Get yer ya-yas out!
Thanks for doing a great job of educating me about various groups and also, entertaining me too with music like this piece. I haven't heard that song in I couldn't even being to recall how long it's been. Great reminder of a song from my past that I liked back then and still do.
Classic, huh?
I too love the song he choose to use! I think this is an excellent piece written on a really great band.
two more recent videos:
Gillian Welch with Old Crow Medicine Show performing The Weight (daily motion)
and...
Levon Helm Band Poor Old Dirt Farmer (yoo toob)
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I was lucky enough to open for The Band a few times..the last time was when Rick Danko was alive, and Billy Preston was taking Richard Manuel's place. Ha..that was a pretty good set, Dr S. I seem to remember having an especially good time at the after set.."seem" being the operative word.
Levon Helm has to be one of the best drummers I have ever seen play..his sense of time is a true marvel, something that will never be duplicated via sampling or drum machines. It's one of those.."how the hell can anyone play that good?" things. And if you EVER get a chance to see him play, up close..
Garth Hudson too..where did he come from to be able to play like that? To use the colors and outside riffs in the middle of that swamp music they were doing in 1970..so far ahead of his time, nobody ever knew. (Good example is his solo in The Shape I'm In..)
My favorite Band tune is "Daniel and the Sacred Harp"..something in the lyrics that was prophetic, for Richard especially. On the expanded Stage Fright lp (and I gots to disagree with you on this, I think this is one of the better albums) there's an alt take of the tune that lets everybody in on how they worked. Highly recommended for Music Fans like us.
and..(windy here in Chicago this morning 
..we often have a discussion around a theme..maybe I should expand this over at jpdotcom, that is if I ever get out of the holding pattern over Lake Michigan..anyway, it goes along these lines (this is not to steal this fine thread, just to build on it)..big Music Fans like us usually know the history behind groups and artists, simply because we like what they do and want to know more..Across the Great Divide is a fine background on The Band..but it still doesn't answer a question: You had these great canucks playing with a stone hillbilly (Ronnie Hawkins) and the fahnkiest swamp drummer in the universe (levon)..doing rockabilly and Ja know what else, probably "Misty" if Garth had anything to do with it..then, like a year later..you had the lp "Music from Big Pink".
so..just HOW the fahnk did they do that? get from point A to point B that is?
To answer your question, John, it most likely was Bob Dylan who took them from point A to point B, exposing them to his encyclopedic knowledge of indigenous American music styles. Robbie Robertson's songwriting certainly bears the marks of having spent long hours around Dylan. Remember, Dylan and The Band spent an entire year in that basement at Big Pink in virtual seclusion, messing around with nearly anything and everything musical and having one hell of a good time in general. The Basement Tapes, of which I believe several volumes have been released by now, provide some of the missing links.
Their first producer John Simon was also a key influence upon the direction they took. In reading several articles on The Band, I was unaware that Simon played such a huge role in the shaping of their sound; as I wrote in the main post, he was practically the group's sixth member. Simon is still active in the business and has an interesting website with all sorts of information, history, and samples.
just HOW the fahnk did they do that? get from point A to point B that is?
I think dr s is right to some extent about the Dylan influence since that was the same time Dylan released "John Wesley Harding" (with its traditional folk and country roots and religious themes). But also, even bands like the Stones were shifting to recording honky tonk and country themes and there were the Byrds and Roger McGuinn ("Sweethearts of the Rodeo") and the country rock and traditional influences of Gram Parsons and Gene Clark and Doug Dillard and a whole bunch of others working at the time - think Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and all those Family Dog shows at the Avalon Ballroom (everyone from Country Joe to Elvin Bishop to Janis Joplin to The New Riders (which included Jerry Garcia who was a famous banjo player, and Mickey Hart and Phil Lesh and Robert Hunter) and even the Grateful Dead who recorded songs like "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad" which is just an old hillybilly song. So I think the roots influences of blues, country, folk, R&B (and rock-a-billy and cajun and bluegrass and gospel and western swing and so forth) were all over the place back then and once a lot people moved back east and the psychedelic thing in SF wound itself out a lot of them turned to the traditions of blues and country and folk and so on for continued inspiration. I don't think they got so much from A to B as B was always there to begin with - underlying it all in one way or another - essentially part of the landscape (think Woody Guthrie, The Carter Family, Elizabeth Cotton, Bill Monroe etc...). Even Gillian Welch who was born in NYC and grew up in Los Angeles (her parents were songwriters for the Carol Burnett Show) but sounds like she grew up in Harlan County or the Big Stone Gap credits listening to Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys while in college as her inspiration for her eventual music direction and evolution.
