re: The Band

Huge Levon and Band fan. Lucky to have seen Levon with John Prine in 2009 at Red Rocks.

robbie's an a-hole
well documented

he didn't want to tour anymore and since he shitlorded the songwriting credits he could afford to live off publishing and the others couldn't. now he's out hawking his book and monetizing the 40th anniversary and there's nobody left but Garth to call him on his bullshite...

quote:

---

I was a huge The Band and last Waltz fan in college. Then I read Levon's book and it discussed how Robbie Robertson forced the rest of band to do The Last Waltz. It really took away the love I had for the Last Waltz.

---

Here's Robbie's version, an excerpt from his new book:

LINK

quote:

---

Levon Helm had been my dearest friend in the world. My teacher. The closest thing I ever had to a brother. We had seen it all together and survived the world’s madness, but not our own. When Rick Danko joined us, we didn’t know if he would make the cut. He turned out to be a force—a dependable rock who was there for you night and day. How does a spirit like that get broken? I first met Richard Manuel when we were 17 years old. He had been drinking that night and was somewhere between pure joy and deep sadness. He still had that same yearning sound in his voice, which we loved. Garth Hudson was our in-house professor, and I felt the worst for him. All he wanted to do was make music, invent, and teach.

My instinct was to have a celebration of our music and then get out of the public eye. We’d been playing live and touring for 15 or 16 years, so it was a shocking proposition. But we couldn’t keep going out. On some nights we could hit our stride, but more and more it was becoming a painful chore. The best painkiller is opiates, and heroin had been creeping back under the door. I worried that Garth and I had three junkies in our group, plus our so-called manager. Finally I declared, “No more.”

We had a meeting and I suggested that we do a final concert at Winterland, in San Francisco, where we had played our first show as the Band, in 1969. No one was opposed to the idea. “I think we could all use a good time-out for health reasons,” Garth said.

---

Love Acadian Driftwood. Awesome song.

If you've never watched it, take a look at "Ain't In It For My Health."

"One night in August 2008, Levon Helm sat in his kitchen in Woodstock, New York after playing a Midnight Ramble gig in his barn, smoking some "northern Californian organic" and sharing stories with friends like Billy Bob Thornton and Chris Robinson. When the party cleared out and only Thornton was left, the actor raised the subject of the Band and the backlash they received from critics starting with their third album, Stage Fright.
"On that third Band record, it was pretty much over," Helm replies, his voice filling with venom. "It was obviously a goddamn screw-job. The credits and the money and everything was all screwed up. After that, it was 'the Band plays your favorites,' 'the Band live somewhere,' because we couldn't get in there and collaborate anymore. It lasted about five years, but it was over after that second record."
Jakob Dylan, Roger Waters Lead Sweet 'Love for Levon' Tribute to Levon Helm
It's just one riveting moment in Ain't in It for My Health, the new documentary directed by Jacob Hatley that captures Helm's late-career Renaissance before his death last year: the years in which he regained his voice after battling throat cancer, released his first music in decades, staged his weekly Midnight Ramble gigs in his barn, dug himself out of a financial hole and became a grandfather."

As far a musical groups/bands go, not a lead with an accompanying band, I think the Band is 1 of the very best from the states, up there with the beach boys, grateful dead, and the eagles.

The Last Waltz, is the greatest concert film and live album of all time.

Richard Manuel, Levon Helm and Rick Danko were just awesome, you rarely see three great singers in the same band. Garth on the keys was ahead of his time.

frick Robbie Roberston.

quote:

---

Feel like this is a little known Levon song but one of my favorities

Hurricane

---

Nice! A year or so ago, I got a Japanese? copy of "American Son" from the Amazon Marketplace. It was like $7 or something, but I had to get the CD specifically to track down that song.

quote:

---

It didn't happen yet but I'm going.

---

Ooo that's awesome -- if you see a live stream link or something for us out-of-towners, that'd be rad