Greil Marcus of Rolling Stone magazine, writing in 1975, described The Band as "committed to the very idea of America: complicated, dangerous, and alive. Their music gave us a sure sense that the country was richer than we had guessed.”
That statement is absolutely true.
The Band had a mythology from the beginning. Nobody really knew the members’ identities at first. They had spent years as road warriors The Hawks, backing rock and roll wild man Ronnie Hawkins as he blasted across North America in a pre-Beatles 1960s. Plucked from obscurity, they emerged as the backup band when Bob Dylan decided to go electric in 1965, surviving a tour on which their lives (and livelihoods) were threatened.
It seemed, though, The Band could do it all. They were comfortable being a tight rock and roll band, even a bar band. But they could also dig deeper than the basics to become more thoughtful, more experimental.
Robbie Robertson, the primary songwriter and lead guitarist for The Band, spent the past few decades as the keeper of the legacy of the group. While it was most definitely not “his” band — there were five guys who made it happen — Robertson’s style as a player and substance as a songwriter cemented the ensemble’s reputation as roots music pioneers.
When Robertson passed away last week, I revisited The Band’s recorded output and various documentary films about them. They were perhaps the greatest lineup of musicians ever assembled. Each member of the group played multiple instruments, wrote songs, and had an encyclopedic knowledge of music history and theory. And they could rock.
Quite a feat for four Canadians and a guy from Arkansas.
Richard Manuel (vocals, keyboards, drums, a multitude of other instruments); Garth Hudson (keyboards and every woodwind or brass instrument known to man); Robbie Robertson (guitar, vocals); Rick Danko (vocals, bass, and anything else with a string on it); and Levon Helm (drums, vocals, and also any type of stringed instrument) were either so anonymous — or so good — only one name suited them: The Band.
The recording of their first two albums at a rented house called Big Pink in Woodstock, New York during 1968 and 1969 seemed to be everything a musician could ever hope for: deep collaboration, fine musicianship, a shared sensibility of what needed to be said and done with the songs and arrangements. They also had a sympathetic producer in John Simon who helped to arrange the songs, engineering the recordings as if they came from an unearthed 19th century hymnal.
Had they never recorded nor performed again after those first two records — loaded with classics such as “The Weight,” “Tears of Rage,” “Rag Mama Rag,” “King Harvest Has Surely Come,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” “I Shall Be Released,” “This Wheel’s On Fire,” “Unfaithful Servant” and others — their reputation would have been cemented as purveyors of roots music, or the Americana genre, before it existed.
Robertson had such a way with a story. It was like these guys were living in some other time and sending messages through history. A great example is the protagonist of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”: Virgil Caine, suffering the indignities of the last days of the Civil War, tries to make sense of all that’s happening in the verses:
“Virgil Kane is the name and I served on the Danville train
'Till Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again
In the winter of '65 we were hungry, just barely alive
By May the 10th, Richmond had fell, it's a time I remember oh so well
Back with my wife in Tennessee when one day she called to me
"Virgil, quick, come see, there goes Robert E. Lee!"
Now, I don't mind chopping wood, and I don't care if the money's no good
You take what you need and you leave the rest but they should never have taken the very best
Like my father before me, 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 Caine back up when he’s in defeat.
Ralph J. Gleason, writing a review in Rolling Stone at the time of the song’s release, said: “Nothing I have read … has brought home the overwhelming human sense of history that this song does. It's a remarkable song, the rhythmic structure, the voice of Levon and the bass line with the drum accents and then the heavy close harmony of Levon, Richard and Rick in the theme, make it seem impossible that this isn't some traditional material handed down from father to son straight from that winter of 1865 to today.”
I really could not say it any better. “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is one of the greatest songs ever written. It’s not political; it’s human. Our main character is faced with one humiliation and loss after another, but we know he keeps going.
The Band soldiered on, too, until a final concert performance captured for the 1978 film “The Last Waltz.” They were the main attraction, but spent most of the film backing their heroes and friends, beautifully. It’s a one-stop resource for the cream-of-the-seventies crop: Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Muddy Waters, Dr. John, Emmylou Harris, the Staple Singers and many more. The performances are simply electrifying, and the interplay — not to mention the admiration — between the musicians is just a joy to witness.
When Robertson died last week, that left instrumental wizard Garth Hudson as the only living member of The Band. All the members of The Band contributed to the glowing musicality evident on record and in performance. Though time marches on, the music this amazing ensemble produced together will live into perpetuity thanks to the lasting beauty of the words penned by Robbie Robertson.
Michael Bird is a music teacher for Tallassee City Schools and co-hosts “The Saturday Morning Show with Michael Bird and Scott Adcock” on WACQ-AM 580 & FM 98.5.