You had these great canucks playing with a stone hillbilly (Ronnie Hawkins) and the fahnkiest swamp drummer in the universe (levon)..doing rockabilly and Ja know what else, ... so..just HOW the fahnk did they do that?
Even the canucks have the great old traditional Scot/Gaelic music of the Cape Breton fiddle and piano players (The Rankin Family, and others). And Louisiana's cajun's are decendants of Acadia (Nova Scotia, etc). French cadien canucks. They were run out of Novia Scotia and New Brunswick in the 1700s (The Great Derangement) by the British and settled in the swamps of Louisiana.
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And speaking of Canada (and going from A to B). Here's a video clip from the film Festival Express featuring a really fucked up Rick Danko acting like a weirdo and singing "Ain't No More Cane" (recorded on Basement Tapes) with Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and a bunch of other people on a train bound for somewhere.
Here's a video clip
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I edited the tag on your last comment, farmer.
As noted in the main post, "Acadian Driftwood" is the story of The Great Derangement. Ethnic cleansing goes back a long ways on this continent.
Ok Ok you guys..I know about the transformation and back to the roots deal and all..and surely that happened, though the musicians in the Band (except for Garth who was actually schooled) learned how to play on the gig, which meant they were basically 50's rockabilly cats anyway..that explains SOME things..but geebus, going from a Ronnie Hawkins tune to The Weight. or even stranger, Chest Fever..is a HUGE leap over some boundaries that weren't even there in 1969, if you catch my Arcadian Drift.
I can hear "country" in that Byrds stuff, even Graham Parsons, though it also sounds like dilettantes playing around most of the time, and later on in The Band's career, you can hear the roots come poppin' back. Maybe it was John Simon, Dr S, I don't know..or the basement , but when I listened to that stuff, well it sounds like a LOT of basements I been in (albeit without the Zimmer-man)at 2AM on certain stuff..
One thing I wanted to mention yesterday was the actual SOUND these guys made live..you can listen to recordings all you want, but until you are in a room, and ideally a room with no people in it, like at a sound check..that's when you hear the Goods. And these guys played Old School. I've played with Chuck Berry, Johnnie Johnson, and a lot of the Chicago greats..and it was the same..the frame of reference that shoots out has NOTHING to do with The Beatles or anything past them..and it has everything to do with that wonderful period of american music when even if people weren't formally trained, even if they didn't have a "music degree"..they could play the beegeebus out of their instruments. And that is also where the junction is..what Carl Perkins and Luther Perkins and little Walter and Levon Helm and Speedy West all had in common..the love of real music and the desire to play it.
Hooray! You are back to the album project. The Band is part of many of our playlists.
but geebus, going from a Ronnie Hawkins tune to The Weight. or even stranger, Chest Fever..is a HUGE leap over some boundaries that weren't even there in 1969, if you catch my Arcadian Drift.
But --- what i meant --- was the transition from Hawkins to The Band and Big Pink was a gradual process (and a lot of sound checks and cellar steps in between). Its not like they lept from Dizzy Miss Lizzy and Early Morning Rain to Chest Fever in an afternoon in Bob's basement. Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir and Ron McKernan were playing Lightning Hopkins tunes and calling themselves Mother McGee's Uptown Jug Band in 1964. How'd they get from Mother McGee's in 1964 to Anthem of the Sun in 1968? My point i was trying to get at (i guess) is that it wasn't necessarily a HUGE leap but rather and gradual evolution (like you say, lots of basements and sound checks and musicians playing together, sharing ideas, influences, etc... as any group of artists would operate). And like you said, "the love of real music and the desire to play it" and to remake it in their own way... and git out there and do it. For what its worth, The Band and The Dead always seemed very similar too me stylee wise, musical trajectories, experimentation, etc... whatever that means. But I don't think of it as a huge leap, just a lot of regular old leaping and lurching and flailing around that eventually adds up to a collection of mighty interesting driftwood rolling around on the beach. Even "Acadian Driftwood".
