All language subtitles for BBC.Once.Were.Brothers.1080p.HDTV.x265.AAC.MVGroup.org_Track03

HE STRUMS GUITAR

This guitar was
the beginning of it all for me.

HE PLAYS

I don't have
much of a process of, like,

"I'm thinking about this,

"and now I'm going to write a song,
and it's going to be about that."

A lot of times,

the creative process is trying
to catch yourself off guard.

And you sit down,
and you've got a blank canvas,

and you don't know
what you're going to do,

and you just see what happens.

How you doing, man?

When you talk about songs
that are reflective of your past,

it becomes a jigsaw puzzle,

because you write
about what you know.

You write about where you've been.

You write about who you know.

When I stumbled onto this song,
Once Were Brothers...

..it really did, for me,

zero in on The Band.

# Once were brothers

# Brothers no more

# We lost our connection

# After the war... #

I don't know
of any other group of musicians

with a story equivalent

to the story of The Band.

And it was a beautiful thing.

It was so beautiful,
it went up in flames.

# Brothers no more... #

MUSIC: Up On Cripple Creek
by The Band

# When I get off of this mountain

# You know where I want to go

# Straight down
the Mississippi River

# To the Gulf of Mexico

# To Lake George, Louisiana... #

There is no band that emphasises

coming together and becoming

greater than the sum
of their parts than The Band.

Simply their name -
The Band - that was it.

# Up on Cripple Creek
She sends me

# If I sprang a leak
She'd mend me

# I don't have to speak
She defends me

# A drunkard's dream
If I ever did see one

# Good luck had just stung me

# And to the racetrack I did go

# I bet on one horse to win

# And she bet On
another to show... #

I've never been
in a band that long.

I ran away, usually,
and would move on

to the next thing that was
attractive to me,

or that was missing in the band
I was in. So I didn't

have a sense of brotherhood,

so I was in great awe
of their brotherhood.

It was the soul of The Band.

# She mends me
I don't have to speak

# She defends me
A drunkard's dream

# If I ever did see one... #

Not only did they
have the incredible writing,

you know, Robbie's writing,
but they had three

of the greatest white singers
in rock history.

To have any one of those guys
would be the foundation

for a great band. To have three
of them in one group,

that was...just loaded for bear.

# That's when that
little love of mine

# Dips her doughnut in my tea

# Up on Cripple Creek... #

This music drew upon country music,

English, Scotch, Irish, the choral
sounds of the Welsh.

At the same time,

Mississippi Delta, the blues.
And there was so much imagery.

This...just didn't
seem like anything else.

No-one sounded like those guys.

You know, they came in,
and they played.

And I just loved that about them,
you know, they were about the music.

# And she defends me

# A drunkard's dream
if I ever did see one... #

# No-no, hu-hu

# Lodl-lodl-lodl-uh-hu... #

I think about Levon, Richard, Rick,
and Garth all the time.

We went through things together you
could never replace.

You can never give enough credit
to something that special.

I was an only child,

so this brotherhood was so powerful.

# Oh, I could get you
with my yodel, I go

# No-no, hu-hu

# Lodl-lodl-lodl-lodl-lodl-uh-hu

# No-no-hu

# Lodl-lodl-lodl-uh-hu

# No, no, no, no, no. #

I think we're warmed up.

Since I was a kid, I see stories
in a different way.

I don't see them like fairy tales.

These stories are powerful,

and some of them are
dangerous and big.

Maybe that's because
my upbringing was

a little bit scattered
and not normal, in some ways.

My mother was born and raised
in the Six Nation Indian reserve.

Her name was Dolly.

When she was around 16 years old,

she was sent to live
with an aunt in Toronto.

When we would go back to visit
the relatives in the Indian reserve,

I thought this was
a magical place.

It seemed like every day,

when the sun started to go down,

the instruments would come out.

And I could sit in the
middle of this,

and hear the fingers
on the strings,

and the hands rubbing
on the skins of the drum.

My parents got me a little guitar

with a cowboy painted on it.

I already know

a couple of chords on the guitar

that my relatives at
Six Nations have taught me.

I would practise and practise.

"This is where I belong.

"This is calling me."

I don't know for sure

whether I would ever have found
my way to music

without this experience...

..and that's why I have

such a deep appreciation
for that place.

And then we crossed into a time zone

when I was 13 years old.

MUSIC: Johnny B Goode
by Chuck Berry

Overnight, out of nowhere,

this new music came pouring out.

# Deep down in Louisiana
close to New Orleans

# Way back up in the woods
among the evergreens

# There stood a log cabin
made of Earth and wood

# Where lived a country boy
named Johnny B Goode

# Who never ever learned
to read or write so well

# But he could play a guitar
just like a-ringin' a bell

# Go, go... #

SPRINGSTEEN: For guys my age,
it was a life-altering moment.

Like, it just cut against the grain

of the mundaneness of
entertainment at that time.

You know, it's raw, it's loud,
it's raucous, it's tough.

You know, the guitar sound
is loud and thrilling.

It immediately imparted
to you this entire new way

of living, of looking, of walking,
of talking, of being,

of the possibilities of what you
might be able to do with your life.

It was a revolutionary moment,
you know.

I thought of it as
my own personal Big Bang.

# Lucille

# You won't do your sister's will

# Lucille

# You won't do your
sister's will... #

I thought, "That's it.

"I don't know what all
you people are going to do,

"but I know what I'm going to do."

Within weeks,

I was in my first band.

We were off and running.

# I'm walkin', yes, indeed

# And I'm talkin'
about you and me

# I'm hopin'

# That you come back to me... #

My schoolmates, they're like,

"One of these days, I want to have
my own bowling alley."

I'd be like, "Oh, my God,
your own bowling...

"You could bowl for free
all you wanted, right?"

I don't have that vision.

I saw something else, and the lights
were really bright.

Within a couple years,
we were getting somewhere,

booking different
shows around Toronto.

A local DJ booked us to open

for Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks.

# Well, I had a little woman

# And her name was Baby Jean... #

Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks had

a reputation to be the best

rockabilly band around.

# Baby Jean
Baby Jean

# Don't be mean... #

These guys were up there

with Jerry Lee Lewis,
Conway Twitty,

Carl Perkins,
they were in that league.

# My baby

# Well, I learned to
lose my mind... #

We didn't know
anything about Canada.

We figured, Canada is the
wilderness, they've still got

mountain men, you know, eating
each other, stuff like that.

We didn't know nothing
about Canada. Boy, and Canada is

the promised land compared
to where we came from.

We played our hearts out.

Then Ronnie Hawkins
and the Hawks take the stage.

Oh, my God. They took flight.

# ..back home

# I'm going to call up a gypsy woman
on the telephone

# I'm going to send out
a worldwide hoo-doo there

# That'd be the very thing
that'd suit you

# I'm going to see that she'll be
back home in 40 days

# Oh, 40 days
40 days... #

Ronnie Hawkins was over here.

Boom, he was over there.

He was singing just in time.

The piano player would be
playing a solo,

keys would be flying off the piano,
he was hitting it so hard.

There was a guy playing drums

who looked like he was 15 years old,

with white-blonde hair,

and he was twirling sticks, and
he was laughing, and smiling,

and he just seemed
to glow in the dark,

and his name was Levon Helm.

