The Band is all gone. Garth Hudson, the last survivor, passed earlier this week at the age of 87. Loved their music and often posted about it. Garth was a master musician, wizard on a vast array of keyboards, the accordion, and saxophone.
Two cuts; Chest Fever with its immense organ opening, and Makes No Difference, with Garth stepping in with his tiny sax at around 4:25.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(674x410:676x412)/garth-hudson-012125-3-769f76cd27104d70bff9c33c815dbf71.jpg)
We will wind up our Robbie Robertson tribute with this 2020 version of The Weight, featuring Robbie and Ringo, along with musicians from around the world. Done for the Playing For Change Foundation. I particularly like the smiling Robbie at the end.
Catch a cannonball, nowTo take me down the lineMy bag is sinkin' lowAnd I do believe it's timeTo get back to Miss FannyYou know she's the only oneWho sent me here with her regards for everyone
Yes, I am, though finding it hard to believe.
Hang around, Willie boy,Don't you raise the sails anymoreIt's for sure, I've spent my whole life at seaAnd I'm pushin' age seventy-three
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 too steep to climb
And the days that remain ain't worth a dime
Rockin' Chair from The Band album. Lyrics and music by Robbie.
From The Band album. Words and music by Robbie.
Like my father before meHere's a perspective from 1978 by Jonathan Taplin, the Band's tour manager at the time (later a Hollywood film producer and then Director of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California Annenbergy School for Communication and Journalism).
I will work the land
And like my brother above me
Who took a rebel stand
He was just 18, proud and brave
But a Yankee laid him in his grave
I swear by the mud below my feet
You can't raise a Cain back up
When he's in defeat
It was May and they'd just finished it the night before. They said it'd come out fast and hard and clean. It was just the most moving experience I'd had for, God, I don't know how long. Because for me, being a Northern liberal kid who'd been involved in the Civil Rights movement and had a whole attitude towards the South, well I loved the music but I didn't understand where white Southerners were coming from. And to have it all in just three and a half minutes, the sense of dignity and place and tradition, all those things … Well, the next day after I'd recovered, I went to Robbie and asked him, "How did that come out of you?" And he just said that being with Levon so long in his life and being in that place at that time … It was so inside him that he wanted to write the song right at Levon, to let him know how much those things meant to him.
Levon's vocal from The Last Waltz surpasses the studio version.
Whatever you do, don't listen to the Joan Baez cover which, along with botching the lyrics, completely misses the point of the song.
They signed a treatyAnd our homes were takenLoved-ones forsaken,They didn't give a damn.Try to raise a familyEnd up an enemyOver what went down on the Plains of Abraham.
A tale of the French settlers of Nova Scotia (known as Acadians), evicted by the British, many of whom ended up in Louisiana, becoming the people known as the Cajun.
In 1755 the British, believing the Acadians posed a security threat to their naval base in Halifax and a danger if the France tried to reconquer the province, ordered their expulsion, a process that continued for several years. Many of the refugees ended up in Spanish Louisiana but several thousand also died during the expulsions. The expulsion order was lifted in 1764 and small groups of Acadians were allowed back.
Out of this sad story, Robbie Robertson wrote Acadian Driftwood for The Band's last studio album; Northern Lights - Southern Cross. The song's themes and feel link it to The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.
The lyrics take some liberty with the chronology. In reality, the expulsion order came at the beginning of the Seven Years War, while the Battle of Quebec on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 came four years after the order, but the song gets the gist of the story right.
By Bo Diddley, not Robbie Robertson, but this goes to Robbie's roots. He got his big break playing as a teenager with Canadian rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins and it's where he met the other musicians who would go on to form The Hawks and then become The Band. From The Last Waltz, The Band's final concert.
The Band is clearly having a lot of fun with Ronnie and you can see what made Hawkins a first class showman. I love the end when Ronnie puts his hands on his hips, looks with pride at what his proteges have accomplished and then struts off the stage.
A rarity, as Robbie, Rick, and Levon share writing credits on Life Is A Carnival from The Band's 4th album, Cahoots.
