Original subtitles

I listened to this album, and I thought,

this is it.

There's a group here that's finally kind of amalgamated

all of the influences, and the black influences,

and the country influences.

And they put it all into one thing,

with songwriting and musicianship.

And this is what it's about.

It was very kind of country, hillbilly,

you know, I mean, a little R&B, little rock and roll,

and a lot of that kind of country

or hillbilly kind of feelings.

It felt like a passport back to America

for people who'd become so estranged

from their own country that they felt like foreigners, even

when they were in it.

[MUSIC - THE BAND, "THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OLD DIXIE DOWN"]

THE BAND: (SINGING) The night they drove Old Dixie down,

and all the people were singing.

They went, la, la, la, la, la la, la,

la la, la la, la la la la la.

Their music was so authentic.

It wasn't derivative in any kind of a way,

except that it came out of some deep American roots.

THE BAND: (SINGING) And you put the load right on me.

Oh, you mean those people who played with Bob Dylan?

They're making their own album.

THE BAND: (SINGING) Any day now any day

now, I shall be released.

It's probably a mistake to lump them in so heavily

with Bob Dylan.

THE BAND: (SINGING) Rag, Mama, rag, and know where to go.

Rag, Mama, rag, come on, rosin up the bow.

We were a band on our own.

And we were just hooking up with Bob for a period of time.

And it was always the plan that we were going

to do something on our own.

Bob had kicked the door open for us.

And we had our own recording contract.

And they were waiting on us to start making records.

And how they sort of drifted into this, as they say,

sort of Appalachian sound and image is still a mystery to me.

But I think it was probably a spirit

that was born from living, you know, in Woodstock.

[music - the band]

RICK DANKO: We found the pink house

set in the middle of 100 acres.

And it was very inexpensive.

Garth Richard and myself lived there.

You know, it was a little workshop for six or seven

months, I think, just banging stuff out on the typewriter

in the living room, taking it down to the basement,

and putting music to it.

LEVON HELM: And just trying to learn how our forces could

and would fit together under different circumstances,

with Rick singing lead, or with Richard, or with me.

JOHN SIMON: Now, on this song, I play first track with Levon's

vocal on it, which also has most of the drums

on it, because we were recording four-track,

and we didn't have that many tracks available.

So here's Levon singing a verse.

LEVON HELM: (SINGING) I pulled into Nazareth just feeling

about half past dead, just need to find a place

where I can lay my head.

Mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?

He just grinned and shook my hand.

"No," is all he said.

JOHN SIMON: And here are all three of them singing.

THE BAND: (SINGING) Take a load off, Fanny.

Take a load for free.

Take a load off Fanny, and you put the load right on me.

JOHN SIMON: And with any luck, this verse

will be Rick singing with the guitar

and bass on the same track.

RICK DANKO: (SINGING) Crazy Chester followed

me and he caught me in the fog.

He said, "I will fix your rag, if you'll take old Jack,

my dog."

I said, "Wait a minute, Chester.

You know I'm a peaceful man."

He said, "That's OK, boy.

Won't you feed him whenever you can?

JOHN SIMON: Everybody.

THE BAND: (SINGING) Take a load off, Fanny.

Take a load for free.

Take a load off, Fanny, and you put the load right on me.

Ww tried record as much live as we could.

And we also tried to get as many of the effects

on the tape as we could, as opposed to putting them on Iater.

'Cause if we made a commitment and put the effects on

right then with the track,

we would be stuck with that,

and everything else would conform to that

and we'd be painting a much fuller picture as we went.

Yeah. We usually tried to-- tried to get everything,

you know, the first time through, because we didn't--

We didn't know, you know-- you could have gotten

your best vocal Iive, you know.

You didn't-- you didn't know for sure. Probably not.

But, you know, Iightning has struck twice in the same place.

So we would just go ahead-- plus, it just made the song...

more of a song with everybody putting everything into it

and singing it and playing it.

It was more Iike making music and Iess Iike making tracks.

That's it. It's all there.

And thinking, at the time, nothing else is necessary to do it.

This is the way it sounds Iive, and this is the way it should be.

So why don't we-- yeah, why don't we play this tape,

and I'II give you an oxample of some things that are on here.

This is a good example, too, of the vocal.

Richard is singing tho Iead, singing the melody.

Now when we get to the chorus, something else happens.

This becomes Richard's voice.

You can just hear the harmonies here.

You know, that they just did-- everybody does what they could hit

when we get to the chorus.

It's not clever. It's just this can work.

Here's an interesting thing on this track too that I noticed.

You can hear that-- this is a grand example

of Garth's sound.

At this time, there wasn't much soundiness

coming from keyboards.

Garth often did things that you couldn't--

You just couldn't tell what it was, what instrument it was.

But he's just making that.

This is not Iike oscillators and things.

This is just the way he's playing and the effects that he has on it.

And it has the drums and the keyboard

are together on this.

And you could hear that during the verse,

Lovon is playing this kind of scrappiness on the snares.

Wo stroke that Iike you would a guitar string.

Stroke them all together.