Well, I started with
Ronnie when I was trying

to get out of high school
back in Arkansas.

Ronnie was putting a band together.

I got into it to play drums.

We hit the road,
played around for years,

and ended up playing up in Canada.

# That'd be the very thing
that'd suit you... #

"This is it. This is the most
amazing thing on the planet Earth."

After they played,
I just stand around.

I wanted to help out
in any way I could,

to have this rub off on me -

this music, this talent,

this southern-ness.

I stack to them like glue.

I knew right off the bat Robbie had
something special.

I don't know, he must've been
15 or 16 years old.

# Baba Lou...

But he was hip.
Robbie was street hip.

He was a hell of a young man.

One day, I heard Ronnie Hawkins
saying to the other guys,

"I got to cut a new record.
I need some songs."

I scampered home, went to my room,

and never came out
until l wrote two songs.

# I will love her till my dying day

# Don't know why she left

# Left me this way

# Left me here all alone

# To sit and cry on my own... #

Robbie was writing songs
when he was 15 years old.

I recorded two of said songs
on my album

before anybody ever thought
about Robbie Robertson.

At that time,
Robbie dropped out of school.

His mother, Dolly,
she was worried about him.

There had been quite a period

where my parents weren't
getting along.

My father, Jim Robertson,

was being quite abusive
with my mother,

and with me.

And one day she said to me,

"Sit down, I...

"I need to tell you something.

"And maybe I should've
told you this before,

"but he's not your real father."

"W-What?

"I... What do you mean,
he's not my real father?"

Robbie's real daddy was
a Hebrew gangster.

Yeah, they killed him,
they shot him on

Yonge Street, I think.

My mother says,

"Your blood father,
his name was Alexander Klegerman.

"He got killed before you were born.

"He's Jewish."

And she introduced me to the
relatives of my blood father,

Natie Klegerman
and Morrie Klegerman.

They bring me into their world

with tremendous love and affection.

I met his uncle who'd been
in the penitentiary ten years.

He was a gangster too.

Through these relatives of mine,

I'm understanding
what's been stirring

inside of me all this time.

They understand vision.

They understand ambition.

When I told the Klegermans
I had musical ambitions,

they were like, "Rock and roll?
You don't want to be

"in furs and diamonds?
You want to be in the...?"

And then they were like,
"Oh, you mean, show business."

I'm 16 years old now.

Ronnie Hawkins says, "I want
you to come down to Arkansas

"and try out
to become one of the Hawks."

If I didn't go down there
and try out for this,

I would be sorry
the rest of my life.

I sold my '56 Stratocaster,

I got the money
to take a train from Toronto

to Fayetteville, Arkansas.

I'm going to the Mississippi Delta -

to the fountainhead of rock and
roll.

"This is it, this is it.
I've got to make this work."

# I can't do it all by myself... #

So many amazing music people
came out of there.

# You got to help me, baby

# I can't do it all by myself

You know if you don't
help me, darling.. #

This music is down and dirty.

And it's heavy,

just like the air.

LEVON: Growin' up there
in the Delta,

just in the Memphis,
West Memphis area there,

we had as good a radio
as you could find.

Our jukeboxes and radios
weren't running short of good songs.

I consider myself fortunate to have

grown up there and heard
the kind of music that I did.

Robbie was a hell of a gifted
musician, I can tell you that.

But what made him better
than anybody else is

he worked twice as hard.

Finally, Ronnie says,

"I'm going to offer you the job."

I say, "You'll never have
to tell me to work harder."

He said, "I know."

So I say, "Great. How much will
I get paid working for you?"

And I said, "Well, don't worry
about the money, kid.

"You ain't going to make much money,

"but you'll be getting
more pussy than Frank Sinatra."

"And he did.

# Hey, Bo Diddley

# Hey, Bo Diddley... #

I depended on Levon
to show me the road.

He had grown, in my eyes,

bigger than life.

When he laughed, everybody laughed.

They were the best friends
you could ever be.

They were like Huckleberry Finn
and Tom Sawyer.

It was a hell of a combination,
I thought,

because Levon could put the
arrangements and stuff together

and do all that, and Robbie
could write the songs.

When I saw Robbie play guitar,
it just blew my mind.

Every guitar player in Toronto
learned from Robbie.

He changed the whole ball
game up here.

I can remember people discussing,

"How does Robbie make
that guitar sound?"

That was the big mystery.

There was, like,
stories going around that,

"Oh, he slashed his speakers, broke
a couple of tubes in the amp."

Every guitar player I met after
that was doing the same thing.

I watched them all change
from their old style of playing

to the new Robbie style of playing,
and I was...

..I was one of the pack.

Ronnie depends on Levon and I

to help him choose musicians

that have potential.

Ronnie wants to have
the best band in the land.

Have you ever heard me sing?

I'll better have a good band!

The Arkansas boys would quit
and Ronnie would replace

with a Canadian musician.

Within a fairly short time, we had
Richard, Rick,

and when Garth finally
joined the outfit,

I think that gave us a leg up.

We didn't know a musician
that could do what he could do.

Garth understood Muddy Waters

and Bach in the same sentence.

Richard was an
incredibly beautiful soul.

You couldn't help
but just love the guy.

It was kind of like boot camp.

I mean, we drove ourselves
to as near perfection

as we could get, you know?

To the point where we'd
really thrill each other.

Rick was one
of these people that was like,

"Trombone, bass, tuba, violin.
Whatever it is, I can do it."

RICK: We were kids playing in bars

that you were supposed
to be 21 to play in.

We were 17, 18, 19.

It can get pretty outrageous when
you're out there that young.

# Further on up the road

# Someone going to hurt you
like you hurt me

# Further on up the road... #

RONNIE: Robbie's mom, Dolly,

she helped the band
out more than anybody.

She would give them
places to stay cheap,

fed 'em, cooked. She did everything.
She was somethin' else.

# Baby, just you wait and see... #

We played six days a week
and we practised five.

That's how come they got good.

They were probably the best
white rhythm and blues band

in the world at that time.

When they were young,

they were absorbing
all that knowledge quick.

They shot by me musically
like a bolt of lightning.

We were outgrowing the past

and the music that we were
playing with Ronnie.

When we left Ronnie, we ended up
playing at a club in New York,

and one day my friend,
John Hammond,

a great musician, blues singer,

he came and picked me up
at the hotel,

and we're going to the
Columbia Records Building,

to one of the studios.

We go in. I see over in the corner
this guy with dark glasses on

and frizzly hair, and John says,

"This is Bob Dylan."

MUSIC: Like A Rolling Stone
by Bob Dylan

# Once upon a time
you dressed so fine

# Threw the bums a dime
in your prime

# Didn't you...? #

Bob Dylan's
a really respected songwriter.

He was best known to me
as a folk singer with a guitar

and he has a harmonica,

and he sings his beautiful songs.

Folk music, from what we knew,

was happening over by
a university somewhere,

and people were
sipping cappuccinos,

listening to folk music.

Where we're playing, on the other
side of the tracks,

there ain't nobody
sipping cappuccinos over there.

LEVON: I didn't know a
whole lot about Bob.

We were more into
R&B and blues music.