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edited the tag on your last comment, farmer.
thanks dr s. i was hoping you might do that (sloppy copy and paste waste and all that).
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I tend to agree with the farmer here. All that folk and blues and R&B was always out there for the taking; it just needed a generation of musicians with the curiosity to explore it and incorporate it into the pop realm. Over on the other side of the water, the trip The Beatles made from the Reeperbahn to "Revolution #9" or the Stones made from greasy Muddy Waters covers at the Marquee Club to "Sympathy For The Devil" was no less curious and amazing.
This brings up something that I don't think gets commented upon near enough by the scribes and historians. The mid-60's were one of those rare periods in pop culture where the suits got out of the way for a few years and let the creative people do what they did best. You saw this in music, the movies, nearly everywhere important. The old geezers running the industry didn't understand one bit of what was going on, but they were shrewd enough to realize that it was making tons of money, so they just stepped back and quietly took their cut. As the 70's wore on, those old geezers were replaced by young suits who thought they were hip; they thought they understood enough that they could stick their noses in the creative end and make even more money. Slowly they regained control over the entertainment industry, and the creative window of opportunity squeezed shut.
I think I am becoming a "get off my lawn" kinda guy lately, sorry.
I don't know about the suits, though at various times in that period, I felt their presence..at parties, in offices..that awful "hip" thing..especially in the early/mid 70's. Paul Schaeffer in Spinal Tap was dead on. But after a while, the whole emperor's new clothes deal became painfully apparent, as they were suddenly "producers". And the last 20 years or so, the "managers" are all lawyers, because the suits would only talk to a lawyer to hand over the $$.
So yea, the MI is dead, but...
hey, you kids..get away from that bean stalk! hey you...
to be contd'.
Since The Band was one of those groups that 'Rolling Stone' critics when apesh** over, naturally I resisted them for a long time, but over time, they grew on me. I'm rather partial to "Chest Fever" and their remake of Frogman Henry's "I Ain't Got No Home". Very sad that drugs and inner demons did Richard Manuel and Rick Danko in--they were both fine musicians, as were the other three.
@hollandscomet: I know it was a choice of words thing, but YO!!! Garth, Levon and ok, Robbie I guess, but G and L especially, still ARE fine musicians..as in right now, today, go hear them.
Dr S..the pole bean patrol is getting to me..
John, I don't think it's the pole beans. Just be careful when you're handling the weeds that grow between them.
The Michael Jackson thing is coming, I promise. You guys know that I can't let him pass without writing something on him. I'm trying to write a few words here and there when I get a chance at work.
one of those groups that 'Rolling Stone' critics when apesh** over, naturally I resisted them for a long time,
thats a kind of interesting statement. especially considering the critical acclaim John and partners got at the time too. dunno what to make of it. i never heard anyone say that they rejected music like The Band because something like RS praised them. (shades of the punk backlash rising?) Geez John, maybe rolling stone and others shoulda left ya alone.
But, no matter how i sort it, my sorta view all along is that big memphis geetars can live on forever because they are just part of american root stock (ducking.... running away!)
hell, even Jorma is playing old time tunes now.
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I've kicked this around with Holland some at his place. It was a common attitude in the Midwest back in the 70's and 80's - critics generally despised the big-time arena bands like Styx and Journey, but since you and all your friends thought they were great, it stood to reason that the critics were full of shit, thus anything they liked was suspect. It worked the same way with movies. Punk backlash had nothing to do with it - where I came from, nobody had even heard of punk, except for the skinny-tie weirdos on campus, and those of us with Rolling Stone subscriptions.
Critics hear far more music than the average person does, which has to be taken into consideration when reading reviews. Often they base their judgments on comparisons with records you've never heard. Rock criticism today is a dying art, but back in the day people like Dave Marsh, Robert Christgau, Greil Marcus and Lester Bangs wrote so well they made you curious to hear the records they were reviewing, and my musical horizons were expanded quite a bit because of what they wrote. Those guys were also all staunch political liberals, and they became a big influence on my thinking in that area as well.
just to be clear, that should read above: me ducking, running away.