Hey, buddy, would you like to buy a watch real cheapHere on the streetI got six on each arm and two more round my feetLife is a carnival--believe it or notLife is a carnival--two bits a shot
The opening song on The Band. Lyrics and music by Robbie. Rick Manuel on vocals.
Harvest moon shinin' down from the skyA weary sign for allI'm gonna leave this one horse townHad to stall 'til the fall, now I'm gonna crawlAcross the Great Divide
An achingly sad love song from The Band's sixth album - Northern Lights, Southern Crosses. Rick Danko on lead vocal. Music and lyrics by Robbie. The Band was unusual in having three top flight vocalists, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, and Richard Manuel, with Danko and Manuel having stunning plaintive tones in their voices, which Danko employs to full effect here.
It makes no difference how far I goLike a scar, the hurt will always showAnd it makes no difference who I meet
They're just a face in the crowd on a dead-end streetAnd the sun don't shine anymoreAnd the rains fall down on my doorThese old love lettersWell, I just can't keep'Cause, like the gambler says"Read 'em and weep"
When Rick sings the last verse, he sounds like he's breaking down.
Well, I love you so muchAnd it's all I can doJust to keep myself from telling youThat I never felt so alone before
Music From Big Pink. Words and music by Robbie. Lead vocal by Rick Manuel.
I can't get to you from your garden gateYou know it's always locked by the magistrateNow he don't care why you cry, he thinks it's just a lieTo get out, I don't doubt that you'd make a try
Look out, everybody! From The Band album. Lyrics and music by Robbie.
Chain lightnin', frightnin' as it may seem
Must not be mistaken for just another dream
Justice of the peace don't know his own fate
But you'll go down in the shelter late
Another one from the Stage Fright album. Lyrics and music by Robbie. A live performance from 1971.
Gonna see Miss Brer Foxhole with bright diamonds in her teethShe is pure gold down underneathShe's a rock and roll singer and a true dead ringerBoy, somethin' like you ain't never seenOnce you get it, you can't forget itW.S. Walcott Medicine Show
From Stage Fright, The Band's third album. This version is from The Last Waltz, the final concert by the group. Lyrics and music by Robbie.
Out of nine lives I spent sevenNow, how in the world do you get to Heaven?Oh, you don't know the shape I'm in
He's a thief and he digs it. And in 12/8 time. Lyrics and music by Robbie and Richard Manuel. From The Band.
After writing The Weight, Robbie Robertson and the rest of the guys wanted to lighten things up a bit and came up with Chest Fever, featuring Garth's monstrous opening on the organ (he developed a long performance version intro which you can find on YouTube with the title The Genetic Method). From Music From Big Pink. The words make no sense.
"She's stoned," said the Swede
And the moon calf agreed
But I'm like a viper in shock
With my eyes in the clock
She was just there somewhere and here I am again
Robbie and Levon are the co-composers on this one. From The Band album.
Jemima Surrender, that's all you have to doI'll bring over my FenderAnd I'll play all night for you
From The Band's sixth album - Northern Lights, Southern Crosses. Lyrics and music by Robbie.
They got your numberScared and runningBut I'm still waiting for the second coming
Of OpheliaCome back home
A rollicking, barnburner of a song from The Band. "Hailstones beatin' on the roof, the bourbon is a hundred proof". Manuel, Danko and Helm switched instruments, with Richard taking drums (listen to his clever playing behind the lyric "we could be relaxing in my sleeping bag"), Rick on fiddle, and Levon on mandolin. Listen to Garth's rinky-tink piano interlude starting at 1:45, while producer John Simon contributes the underlying tuba part that holds the whole thing together (now there's a phrase you don't often hear). Lyrics and music by Robbie.
Now deep in the heart of a lonely kid
Who suffered so much for what he did
They gave this ploughboy his fortune and fame
Since that day he ain't been the same
From their third album. Rick Danko on the vocal. Lyrics and music by Robbie Robertson.
Ollie showed me the fork in the road
You can take to the left or go straight to the rightUse your days and save your nights,Be careful where you step, and watch what you eatSleep with the light on and you got it beat