When we left Ronnie,

I want to be something original,

I don't want to be a bar band.

I've got to come back to writing.

I'm having dreams
about finding a sanctuary,

finding a place that we can go,

and we can hone these skills,
and we're just not

on the road
driving to the next gig.

They were playing these gigs,
trying to get a recording deal.

I said, "Well, gee, you know,
how about we make a record together?

And I was signed to
Vanguard Records.

And they gave us, like,
a three-hour window to record.

I invited my friend Bob Dylan
to the recording day.

So I introduced them to Dylan.

And... And Dylan flipped out.

I mean, he thought these
guys were phenomenal.

What we didn't know

is that Bob's already doing
the rock and roll thing.

MUSIC: Maggie's Farm
by Bob Dylan

He wanted to hire an amazing band
that he could take on tour with him.

So he hired the guys.

MUSIC: Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
by Bob Dylan

# When you're lost in the rain

# In Juarez

# And it's Easter time too... #

Bob Dylan's thing
was like a detour.

We're hooking up with this guy,

and he's changing the
course of music.

He's like...

..the king of the folk movement

who now wants a rock and roll band.

Huh! That's not a bad thing
to experience along the way too.

We thought,
"Let's take that detour."

# They got some hungry women there

# And they really make a mess
out of you... #

We hook up with him,
and have no idea

that he's the only one
that thinks this is a good idea.

The rest of the world
hates this idea.

We play with him
and they boo us every night.

It is weird that people could

be this upset about this guy
just wanting to expand

his musical horizon

and play with other musicians.

MUSIC: Tell Me, Momma
by Bob Dylan

# Ol' black Bascom
don't break no mirrors

# Cold black water dog
make no tears... #

We'd go somewhere, we set up
our equipment, we play.

People come, they boo us,
sometimes throw things.

We'd pack up our equipment,

go on to the next place,

set up, play, they boo us.

I think, "What a strange way
to make a buck."

Kids would break for the stage,

cops were making
open-field tackles...

..out in front of the stage.

And Bob had told us, you know,

"Whatever happens,
just don't stop playing."

# Tell me, Mamma

# Tell me, Mamma

# Tell me, Mamma, what is it?

# What's wrong with you
this time...? #

Cool car!

Get the bass in with Robbie.
Let's go.

Let's go, we have to go now.
Hey, tell them we have to go.

Hey, don't pull my fingers!

So long. So long.
Don't boo me any more!

When they yell in
this weird nasal tone.

Oh. Jesus, you know,
I don't understand why they...

How can they buy
the tickets up so fast?

Let's get that light off.

Levon expressed to me that there was

something in this whole world

that we had entered into that
just didn't feel right to him.

And the idea that we would

go out and play
and people would boo us,

he thought that was just ridiculous.

And I... I was much closer to Bob
than the other guys were.

I don't think Levon felt good
about that, either.

# I bet you might
think it's foolish

# To be this way

# And am I sane?
To who?... #

One night, Levon comes

to my hotel room and he says,

"I don't like this music.
I don't like these people.

"I don't want to be here.

"And I don't want to be
in anybody's band.

"I want to go."

He didn't go
anywhere without me.

He said, "I'm going to go
down to New Orleans

"and maybe work on an oil rig
in the Gulf of Mexico."

And I said,
"Have you told the other guys?"

He said, "No, I haven't spoke
to the other guys.

"I'd like you to do that for me."

# Sometimes, you know... #

"Tell them I wish them well,
and I'll see them down the line."

So I walked him down the street,

and I put my arm around his
shoulders as we were walking along.

He felt beat up to me.

And I knew that he was
really in pain.

My heart was breaking.

My partner, my brother...

..has left, has gone.

I don't know how to do this

without Levon...

..but I'm going to have
to figure it out.

# Well, she hit a wall

# Back when I was young

# But you're headed out

# But I'll be here

# She knows she's the one... #

After Levon left,
we had to get another drummer.

Mickey Jones was his name,

and he was a terrific guy,

but, boy, they were
tough shoes to fill.

Levon left a big hole.

We play all over Europe,

and it just gets worse.

We were thinking,
"Maybe they don't like it here,

"but when we go there,
they'll probably feel differently."

No.

Being in the trenches with Bob
on this fight

probably reinforced their
relationship.

I think they became closer
under fire.

It's fun to revolt. Robbie's young,

and you know, throwin' it in the
faces of all these like, pissant,

you know, people that are
in tweeds, or whatever.

GEORGE HARRISON: I remember it well.
The show was in two halves.

In the first half,
Bob came out and did

his usual thing with the
guitar and the harmonica.

In the second half,
he came out with the band.

All through that second half,
people were getting up

and walking out, shouting, and Bob
just came out and he said,

"Well, you know, "You all
may know this song.

"Um, remember how it goes?

"Well, here's how it goes now."
You know?

MUSIC: Ballad Of A Thin Man
by Bob Dylan

I remember saying
to the other guys,

"This is good. They're wrong.

"This is good."

And then you realise,

you're in a musical revolution.

There is something going on here,

and you have nothing to
compare it to.

It just made us feel like
flexing our musical muscles.

"We're going to play this music
in your face."

DYLAN: The guys that were
with me on that tour,

you know, we were all
in it together.

We were puttin' our heads
in the lion's mouth.

I had to admire them
for sticking it out with me,

just for doing it,
in my book they were, you know...

..gallant knights for even,
you know, standing behind me.

# Mr Jones. #

One day, we were just taking a walk

and looking in stores.

I see two really pretty girls.

We're taking a wonderful walk.

It was the springtime in Paris.

There was a gathering of people
somewhere around the corner

who began to talk to us,
and asked us what we were doing.

In broken English, they say they're
journalists from Montreal.

I'm like,
"Wow! I'm from Canada too.

"I'm from Toronto."

And they look like,
"Oh, that's too bad."

And this whole thing at the time

between English-speaking
and the French-speaking,

they were in a revolutionary spirit.

This is when they were
putting bombs in mailboxes,

and it was rough going.

I'm on neutral territory,
I'm in Paris.

He looked like family to me
from the beginning.

It was like...I recognised him.

I am fancy dancing

the best I can to charm Dominique

into thinking I'm not a bad person,

I'm not the enemy.

And we've got to spend
some time together.

We went to the concert
at the Olympia,

and the crowd was roaring

in anger about electric guitars.

I didn't even realise
people were booing any more.

There was something
about her spirit.

There was something
about her eyes and her smile,

and it was a fire inside her.

Even though I didn't
speak his language,

I spoke a language that touched him.

I was definitely
falling in love with Robbie.

When we got back to New York City,

I invited her to come
and join me there,

and eventually she did.

The other guys
in the Hawks and myself

were trying to find a place

where we could
start working on our music.

Albert Grossman, Bob's manager,

he had a place up
in Woodstock, New York.

Albert was an anomaly in the world
of the record businesspeople.

He didn't wear a suit.

His had his hair tied back
in a ponytail.

He looked like an overweight
Benjamin Franklin.

Albert took very good care
of his artists.

But as far as dealing with
other people, he was shrewd.

Bob had moved up to Woodstock,
got a house.

Albert would go up there
on the weekends.

So Albert says,
"Come up to Woodstock.

"There's so much room up there.
You can get a place.