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Punk backlash had nothing to do with it...
I see.
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Disco backlash, on the other hand, was for real.
Disco backlash, on the other hand, was for real.
I'm not exactly sure we are reading from the same ink blot here but when i said "punk backlash" i meant the punk music scene and fan backlash against the establishment recording industry and suits and media and established/popular music of the time (including the the whole arena hair-band thing), etc and so on.
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I think we are. Although I might have brought up a new subject.
As I said, farmer, the punk backlash as you described it simply didn't happen in St. Louis, Kansas City, or any of the other places I hung out in the late 70's/early 80's. There was a scene in those places, but it was small; you'd see the same 1000 people at every show. In Wichita I knew practically the entire punk/New Wave scene on a first name basis. Although we did produce the highly respectable The Embarrassment.)
What I was meaning to say was that a lot of the popularity of hard rock and arena rock at that time was driven by a reaction against disco. I think everyone who was around back then remembers the day they blew up the disco records at Comiskey Park.
hey..get away from my torino..hey yo
"disco backlash" is a strange subject. Steve Dahl, an untalented blowhard dj was trying to goose his ratings in Chicago by appealing to the "real people" (code: white working class males 18-24) by mocking the Sat Night fever "disco" sub genre and touting Ted Nugent, etc, which was, you know, REAL MUSIC.
In Chicago, one of the most segregated cities in the US of A, the disco thing was divided into 3 groups 1) Italian 'merikans who embraced the John Travolta/Sat Night Fever lifestyle 2) Old swinger guys with too many gold chains at $$$ discos on Rush Street, the old ennertainment district and 3) the largest group, the working class afro 'merikan community, for whom "disco" was just you know, good dance music. Of course since Dahl was ignored by group 3 and to a lesser extant by groups 2 and 1..it didn't really matter a rat's behind.
I apologize for the mass simplification of the last pargraph, but there ya go duude.
IMNSHO, the crap (Steeex, Ted, UFO..) that Dahl shilled on his radio show (the station he was on played a big part in shilling a single a band I was in had released, due in no small part to certain "gratuities" made to the program director.)was as bad, no, WORSE because it was absolutely humorless. ..
so what's worse..JT as Tony doin the do or Ted Nugent in a loincloth doin the do?
Anyway, afa punk backlash..I kind of agree with Dr S, as the same faces always turned up , and the bands (I am sorry to say) were really awful, except for one or two who had ringers from d'jass pool, guys who liked the nyc no wave scene. None of these people ever did anything, and 99% of them quit music a long time ago. And as usual I agrees with the farmer, because while all that mess was going on, you could still hear real music..which, same as it ever was, was ignored for the most part, and for all the parts, by the $$$$$ ennertainment industry.
otoh, I heard some absolutely great music last night at a dive in town, and am fahnking inspired today.
I admit to having a fondness for a lot of that hoary old arena rock, though, because it was what you heard on the radio, at parties, and when you were out cruising and getting baked. But I was also one of the fortunate ones that got exposed to the good stuff at an early age. I tried the best I could to spread my good fortune to others during my brief radio career, usually to no avail.
As I said, farmer, the punk backlash as you described it simply didn't happen in St. Louis, Kansas City, or any of the other places I hung out in the late 70's/early 80's.
ok, but i never suggested it did. (i never described it the way you seem to think i did) i originally asked the question "shades of the punk backlash rising?" just as an afterthought to hollandscomet's comment about naturally resisting critical praise for groups like The Band back then - thinking that his reaction may have come from some punk scene fan reaction at the time (for all I knew hollandscomet may have worked for Slash records in 197
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Right, and I think you explained what you actually meant pretty well. And as I suggested earlier, I wound up turning it into a whole new subject, perhaps inadvertently, but you, me, and John got some good mileage out of it anyway, and perhaps even learned a thing or two from each other we didn't know before.
For the record, Holland was going to high school in Kansas City in 1978.
cool. i feel better now. sometimes i'm not sure if i'm making any sense or not. it makes sense to me at the time but sometimes I'm not sure that in the tumble and roll and timeline of the call and response of a comment thread all the dots get connected.
anywayzzzzzzzz...
hey yoooo keedz, mow my lawn!
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