robbie as some kind of Zeppo Marx figure who managed to stay in the act by buying his lyrics from the Gypsy Woman.

the playlist I just made is now the best Band album

I don't know how much of a guitar genius Robbie was or wasn't, but his solo on this version of "King Harvest" is easily one of my favorite solos ever:

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

I like that solo fine and believe it has been remarked upon before. But some of why I like it is that it is part of that song, don’t know what I would think in another context.

it’s true that Robbie Robertson isn’t really suited for a stint in G3

Not what I'm getting at.

Don't think Ron Asheton or Steve Jones would fit in there either, to name two.

Robbie Robertson is an exceptional guitarist.

Maybe he's not that into people, crowds----like in the autobio )as described in the review posted upthread), he's shuttled between his relatives, urban Jews and Mohawks in the boondocks, leaves all that for the isolated stability of the roving Hawks, with Ronnie the roadsmart uncle or some shit, then cut to The Last Waltz, where he's raspin "The Road is just an impossible fuckin' way of life," then he splits, and later I read in the Stone that he was working on his solo debut, but then heard an album of Penderecki or Crumb (George, too bad it wasn't R. Crumb's Cheap Suit Serenaders), and started over. But also read that he and Scorsese stayed holed up in the house a lot. Oh and his acting career seems to have consisted of surly presence in Carny.
So maybe some early aversion, lack of sociabilty, insecurity, augmented, via career burn-out---for a while, but then some productivity, with "sociable" story-polishing, wheel-spinning, like with Sam Phillips---a struggle in there somewhere, judging by traces of someone I've never met.

I’ll tell you some of Robbie’s playing that I think is grebt: on the original Ronnie Hawkins single of “Who Do You Love.”

Wow, has anyone seen this movie?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Are_What_You_Eat_(film)?wprov=sfti1

xp ha I was just thinking of that same single as displaying examplary robbieness. so cutting!

But also read that he and Scorsese stayed holed up in the house a lot.

...doing coke.

However, after all that Robertson helped put together the soundtracks for Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, and The Color of Money, so he was working.

I guess I like Robbie more in a Hubert Sumlin-type mode than when he tries or is forced by some circumstances to be a more conventional player.

Robbie Robertson: Opinions on three things

His playing on a couple of those Albert Hammond albums is great. I saw somewhere that Hendrix apparently really admired Robertson on those albums. Also that Mike Bloomfield was scheduled for the sessions but felt he wasn't up to Robertson, at least not those days. I've seen pointed out that he is sort of simultaneously two types of players, an electric blues guy and also a Curtis Mayfield-styled funky rhythm player (Mayfield of course being another root of Hendrix's playing).

Keeping in mind that The Last Waltz is pretty much none of these guys at their best, Robertson easily holds his own against Clapton, especially when Clapton's strap comes loose and Robertson doesn't miss a beat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WDmMWF83x4

That was better than I remembered it.