"You can make all
the sounds you want."

It was a very
welcoming possibility.

# He sits in your room

# His tomb with
a fistful of tacks... #

Rick found us this ugly pink house.

This is just what I've been dreaming
about all these years -

a sanctuary that we could

go and write and create.

Oh, my God, I mean, a...

..pretty corny house, you know?

But it was perfect.

So we moved up to Woodstock.

We built a little studio in the
basement, just for writing purposes.

Garth, Richard, and Rick

moved into this house.

I called Bob,
and I drive him out there

to show him the place.

And he comes in
and he looks at this basement,

and he sees all the instruments
set up there,

a little tape recorder,
some microphones.

He says, "Can you record music
in this place?"

And I was like, "Yeah, we've got
that little tape recorder.

"It's not...

"..you know, a recording studio,

"but it's pretty good
for writing and stuff. "

"He said, "Listen, I've got
a couple of song ideas

"I've been kicking around.
Maybe we could try them here."

Great! That's the spirit.

# Now look here, dear Sue

# You best feed the cats

# The cats need feeding

# You're the one to do it

# Get your head

# Feed the cats

# You ain't going nowhere... #

Bob would come by, you know,

every day for about a six,
seven-month period, and we'd...

..we'd get together every afternoon
six to seven days a week.

And just from us getting together
and applying ourselves,

a lot does come out of that.

In the living room, there
was a couple of typewriters,

because Bob wrote songs
on a typewriter.

And he'd say,
"Guys, let's go, let's go.

"I think I got something. Let's go."

We'd all go downstairs,
we would record it.

DYLAN: No, not any harmony,

but harmony in the
background like, "Ooh!"

# Whoa-oh... #
Yeah, right.

# Why, why? #

You know, just...
# Oh, why...

Every time I go to town

# The bars keep
kicking my dog around

# I don't know why I'm going to town

# I don't know
why they kick my dog around

# Let me hear you now!
Dog, dog, dog

# Dog, dog, dog... #

Working with Bob,
I saw a door opening.

He was making the possibility

of using poetry in songwriting

like I had never quite seen before.

It gave you a sense of liberty.

You used to think, "I don't know
if you can do that.

"I don't know, is it all right
to say that?

"Can you express things
in that kind of way?"

Boom - no rules.

# Well, that big, dumb blonde

# With her wheel gorged

# Turtle, that friend of hers

# With his cheque all forged

# And his cheeks in a chunk

# With his cheese in the cash

# They're all going to be there

# At that million-dollar bash... #

Robbie is a real artist.

He is an amazing creative force.

I never saw him without a little pad
of paper and a pencil,

writing notes about everything.

Some thought, some idea
that he could use later in a song.

# She reads the leaves

# And she leads the life

# That she learned so well

# From the old wives

# It's so strange to arrange... #

When Dominique was
becoming my girlfriend,

her connection to French literature,

poetry, music,

was rubbing off on me.

The path that I was
on intellectually,

boom, she altered it,

and I was being highly inspired

by what she was bringing
to the table as well.

# I can't get to you... #

Albert Grossman
was thinking about getting

the Hawks a record deal.

So he said, "You need to record

"a couple of your tunes
so I can play them

"for some record companies."

So we went into a studio,

and we got a session drummer.

I was really not satisfied

with what we did.

If you have a...a table
and one of the legs is missing,

it doesn't sit steady.

This was the sign,
it's time for him to come back.

We got to find Levon.

# Ain't no more cane

# On the Brazos

# Ooh, ooh, ooh... #

We tracked him down and we told him

about the place we had,
and that we were

going to get a record deal
and all of this,

and you could hear
the joy in his voice.

# You should've been on the river

# In 1910... #

I remember meeting him
and he was such a nice guy.

He was such a charming person.

There was a sense of relief

in the band that he was back,

and hopefully he would stay.

LEVON: Moved into the house there,
there was an extra spot for me,

and uh, started getting' together,
and just putting songs together.

I had the sense that Levon realised
he was coming back to a good thing.

They were on a salary, they were
able to make their own music.

Woodstock was full of
young people and lots of girls.

It was better than being
on an oil rig in the middle
of the Gulf of Mexico.

Robbie played the tapes that they
had made - The Basement Tapes.

# Katie's been gone

# Since the springtime

# She wrote one time
and sent her love

# Katie's been gone

# For such along time now... #

Levon's reaction was
so extraordinary.

He was blown away.

LEVON: We had never that kind of
time on our hands,

and there we are in the...

..in the Catskills, and we don't
have a show to play that night,

so we were enjoying it,
just sitting around, you know,

the freedom to go down
and play some music,

or go outside and throw
a football around at each other.

That was just part of a...

..a lifestyle that we got to love

in Woodstock, you know,
just being able to chap wood,

or hit your thumb with a hammer.

We'd be concerned
with fixing the tape recorder

and getting the songs together.

# We can talk about it now

# It's that same old riddle

# Only starting from the middle

I'd fix it but I don't know how... #

We had come out
with a different sound,

a different sensibility.

The music didn't
sound anything like what we did

with Ronnie Hawkins,
like anything we did

as Levon and the Hawks.

It didn't sound like
anything we did

with Bob Dylan on the infamous tour,

so having a new name
felt natural as well.

# Pulling that eternal plough

We've got to find a sharper blade

# Or have a new one made... #

In the town, people'd say,

"Oh, those guys, they play
with Bob. They're in the band."

And we kept hearing,

"the band," "the band," "the band."

And it felt unpretentious,

un-jivy,

un-cute.

Just strictly The Band.

RICK: We had done a lot of
pre-production work, of course,

at Big Pink. Robbie was doing
a lot of the songwriting,

you know, and doing
a lot more homework likely

than the rest of us.
It was just a question of us

arranging them,
and putting them together,

and making them
as strong as possible

and working together.

# We can talk about it now. #

I came back to the
house one evening.

I thought, "I got to do some writing

"for this record
that we're working on."

And I'm thinking, "What am I
going to write about?"

And I'm sitting there with a guitar,

noodling around.

I look in the guitar, and inside,

on Martin Guitars,

it talks about where they're made.

And they're made
in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

# I pulled into Nazareth... #

And it just, it was
all coming to me.

Going from Canada

down to the Mississippi Delta

when I was 16 years old,

characters and circumstances,

all of it started
to come back to me.

And when I got to this chorus...

HE PLAYS CHORUS TO "THE WEIGHT"

And I could hear these voices...

# And
And

# And

# You put the load right on me. #

And the whole thing
just blended together.

MUSIC: The Weight
by The Band

# I pulled into Nazareth

# Was feelin' about half-past dead

# I just need some place

# Where I can lay my head

# "Hey, mister, can you tell me
where a man might find a bed?"

# He just grinned and shook my hand

# "No," was all he said

# Take a load off, Fanny

# Take a load for free... #

We discovered a whole vocal thing

that we weren't aware that
we even had.

# And
And

# And

# You put the load right on me
You put the load right on me... #

I remember listening to playbacks

after the sessions
of songs and thinking,

"I really like this stuff.

"And...I don't have
anything to compare it to,

"but I really like it,
and I hope everybody else does

"cos I really think this is strong."

