Part of my cultural ignorance as a child of the 60’s has been that I’d never seen The Last Waltz. I saw it two nights ago. Seldom does a movie that’s been hyped, as this one has been to me on so many different fronts, live up to its reputation. I’d say this one exceeds its reputation. I’ve never been a huge fan of The Band – I spent the 70’s listening to Gentle Giant, Steppenwolf, Renaissance, Yusef Lateef and such. Most of my buds in college were into Southern rock, which just drove me further away from The Band. Not that I hated everything they did – I’ve always loved a few songs of theirs.
But the thing that struck me in the movie is that they exhibited such incredible musicianship. It’s always amazing to see a bassist or drummer singing while playing a very different accompaniment line, but with these guys it went so much beyond that. They accompanied Clapton, Muddy Waters, Neil Young, all well, but the highlight for me was them playing backup to Joni Mitchell on Coyote. The original accompaniment included (IIRC) Larry Carlton and Jaco Pastorius, and they did it to a tee. It’s wonderful that they showed both their success as a first-rate band, but also that they deserved their reputation as the consummate backup band.
I love the Band, and I love the Last Waltz. My favorite moment is when a brightly-clothed Van Morrison, having done his set, trampses off-stage in the middle of a song. Priceless.
The band had been on the road for maybe 8 or 10 years before Music from Big Pink came out. I suppose you could be on the road all your life and learn almost nothing but they seem to have soaked up all the music they heard on the journey and every trick for presenting a tight and meaningful backing.
There is a great box set out of their material right now.
Here’s what I want to say about The Band. If you listen to an album like Music from the Big Pink, and you think about how young rock & roll was, in a sense, only a few years old, and then you realize that, in the best sense of the words, that music sounds like it was made by very mature musicians who were playing a form of music that had existed for a 100 years–it’s just boggling.
Agreed. The box set is good because it seems to pick up on just those later tracks that are worth having without your having to wade through the rest.
The first two albums and about half the third set a new standard for roots-inspired rock and they have yet to be equalled I think. A lot of musicians were shamed by those albums to drop the self-indulgent but vacuous solo. Like the Meters, they knew that groove is the foundation of everything and that less is usually more. After that it’s a couple of gems per album, except for the Rock of Ages live album which is awesome.
Apparently they lived very wild lives throughout their period of fame which really was such a waste.
I think the story is that Eric Clapton had a string break or some other technical problem and Robbie’s solo was unplanned and covered Clapton while he restrung.
Funny, but I’ve never enjoyed The Last Waltz as much as I think I should, given how much I like most of the performers, especially The Band (and that they included Ferlinghetti in the festivities!). There’s a kind of “rock royalty” quality about the evening, that seems to me to run counter to what I liked so much in “Big Pink,” “The Band,” and “Rock of Ages”–that it was about collective musicianship, maybe even fellowship, rather than stardom. I used to argue with friends that Roberston was one of the best rock guitarists exactly because he wasn’t Clapton or Beck, but because he knew exactly what to do and when to make it all sound right. Levon’s dissatisfaction with the procedings is pretty evident too, even more so if you’ve read his memoir.
But I’d love to see a video of the “Rock of Ages” concerts, eh?
Indeed..but the Royals were not living on family wealth and fame. Every single one of them were there on their own merit.
The whole mob on stage between them, broke and rebuilt the hearts and souls of a generation.
There is not one person around here who has not wept or cried at the utter beauty that any one of those on stage provided through their work.
Dylan, Joni, Neil Young, Van the Man… and thats before I even begin to think about Muddy Waters and the good Doctor…
As the great and unique Ferlinghetti said..Yay Man.
They were, always, a musician’s band!
