The Band.

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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.)

The Band opening for CSNY @ Wembley in '74 (#onethread)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7CniLlueBI

WARNING: Robbie's microphone <is on>

halfway into this, pretty fun, thanks for the tip.

the sound mix starts glitching at certain points, resulting in some fun weird moments such as garth's organ being about 3x louder than everything else during dixie

man backstage must have been a drug scene for the ages

In Shakey, Joni Mitchell said the cocaine was cut with Borax, and it was really hard to get buzzed.

The 1974 version of a big entrance:

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN... THE BAND"

*****five minutes of stumbling around the stage and tuning*****

Actually, it was nice to see/hear them doing "Just Another Whistle Stop" and "Smoke Signal", which aren't on any live recording I've encountered.

"Smoke Signal" was on the Live at the Academy reissue (i.e. the Rock of Ages reissue), and I was pleasantly surprised how well it came off on stage. It's not a great song, but even when it was slotted between much better ones, their performances sold it as a decent number.

I wonder if Robbie had written any of the Northern Lights/Southern Cross material by this point. It can't have been a good feeling if the only things he had finished since 1971 were "Endless Highway" and "Two Piano Song".

I saw them 10-30-70 at Memorial Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, and however stitched together Big Pink had sometimes sounded (in a good way) they had no prob replicating it and then some, very passionately, however many times they'd played it, incl. 32 previous shows on that tour, which started in Jan; and lasted midway through Dec. Songs from s/t were good too, but the only thing I remember remembering (even later that evening) from Stage Fright, which had come out that summer, is and was the title song. But I'm sure I was pretty stoned, so (still). And I've never felt the urge to get back to that album, but maybe I will (though it's not on the Bucket List),

Here's the show (not song) list; no wonder Robertson retired:
https://theband.hiof.no/history/The_Band_in_Concert_1970.pdf Pretty typical for a big or big-ish act back then, I think.

Big Pink live was being inside the record.

Even on the tour supporting it, they only ever played a few things from Cahoots live, and "Life Is A Carnival" was the only one that made it up to The Last Waltz. Moondog Matinee was their latest release in '74, but apparently they never did any of that stuff live either.

Moondog Matinee's a good album. I get the impression it's knocked unfairly due to its origins (Levon's book argues that they could only do covers at that point because there was too much resentment and jealousy for any collaborative work creating original material to happen.) But the idiosyncratic choices are surprisingly welcome, and the performances are all excellent. And Robertson's new verses on Mystery Train are surprisingly memorable - they expand the song rather than hurt or diminish it.

That should be "Mystery Train," no italics.

How could I forget "Mystery Train"? One track from MM made it into the setlist.

Not sure why I never go beyond Big Pink and the brown album, but I heard this today and it's really nice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq2e7DPhyHg

I know what you mean. It took me ages to go beyond those two as well, bu when I first heard Northern Lights Southern Cross it was a revelation.

i have to say the remixed and resequenced stage fright really make a great case for that album not being too far off the first two in quality

today i learned that the best band song not by the band is by....the beach boys???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Xbg7v3Fwg

yeah I dig that stage fright reissue, but I like the royal albert hall show that came with the deluxe edition even more!

yeah that's great!

I was more just surprised, I'm pretty leery of people fucking with old albums, especially Robbie, but he did a great job

I voted for that album in the Todd Rundgren poll, but I still need to listen to it some more.

Another Band song not by the Band: "Once Burned" by Rundgren, with Rick and Levon on bass and drums.

Yeah, I dabbled with Stage Fright over the years, but now I love it. Time to Kill might be a top 3 The Band song for me.

It's the two songs that Manuel cowrote (his last songs) that are the essence of that record for me.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2YiHodVA5wIgMgcIkPmwDa?si=pEI73yo7THGtx0BaSXbmZA&utm_source=copy-link

I think I posted upthread but I did a mix of all Manuel's songs/cowrites in the Band

“sleeping” is one of those songs that’s almost painful to listen to, heavy emotional stuff.

Love Manuel’s heartbroken voice, it’s the one that I most closely associate with the group

Northern Lights/Southern Cross is all Robertson songs, but there are two otherwise unreleased Manuel songs from 67 or 68 on the box set A Musical History.

is one of those "ferdinand the imposter"? i'm kind of obsessed with that song, it's absolutely gorgeous.

"Words and Numbers" and "Beautiful Thing". I heard them once, but the currently available version of the box doesn't seem to include them?

Yeah that Royal Albert Hall show is so good! Nice to have a relatively straightforward live album with just the boys and no fancy guests or horn sections.

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

The Manuel songs are always my favorites as well.

"Get Up Jake" is amazing and proto-"Cruisin'" by Smokey Robinson -- the lead guitar on the Rock of Ages version in particular