# I said, "Hey, Carmen,
come on, let's go downtown"

# She said, "I got to go,
but my friend can stick around"

# Take a load off, Fanny

# Take a load for free

# Take a load off, Fanny

# And
And

# And

# You put the load right on me
You put the load right on me... #

I was very excited
playing this record for Bob.

He hadn't heard a note of it.

The Weight comes on,

he's like, "Wait a minute.
Who wrote that?"

And I said, "I... I wrote that."

He said, "You wrote that?"

And I could just see
the pride in his eyes.

# He said "Do me a favour, son,

# "Won't you stay and keep
Anna Lee company?"

# Take a load off, Fanny

# Take a load for free

# Take a load off, Fanny

# And
And

# And

# You put the load right on me
You put the load right on me... #

SPRINGSTEEN: I think I was
in a little coffee shop

in Redbank, New Jersey.

A kid came in with
Music From Big Pink

and put it on the sound system.

It was late at night, after...

..after the place
was about to close down,

which was a fantastic moment

to be introduced
to that music, you know?

And suddenly this music comes on
and everything changes.

# Fought for the party
to kingdom come

# Sadly told his only son

# Just be careful what you do

# It all comes back on you... #

CLAPTON: When I heard
Big Pink, it was as if someone

had, like, nailed me
through the chest to the wall.

I was just immediately converted.

That was when Cream was
in its sort of, uh, mid-stage,

and pretty much severed
my connection with the other two

in the band. And I thought,
"This is what I want to do."

It changed my life.

They weren't reading out of
the modern book of music.

They went to the source.

As you'd say in the Caribbean,

"They was musical
to the core, to the bone".

If there was any American musicians

that were comparable
to what The Beatles were,

It would've been them.

# We've been sitting here
for so darn long

# Waiting for the end to come along

# Holy roaster on the brink

# I'd take a choice -
swim or sink... #

SPRINGSTEEN: This is the middle of
psychedelic era in popular music,

so something comes along

that is the antithesis
of where music had been moving.

Here come all these voices

that sound like you've never heard
them before,

and like they've always
been there, forever and ever.

# Oh, to be home again

# Down in old Virginny

# With my very best friend

# They call him Ragtime Willie

# We're going to soothe away
the rest of our years

# We're going to put away
all of our tears

# That big rockin' chair
won't go nowhere... #

It was very clear the moment
I met them

who they were
and what they were about.

They were very grounded.

They were very strong.
They were very secure.

They were gracious, like country
people are gracious,

and they were totally in love
with their music,

and they were in love
with each other.

I never saw any jealousy,
I never saw any arguments,

I never saw them disagree.

It was always supporting each other.

They were five brothers,

very clearly five brothers
who loved each other,

and I never saw anything but that.

In the '60s, part of the rebellion
was rejecting one's elders,

rejecting one's parents.

The guys in The Band wanted to say,

"Hey, that's not right.
We love our parents.

"They worked very hard to bring us
up and care for us."

And so they wanted to have a picture
of their families in the album.

# Would've been nice
just to see the folks

# Listen once again
to the stale old jokes

# That big rockin' chair
won't go nowhere... #

It was a magical time
within this group.

We're getting somewhere.

They made Big Pink
and then Robbie said,

"We want to go out on the road."

Then Rick drove
his car into a ditch...

..and broke his neck.

DOMINIQUE: It was a terrible
car accident.

Rick was found wandering
in the woods,

which is pretty extraordinary
for someone who has

just broken his neck.

He was taken to the hospital
and put in traction for

the longest time.

We were all quite scared as
to whether he would recover.

"We're cancelling everything."

Everything just stopped.

Music From Big Pink
becomes this thing,

and we don't show up.

We never play a concert.

They're like, "Who are these guys?"

We were becoming
the most mysterious people

in the music business.

After we recorded Big Pink,

there is that thing of like,

"Whoa, what do we do now?
Can we follow that up?"

I was working day and night
on musical ideas.

Rick got out of the hospital,
and then -

boom - we were back in the studio.

# Rag Mama rag

# I can't believe it's true

# Rag Mama rag... #

You hear timeless songwriting,

painting pictures
and telling stories.

A cohesion which is greater
than the sum of the parts.

They were the very first band

who got it together
in a country house,

which became a big thing.

When you shut out
the rest of the world

and the city,
and just concentrate on...

..music-making and performing
and each other,

you get a different sort of result.

# Up on Cripple Creek
She sends me

# If I spring a leak... #

Taking some of that roots music,

a little bit of Muddy Waters,

a little bit of Hank Williams,

no long guitar solos,

it was just simple,
straightforward music.

Nowadays we call it Americana.

I was in Boston.

I was sleeping on a coach,
and it was I Shall Be Released

was what came on.

I thought, "Oh yeah,
there's...there's something...

"I'm connecting with
something here."

That's what I thought.

I got an impression there was
a lot of mythology going on.

# Standin' by your window in pain

# A pistol in your hand... #

You'd never really heard a
sound like that.

It also it reminded me greatly
of 19th century literature,

American literature.

# Try and understand your man
the best you can

# Across the great divide

# Just grab your hat

# And take that ride... #

Particularly Melville.

There's something about the Melville
stories, and the sense of...

..searching The Band
brings to mind for me.

Each song is like
a little John Steinbeck novel.

Steinbeck also gives you these
images of America,

of dust bowl America.

# Unfaithful servant

# I hear you... #

I spent quite a bit of time
with The Band,

and one of the
things that Robbie said to me

was the fact that when
he wrote a tune,

he had all these different singers
who could sing the song.

And he could write lyrics,
like, to write a song

knowing that Levon
was going to sing it.

You know, you could be...

..you could write much different

to knowing if you were going
to have to do it yourself.

# Or did you do it
just for the glory...? #

When they came together,
something happened

that could not have occurred on
their own or individually.

You know, something...

..miraculous occurred.

# She really cared

# The time she spared... #

We were booked to play our first job
as The Band at Winterland,

in San Francisco,
with Bill Graham presenting.

We went up to San Francisco,
like, two days early.

Robbie is sick as a dog.

I'm completely drained.

And it hits me - the last time
we played together

everybody boos us
everywhere we go, right?

Am I having some kind
of stage fright thing?

He's got a fever of 103.

I'm saying to Bill Graham,
"We've got to cancel. I'm sorry."

Bill Graham says, "Impossible.

"There is no way in the world
that we can cancel this."

And finally Bill says,

"What do you think about the idea
of us bringing in a hypnotist?"

A little guy, about 5'8",

black suit, white carnation,
shows up,

and he puts him under.

And he's saying, "Your stomach
will feel as calm as a lake.

"Your head feels
as cool as a winter breeze."

The next thing I know,
my head doesn't feel so bad.

And I'm thinking,

"I'll be damned,

I'm actually feeling stronger
and better than I was before."

He says, "Any time you start
to feel too weak,

you look over at me and I'm going to
say to you, 'Grow.'"

MUSIC: Chest Fever
by The Band

CHEERING

And the crowd is yelling,
and we're playing.

And I look over at him
and he goes,

"Grow."

This guy had to be onstage
with Robbie.

This was the first concert I'd ever
experienced with them, so...

..what did I know?

But I know that usually there's not
a hypnotist onstage.

