Dez's Top Rock/Pop, #23: The Band

The Long Fade Away

The Band is really only important because of their first two records. They are what their reputation is built upon. Yes, there are a handful of great (truly great) songs on subsequent albums, but it is Music From Big Pink (1968) and The Band (1969) that stand apart from the rest of rock and roll at the time. Those two records stand apart from The Band itself. They just appeared through divine intervention in a moonlit Southern field about a century earlier, and happened to be discovered in the late 60's by archeologists.

Neil Young famously sang “it is better to burn out than to fade away.” The entirety of the 1970’s was The Band fading away. Why did so many people (mainly critics and fellow musicians, because let’s face it, The Band was always most beloved amongst critics and musicians vs. the masses) hang on for so long? It wasn’t just the cache of being Dylan’s “Band” on his seismic first electric tour of ’66. Those first two records are so great, so deep, so covered in Southern soil (nevermind that four of the five members were Canadian) that they stand as documents from centuries gone by. Take “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” from The Band. In about four minutes, Robbie Robertson captured the battered Confederate psyche more completely than 10 hours of Ken Burns documentaries. Just look at the cover of The Band. This was 1969. Flower power in full bloom. The year of Woodstock. But this photo looks like a group of guys circa 1860’s, not the 1960’s. They were the ultimate organic musical group. All multi-instrumentalists, three lead singers, several songwriters (in the beginning at least, before the others gave up writing or Robbie forced them aside, depending on who you believe), these guys worked and lived together as family. The rhythm section of Rick Danko on bass and Levon Helm on drums is the funkiest white rhythm section of the era. “Up On Cripple Creek,” Exhibit A.


ABOVE: The Band's The Band

Music From Big Pink is so mysterious. Where the hell did “Chest Fever” come from? There is nothing else like it in their discography. Has an organ ever been recorded so fully on a rock record as Garth Hudson's on this tune? I think that part of what gives MFBP its mystery is that Robbie Robertson was sharing space with other songwriters on that record. Here, Richard Manuel is as important as Robbie. Yes, Robbie wrote “Chest Fever” and, of course, “The Weight.” But it is Richard who gives us the opaque “In a Station,” “We Can Talk,” and co-writing “Tears of Rage” with Dylan. And The Band is so timeless and perfect in every way, although even by this point Robbie had taken over. Were the others in decline and Robbie stepped in as a stabilizing force (Robbie’s version, which also includes his claim that he desperately tried to coax Richard to write more material) or did Robbie take over like a ruthless dictator (Levon’s version)?

The rest of The Band’s discography is rather pedestrian with flashes of greatness. Why is that? I think it is because they had ceased to work as a cohesive musical unit with input from several talented members and became, well, a band under Robbie’s guidance. As great as each member was, their soul was Richard Manuel. And after the second album he began to fade. He lost his writing touch, he lost his inspiration and he spiraled into a haze of alcoholism which culminated in his tragic suicide in a motel bathroom in Florida in the early 80's. His emotional voice remained intact, though, and Robbie continued to feed him sometimes inspired material like the sadly prophetic “The Shape I’m In” (from Stagefright).

All star farewell / kiss-off The Last Waltz is wonderful musically, but watch the fascinating Martin Scorsese film (Robbie and Marty were coke buddies in the late 70’s, living and working together). The Last Waltz was all Robbie’s idea, and watch the uncomfortable scenes with Robbie and Levon as they pretend to happily recall the old days. But the key to the non-musical parts of The Last Waltz film is the wreck that Richard Manuel is in by that time. His incoherent retelling of their early lean days is sad, sweet and hard to watch. Incredibly, as incoherent and rambling as it is, you can tell Scorsese edited it heavily to try to make sense of it. But God is the music still great. I don’t think the Band have ever been better than on “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” with Allan Toussaint’s wonderful horn arrangement and Levon Helm singing the song with all that he has, as if he knew that this was indeed the last time he would ever sing this song with the original Band and with all his anger at Robbie for unilaterally ending the party.


ABOVE: "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" from the film The Last Waltz

What To Listen To:
As stated above, Music From Big Pink and The Band are absolutely essential listening. Start there. The third album, Stagefright, is good, while not on the level of what came before. After that, it gets spotty, but there are fantastic songs here and there. I can’t recommend The Last Waltz enough, it is a killer live set with fantastic musical guests, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Dr. John, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Paul Butterfield…even Neil Diamond shows up. The Band tear through many of their own classics, backed by wonderful horn arrangements from Allen Toussaint, and then ably back up their guests on their tunes. See the Martin Scorsese-directed film as well. If you want to spend some dough and really dive into The Band, then their box set, A Musical History, is superb and full of worthwhile rarities alongside all of the essentials.