The Band.

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.

xp Think you mean John Hammond Jr. AKA John Paul Hammond, although would like to hear young JRR w young Albert Hammond Sr. for sure, so I hope he did that too.
James, the Hawks backed Tiny Tim on a few YAWYE soundtrack tracks, think the orig connection may have been Dylan, who in Chronicles describes scruffy gigs w Tim way way back there (night manager Fred Neil would dispense leftover fries and subway fare at the end of an evening), despite the band site's quote of Hoskyns re they were new buddies----articles and YouTube clips here:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Tiny+Tim+You+Are+What+You+Eat&oq=Tiny+Tim+You+Are+What+You+Eat&aqs=chrome..69i57.21213j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Also on the soundtrack: members of Electric Flag, John Simon and John Herald performing title song, other people

Track list from Amazon, who have it on mp3 (may also have the DVD, but looks like all or at least an hour-long chunk of it is on YouTube; I'll watch that first)
Hawks are only on Tim tracks:
IDE ONE:
Teenage Fair (Helmet Commercial) - Rosko
Moments of Soft Persuasion - Peter Yarrow
Silly Girl - Peter Yarrow
Desert Moog Music - John Simon
Be My Baby - Tiny Tim
The Family Dog - John Herold
The Nude Dance - Hamsa El Din
My Name Is Jack - John Simon

SIDE TWO:
I Got You Babe - Tiny Tim/Eleanor Barooshian
You Are What You Eat - Butterfield Blues Band
Beach Music - John Simon
The Wabe - Peter Yarrow/John Simon
Don't Remind Me Now of Time - Peter Yarrow
Painting for Freakout - John Simon
Freakout - The Electric Flag/John Simon

Thanks, dow. Saw some of the credits for that earlier this evening, including jazz bassist Bill Crow on some of the tracks if I read it right. Found a John Hammond (Jr.) album that has The Hawks on it, So Many Roads, and they do sound good. Even has a version of “Who Do You Love.” Hammond actually sounds a bit like Captain Beefheart, at least on first listen.

xpost yeah John Hammond

That two or three things I know about JRR thread has a link to a pretty tough takedown of some of his solo work by A. Sotosyn

the yawye soundtrack is ace, but have never made it through the whole film (was all up on youtube at some point)

couple of other band/tiny tim tracks on this

seem to recall dylan hooking up with the band was a direct result of their recording with j hammond jr?

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

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

Yeah this is totally spot on wrt to Robbie's playing

I watched the movie last night, the most notable aspect for me was how large a role his wife Dominique has in the film, usually spouses tend to be erased completely or at most referred to but rarely seen or heard from.

The movie is well made and the there was a fair amount of backstage pics/footage I hadn't seen and a very welcome appearance by Ronnie Hawkins, cussing and talking about coke and pussy vs everyone else bloviating about the magic of music or some shit, the narrative it follows is pretty Behind the Music-level.

Robbie is very actorly and smooth and rehearsed which makes him seem like he is trying to sell you something (himself) even if a lot of times he seems very genuine and honest.

Garth is generally praised in an "also appearing" manner, that basically Garth & Robbie held everything together post 69.

Danko is barely mentioned at all or remarked on, unless he was crashing a car (and watching the old footage man he was a beautiful man)

Richard is a sad drunk, everyone is kind of "whaddya gonna do?"

The Levon portrayal is really jarring, it starts with Levon & Robbie as very tight bros but pretty soon Levon is painted as a junkie, paranoid, hick who let bitterness consume him while Robbie was out here living his best life, haters to the left, etc. Some of the way footage of Levon playing live and grimacing is paired with voice-overs about what a bitter asshole he was is unsubtle and fucking gross frankly.

Also for all everyone talking about how Levon bitched about how they were getting screwed by management & accountants, no one ever refutes that on camera.

But at the same time the movie ends with "Dixie" from the Last Waltz

The end of the Band is basically Robbie lamenting how fucked up everyone was and how if only someone had written a song he would have kept the thing going. It is very clear though that Robbie hated the road and really wanted to spend time with his family, even as early as the Dylan tour (which I think tends to get underrated a far as scarring everyone in the band having to go out night after night getting booed playing with Dylan)

W/r/t to Levon v Robbie and songwriting credits, part of the issue is the way songwriters traditionally are credited and remunerated is fundamentally not how rock bands work, esp bands like the Band where one person might write the lyric & melody but obv lots of other hands are involving in the arranging and turning it into an actual "song", which is def a skill and an important aspect to writing that is hugely underrated.

It certainly won't change anyone's opinion and though interesting in spots I don't know that I would call it a crucial view.

yeah the lack of garth in the movie (not even a talking head) was bizarre, though he always seemed to be a guy who didn't seek the spotlight.

Garth doesn't seem in the best of health in this little feature from a few years ago, so may well not have been up to participating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBc_4dPQusI