Everybody got
their own starring moment.

Rick had his songs.

Garth got to do Chest Fever,

and Richard was brilliant.

So in those first year and a half,
it was amazing.

# Can't be here no more

# And as my mind unweaves

# I feel the freeze down in my knees

# But just before she leaves

# She receives... #

Well, when we first
went out on tour,

they were famous because of their
relationship with Bob Dylan,

but here they were now
as themselves.

This was THE Band.
That brought about a fame

to them that they had
never had before.

Folks, The Band.

CHEERING

MUSIC: Slippin' And Slidin'
by The Band

# Slippin' and slidin'
Peekin' and hidin'

# Been told along time ago... #

And I got the chance to
go and meet Robbie.

And I went up to Woodstock
to hang with him.

And the reason I went up there
was to pluck up the nerve

to ask him if I could join The Band.

Maybe they needed
a rhythm guitar player!

And I was wearing pink boots

and I had curly hair,
just psychedelic.

And they were kind of really earthy.

And I was saying,
"Well, let's jam."

And he said, "We don't jam."

So it was a songwriting outfit.

# I work for the union... #

Robbie's listening to the way

that each of them play,
but the way they worked

as a unit was, like, incredible.

Rick was pretty dynamic,

and he was a very powerful energy.

Garth was shy,

and I fell in love with Richard.

He was the most mournful,
soulful thing I'd ever heard.

# Last year this time
wasn't no joke

# My whole barn went up in smoke

# And our horse, Jethro he went mad

# And I can't ever remember
things being that bad... #

God, Richard was

such a sensitive man.

Like a wounded bird.

But a beautiful, beautiful soul.

He was very fragile,

and we liked to drink together.

When you put us together,
there was an instant bond.

Robbie, in a way,
was kind of outside of that

because I saw Robbie
as the straight guy.

He was a guy who
we could drink with,

but at some point,
he would lose interest in that,

you know, whereas me and Richard
were the kind of people

that we would like to drink
together, but we'd drink...

..we liked drinking
even more on our own.

Just when The Band
was really hitting,

the difference between Robbie
and the rest of the band

was his family was
incredibly important to him.

He already had a baby.

Dominique was this incredibly vital,

smart woman that
he liked hanging with.

She was incredibly beautiful.

And the rest of the guys

were still trying to figure out
did they want a family or not?

And they were consuming
a lot of drugs,

playing a lot,

drinking too much, you know,
everything else.

In Woodstock, it was...

..at one point, car accidents.

And the phone ringing
in the middle of the night

to say this one or that one
had totalled the car

or was in the ditch.

Rick, he was lucky, you know,

but it became far too often

that there were
situations like that.

I had this Mustang

that Robbie had bought,

and Richard wanted to drive it.

I said, "Really, can you do it?"

And he said, "Well, I sober up
behind the wheel."

And I said,
"Please, don't go so fast,"

you know, "Can you see?
Can you see?"

And he said,
"Oh, I can see like a lynx."

You know, and I was naive, frankly.

We hit this curve,

and it was like every...

..hit every cement pole
in the curve.

We ended up in the ditch.

Then Richard lit a match.

And I thought,
"You're going to blow the car.

"We have to get out and push.
Get out. Get out."

We were at Big Pink and somebody
came rushing up and said,

"Richard's just had an accident
and he's crashed a new car."

Levon you know,
jumps into his Corvette

and rushes to the scene,

and accidentally crashes
into the police car.

The cop threw Levon
on the back of a car.

I think they handcuffed him.

I don't know how long
it took me, you know,

to really absorb the shock.

Richard could've killed Dominique.

What do you say?

It pissed me off.

But it was something
that we weren't educated in

at the time,
of dealing with alcoholism.

And all the things
that you think you should do

is mostly the things that you
should absolutely not do.

# My biggest mistake
was loving you too much

# And letting you know

# Now you've got me
where you want me

# And you won't let me go

# If my heart was made of glass

# Well, then you'd surely see... #

And after that,
there was a whole period

where he didn't hardly drink at all.

So we were holding it at bay.

MUSIC: Don't Do It
by The Band

CHEERING

By this point, there was
an experimenting going on

that led to heroin.

And I was confused that
the guys wanted

to play with that fire.

That was devastating.

Nobody had any understanding
of addiction,

that it's a mental disorder.

And at the time it felt
very much like a betrayal.

Robbie might've used,
he might've drank,

he might've tried different things,
but he did not have that gene

that would cause him
to become an addict.

He had a vision, and nothing
was going to get in the way

of the vision.

If you think about the summer
of 1969 into '70,

Music from Big Pink, I think Robbie
wrote less than half the songs.

By the Brown Album, he wrote
maybe two-thirds of the songs.

By Stage Fright, he was
writing all of the songs.

And it wasn't that
he wanted to do that.

Robbie would start
writing, like,

at ten in the morning.

And, to be honest, Levon and Rick
and Richard were still asleep.

I loved writing with Richard.

Richard had a beautiful,
melodic ear,

and he would come up
with chord changes

I would never find.

But somehow it just wasn't
happening for him,

and if I pushed too hard
it made him feel bad.

With Richard, it was
really poignant.

I very clearly remember Robbie
pleading with Richard, you know,

asking him, "Do you have anything,
anything to add to this song?"

But Richard just didn't have it.

He didn't have anything to offer.

It was up to Robbie
and Garth, primarily,

to keep driving
the basic creative force,

and hoping that their friends
would keep on.

During the recording
of Stage Fright,

heroin was being used.

It had an effect on their energy,
their ability to be present.

Levon would sometimes be
nodded out upstairs,

and it was a little sad, you know,

because he would come down
and you could still see a look

in his eye that was
a little strange,

and it was... It was difficult.

This is very different
from the very energetic Levon

that I used to know,
who was always very wiry,

always up for action,

up for going after it,
whatever it may be.

And now it was sort of like
sleepy time.

That's not easy to deal with.

It's hard to connect with
somebody who's doing that.

It's hard to trust.

It's hard to really keep
a friendship going.

It was beginning to feel
like a real fracture.

One day I said to Levon,

"I can see what's going on.
I know you."

And he was doing the junkie denial,

and explaining
and explaining and making excuses

and laughing and slapping me
on the back.

And I'd never had this kind of
an encounter with him before.

We don't do that.

We don't lie to one another.

I still loved him,

but something got broken in that.

And it was like glass - it was hard
to put back together again.

It was not just an exasperation.

It was a feeling that Robbie
could lose everything.

That brotherhood,
That brotherhood, that friendship,

that bond, that love that
they had for each other.

They were terrific guys.

I loved them myself,
I loved them myself, all of them,

but when you begin
to function out of fear

of losing something,
it's maddening.

I think I wanted something
that I couldn't have,

which was normalcy
and a regular schedule.

After the children were born,
my focus changed entirely.

MUSIC: All La Glory
by The Band

# Climb up your ladder now

# It's time for you to dream away

# For what a big day
you've been through... #

ROBBIE: Our children
were elevating my life.

They were making everything
have a beautiful aura around it,

except when I had to go to work,

and then this darkness,
this cloud, came back overhead.

My family was my saving grace.

# And keep the little one
safe and warm

# Cos to her it's just a fantasy

# And to me it's all a mystery... #

ROBBIE: I had to go from Woodstock
out to Los Angeles,

and while I was out there
I got a message that this guy

who had a record company
wanted to meet with me,

and his name was David Geffen.

MUSIC: Free Man In Paris
by Joni Mitchell

# "The way I see it," he said

# "You just can't win it... #

In every band, there is someone
who ends up being the leader

one way or the other.

And usually the star
is the lead singer.

In The Band, it wasn't.

Robbie's a star.

You put him in any group,

Robbie'll start talking
and telling stories and performing,

and he's a star.

David Geffen was a manager,
a record executive.

He thought if he could get
Bob Dylan to his record company,

that would cement him as
the king of the music business.

David saw Robbie as a way
to make that happen.

He started romancing Robbie.

David was incredibly candid,

incredibly straightforward.

And back in Woodstock,

in the world of Albert Grossman
and of Bob Dylan,

a lot was left unsaid.

There was something about meeting
with David that was so open.

I remember saying to Robbie,

"Of all the places you could
live, why pick Woodstock?

"Because Albert Grossman
lives here?"

I thought it was a shithole.
I mean, I hated it.

I suggested to Robbie
that he move to Malibu.

# I was a free man in Paris
# I was a free man in Paris

# I felt unfettered and alive
# I felt unfettered and alive

# There was nobody
calling me up for favours

# And no one's future
to decide... #

If you could imagine, that move
to Malibu, site unseen,

and it was another
Twilight Zone experiment,

you know, for me.

I guess for all of us.

Robbie loved it.

It did feel like something fresh.

He woke up every morning
at the ocean.

His kids loved it,
his wife loved it.

You know, I remember Robbie
saying to me,

"What the fuck was I doing
in Woodstock?"

I was like, "I'm going to call
the guys and tell them

"to come out here."

I thought it would be very
stimulating for Robbie,

I thought it would be
stimulating for the band,

and Bob was there.

Robbie was the one who suggested
I meet him.

The next thing,
David Geffen is saying,

"You know, it might be a great idea
for Bob Dylan and The Band

"to play together again,
and do a tour."

MUSIC: Endless Highway
by Bob Dylan and The Band

Bob had basically been
in hiding in Woodstock

since the tour of '66.

David somehow managed
to convince Bob

to come out on the road.

No-one had seen Bob for years.

It created quite a stir.

It was what David Geffen wanted.

David was just pure,
unleashed ambition.

# You're going to walk
that endless highway

# Walk that highway
till you die... #

ROBBIE: The last time
we played together, in 1966,

it wasn't very well received.

Now we go out - it was
embraced like the second coming.

MUSIC: Knockin' On Heaven's Door
by Bob Dylan and The Band

We didn't change a thing.

The world changed.

It was kind of a good feeling.

# Mama, take this badge off of me

CHEERING

# I can't use it anymore... #

I had signed The Band and Bob Dylan
to Asylum Records.

I had a handshake agreement
with them,

because Bob Dylan said to me,

"Is my word good for you?"

And I thought, "Bob Dylan,
he wrote Blowin' In The Wind

"and The Times They Are A-Changin'.
Yeah, I'll take your word."

# Knock, knock, knockin'
on heaven's door

# Knock, knock, knockin'
on heaven's door

What I remember
What I remember very clearly,

after the tour of '74 they went
on tour as The Band,

and not with Bob Dylan.

MUSIC: The Shape I'm In
by Bob Dylan and The Band

# Go out yonder, peace in the valley

# Come downtown,
have to rumble in the alley

# Oh, you don't know
the shape I'm in... #

After a while touring,
it was very noticeable that

there was change afoot.

# Oh, you don't know
the shape I'm in... #

We played a gig in Cleveland...

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

..Richard had been
doing heroin,

and apparently he lost his stash.

Sorry about the delay.

Richard Manuel, the pianist,
has taken ill.

He's being taken care of backstage.

The Band is going to go on
in a few minutes without Richard.

Hopefully he'll be fine.

They actually played
the concert

They actually played the concert
as a quartet, without Richard,

as a quartet, without Richard,
and it sounded so strange.

I kept seeing a lot of looks
between everybody.

Obviously very
uncomfortable with this.

# Over by the wildwood

# Hot summer night... #

These guys were soldiers,

but Richard Manuel
had a disease.

This band was a real band.

All those spark plugs
needed to be ignited,

or it didn't work.

# But a young man serves his country

# An old man guards the home... #

At first it was Richard holding
everybody back.

He wasn't able to play.

And that's why they called me
out there, to try to

scare Richard straight.

Everybody - all of them, it was -

good, young, honest,
solid guys, all of 'em.

Two or three years later, they were
different personalities, just about.

# Don't leave me alone
in the twilight... #

The rhythm section had definitely
fallen into heavier drugs.

And once again, it was up to
Robbie and Garth, primarily.

Levon was doing things that
he would've never done

in a million years,
if it hadn't been for drugs.

Levon often complained
about our lawyer,

about our manager,
and it was a kind of paranoia.

I would often say, "Don't worry, if
anybody is taking advantage of us,

"we are going to stop
that immediately."

But a bitterness set in with him.

Levon felt something was
being taken away, you know?

But families, man, nobody
can feud like a family.

Families can go
to the grave feuding.

If a person is getting
a little more attention,

resentment can set in,
you know, and jealousy.

Robbie kept moving forward,
and not everybody could follow.

ROBBIE: This is different now.

This is hard.

This is kind of painful.

This could be tragic.

# Don't leave me alone
in the twilight... #

I don't know why we're doing this.

Robbie told me he just didn't want
to go on the road

with a suitcase full of heroin.

Robbie was planning
the next step in his life.

I've always had that sense,
way back from when

we cut the first album
and we knew we had something,

and he said he wanted to work
with Ingmar Bergman.

That's not the usual thing that
a rock and roller would say,

"I want to work
with Ingmar Bergman."

There were many elements
that brought this to a head.

It wasn't only because of drugs.

After you've been together
for 16 years, you think,

"We need to be able
to catch our breath."

I thought, "If we could get
off the treadmill,

"if we can go and
take care of ourselves,

"we might be able
to come to our senses."

My solution was, "Let's bring it to
a culmination in the name of music.

"That's how we fight back on this."

MUSIC: Stage Fright
by The Band

And we did.

The concert came together so quickly
it was almost shocking.

I think we started planning
a month before we did it.

# Now deep in the heart
of a lonely kid

# Who suffered so much
for what he did

# They gave this poor boy
his fortune and fame

# Since that day he ain't
been the same... #

We decided to do it
with our friends.

And that's why we felt
comfortable

with the idea of doing
The Last Waltz.

# But when we get to the end

# He wants to start
all over again

# Just let him take it
from the top... #

I'm thinking, "We should
document it properly.

"Let's think of some film-maker
who could tell this story."

Robbie called me one day,
and he said,

"These are some of the names
in the line-up -

"Joni Mitchell, Neil Young,
Van Morrison,

"Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton.

"Worse comes to worse, you'd wind up
with the Library of Congress

"would have 35mm footage
of these extraordinary people,

"performers and artists.
And that would be it."

What it became, really,
it was a celebration.

It was a celebration.

It was all the influences
of The Band.

MUSIC: Who Do You Love?
by The Band and Ronnie Hawkins

Woo!

Big time, Bill.

Big time, big time!

Ronnie Hawkins, when I was
17 years old with him and

I would play, he would come
over and fan the guitar

like it's going to go up in flames
if I don't cool it down, you know?

It was just...
It was so heart-warming.

Aaaah!

I went out with the boys
a month early,

just to see the rehearsals,
because I didn't know

a lot of these people -
I'd never met 'em.

I mean, I knew who they were,
big stars.

You see a lot of weird things
out there.

And they paid 35,000 cash,
right in front of me,

for a little ol' bit of cocaine.

I snorted a couple lines
and I said,

"Boys, there's enough flour
and sugar in this shit

"you'll sneeze biscuits
for three fuckin' months,

after you snort this!"

And they ended up
buying another one.

# Yeah, the caravan
is on its way... #

All I remember is that it was
more of a celebration

than feeling sad about it.

And it was great,
all these people.

And that was a good gig -
it was fun.

There was no pondering it.

It was only going to happen once.
You know, hey, presto.

# La, la, la-la,
# La, la, la-la, La-la, la

# La la la-la,
# La la la-la, La-la la

# Yeah, the caravan is
painted red and white... #

It was a crazy idea,
but we prepared so well.

I remember doing charts as
to how to shoot, where to shoot,

which camera picks up
which performer,

which lyric, which verse,
chorus, what instrument.

I said, "We shouldn't show the
audience reacting during a song."

I said, "We've seen it.
So we stay on the stage."

We had hoped to get
the way The Band works,

the looks, the glances,
the looks, the glances, the moves.

So I decided to stay onstage
with the performers

and how they relate to each other.

And that was the key
to the whole piece.

When I found out who was on
the bill, and I thought,

"My God, this is huge." You know?

The main memory
I have of that thing

is obviously my strap coming off.

Whoa!

His strap broke, so I jumped in.

You've got to cover his back -
he was our guest!

ROBBIE TAKES OVER GUITAR SOLO

And then he's like,

"Wait a minute, pal, let's not
get too fancy over there."

# Further on up the road... #

What I remember about it is
it was just...

..so free it was untrue.

And I mean nobody knew
what was going to happen next.

And I loved it.
And I loved it. I loved it.

I didn't want it to ever end.

# I see my light come shining... #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

# From the west down to the east

# Any day now

# I shall be released... #

The Last Waltz was such
a beautiful thank you

to this wonderful journey
that we'd been on,

and the amazing experiences we had.

The whole thing was so moving.

# Any day now

# Any day now

# I shall be released. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

# When that curtain comes down

# We let go of the past

# Tomorrow's another day

# Some things weren't
meant to last... #

We need a little bit more
of the harp... Mm-hm.

..in the intro and
in the first turnaround.

Like, you want a little bit more,
like, grit on it, or...

Yeah, just a little more atmosphere.

Right. Not so dry.

Yeah, got it.

# Some things weren't
meant to last... #

We did The Last Waltz with the idea
that we would put that away,

take care of one another a bit,

and really come back
together again

and make music like
we had never made before.

That was our dream.

That was the idea.

Everybody just forgot
to come back.

# There'll be no revival

# There'll be no encore

# Once were brothers

# Brothers no more... #

I was the first one who was
heartbroken, in a way,

because I loved
The Band so much,

you know, and it felt like,

"It's closing this book,
this chapter."

If somebody had said,

"I've got a couple of tunes started,

"we're dying to go in and
create some music,"

I would've said, "Yes,"
in a minute.

By that time, I don't think you
could've kept The Band together.

Everybody had something
they wanted to do,

and after The Last Waltz we started
chasing those dreams.

Some years later,
Levon was having a tough time.

And out of that,
his anger was aimed at me.

In the end, Levon contended
that somehow he should've gotten

a lot of the songwriting revenue.

And he just got more and more
pissed off.

I can see why Levon might say
something like that,

because he was really good
at helping arrange.

But Robbie wrote all the songs.

Robbie was writing songs
when he was 15 years old.

And the rest of the boys
helped arrange the songs,

which is a little bit different.

Levon's point was that
these were five guys

that all played a role in making
The Band what it was.

I mean, the combination of those
five guys was so unique,

and so he felt as though Robbie
were claiming all the credit

for himself.

You could kind of see in Levon,
through this bitterness,

that because of his interpretation
of what happened,

he was really hurt, you know?

He just let it chew him up.

# And the sun don't shine
anymore... #

When Levon ran out of money,

that's when he went crazy,

because he had been
living high.

But Levon, he's kind of like me -
he gets mad and says things

he shouldn't say, and goes crazy.

Levon and Robbie
were best friends,

were brothers, I mean, and
Levon showed him the ropes.

So it was very sad
that that's how he felt,

and that, you know,
that's what he believed.

Years later, I got a message
that Levon was in the hospital

and he was dying.

I got on a plane
and I went to the hospital.

Levon wasn't conscious any more.

His daughter was there
and she took me into the room,

and I sat with him
and I held his hand

and I thought about
the amazing times

that we had had together.

We'd been on the front lines
of two or three musical revolutions.

And now we're just left
with these memories.

So I sat with my brother,

and held his hand.

You know, I said,

"Levon, I'll meet you
on the other end."

MUSIC: The Night They Drove
Old Dixie Down by The Band

# Virgil Caine is the name
and I served on the Danville train

# Till Stoneman's cavalry came
and they 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

# The night they drove
Old Dixie down

# When all the bells
were ringing

# The night they drove
Old Dixie down

# And all the people
were singing, they went

# "Na, na-na, na-na,
na, na, na

# "Na-na, na-na,
na-na, na, na, na"

# Back with my wife in Tennessee

# When one day she called to me

# Said "Virgil, quick,
come and 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

The night they drove
Old Dixie down

# When all the bells were ringing

# The night they drove
Old Dixie down

# And all the people were singing

# They went, "Na, na-na, na-na,
na, na, na

# "Na-na, na-na,
na-na, na-na, na"

# 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

# And I swear by the mud
below my feet

# You can't raise a Caine back up
when he's in defeat

# The night they drove
Old Dixie down

# When all the bells were ringing

# The night they drove
Old Dixie down

# And all the people
were singing, they went

# "Na, na-na, na-na,
na, na, na

"Na-na, na-na,
na-na, na, na, na"

# The night they drove
Old Dixie down now

# The bells were ringing

# The night they drove
Old Dixie down

# And all the people were singing

# They went, "Na, na-na, na-na
na, na, na

# "Na-na, na-na,
Na-na, na, na, na"... #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you very much.

MUSIC: Ophelia
by The Band

# Boards on the window,
mail by the door

# What would anybody leave
so quickly for?

# Ophelia

# Where have you gone?

# The old neighbourhood
just ain't the same

# Nobody knows just what
became of Ophelia

# Hmm, tell me what went wrong

# Tell me what went wrong... #

# Was it something that
somebody said?

# Mama, I know we broke the rules

# Was somebody up against the law

# Honey you know I'd die for you

# Ashes of laughter

# The ghost is clear

# Why do the best things
always disappear?

# Like Ophelia

# Please darken my door... #