Like that, is what they sound.

And I think we might have got it out of the--

Out of the holder and got it up hero Iike this and...

When people heard some of the rocord,

The response was really, really lovely

and had quite an effect on the muslc world.

We had thought that people we're gonna be saying,

',Oh, no, no, no, no. You got to make it more like that."

That people would be trying to push what we're doing into another place.

And what it was the place came more to whero we were.

So we thought, "Well, that's a good thing.

For me, when I look at it,

it's like the first two records were almost

the same project, in my mind.

We had songs that didn't get finished

in time to go on the first record,

on the "Big Pink" record.

And we had ideas.

We knew the title of some of the songs

that was going to be on the second one.

(SINGING) Standing by your window in pain, pistol

in your hand, and I beg you, dear, Molly, girl try

and understand your man the best you can.

Across the great divide, just grab your hat

and take that ride.

Get yourself a bride, and bring your children

down to the riverside.

JONATHAN TAPLIN: In the winter of '68, early '69,

Albert called me, Albert Grossman,

who was Bob Dylan's manager.

And he said, the boys want to go,

or The Band wants to go out to California

to make their second record.

Would you-- they want you to be their tour

manager, road manager, and put it all together,

get set up out there.

And they want to build a recording studio.

They just want to do it in a house.

And we drove out to LA.

LEVON HELM: (SINGING) Bring your children down to the riverside.

Pinball machine in a queen I nearly took a bust.

Tried to keep my hands to myself.

Ya say it's a must, but who can ya trust?

JONATHAN TAPLIN: Somebody from Albert's organization

had rented this house from Sammy Davis, Jr.

And it was a typical Sunset Plaza, slightly overdone house.

THE BAND: (SINGING) one-horse town, had to stall to the fall,

now I'm gonna crawl.

JONATHAN TAPLIN: What we did was we took the lower thing.

And we just basically completely put

foam, and every kind of insulation up,

and made it into a recording studio.

And then John Simon came out, and we got started.

Here's how we were set up in Sammy Davis, Jr.'s pool house

here.

It was a big room, obviously.

And the door was over here.

Pool was over here.

And there were some steps here that went up,

and some steps that went down.

And on the upper floor was where Levon was living.

And underneath it were some steam rooms and shower rooms

that we used for echo chambers.

The console, recording console, was right here,

piano, upright piano--

upright piano, mind you, was right there.

Levon's drums were over here, with a gobo in front of them.

Garth's organ and clavinet were over here, and here's Garth.

And Rick hung out over here, and Robbie hung out over here.

That was the setup.

DON WAS: I talked to Robbie about it subsequently,

and he said it was like a kind of clubhouse mentality--

that this was a place we went to shoot pool,

and hang out with your buddies.

And there just happened to be a studio set up.

And if you got anything done during the course of the day,

what a worthwhile day.

You got to hang out, and you got some music

recorded for posterity, too.

Now, that's a really radical approach to making records.

ROBBIE ROBERTSON: It was the clubhouse technique

of making music--

that you could go out to a place,

and you're not on the clock.

And you can do whatever you want to do.

There's nobody in a glass booth in there, saying,

what was that? or--

there's none of that.

JONATHAN TAPLIN: There would be times

when, like, Levon would play mandolin

and Rick would play guitar.

I mean, there was a whole kind of exchange thing

that was going on there.

LEVON HELM: You know, we always switched around, and tried

to play musical chairs.

Richard and I both would play drums.

This is one of the--

of the ones where we use our different rhythm section,

with Richard on drums.

OK, hold on, I'll just bring them up.

As you say them, I'll bring them up.

OK, and Richard's on drums.

OK, here he is.

- And I'm playing mandolin. - Let's get Richard here.

Hold on a second. - Rich playing fiddle.

Slow down.

[interposing voices]

Garth's playing bass on the organ panel.

John's--

Now Garth's playing piano.

Here's you playing.

Yeah, well, you're playing bass on the sousaphone.

There it is.

Horn bass.

And that's--

Mr. Hudson.

Honey hawk, honey boy.

Honey boy.

That's pretty well the line up.

This is our other rhythm section line up,

when Richard goes to the drums, and everybody else

goes wherever they can.

Used it again on "Jemima" and maybe another one.

Here's Richard's drum break.

Listen to this.

Yeah.

Put the voice up.

THE BAND: (SINGING) --sleeping bag, but all you want to do

for me, mama is rag, mama, rag.

You know where to go.

He's doing his licks half time, too.

I know, it's great.

And then doubling up on the back beat.

[interposing voices]

THE BAND: (SINGING) Rag, mama, rag, where do you roam?

Garth just dresses it all the way through.

I thought it was the radio on.

What did I know?

I really thought that "Rag, Mama, Rag" was going

to be a radio song, you know.

I didn't see it as number one with a bullet,

but I thought that one had the elements that, that a song

like "Blue Suede Shoes" had.

You know, it swung good, and it was danceable.

And it didn't take a whole lot of time.

It was over that quick.

But I've been wrong before.

This wasn't the first time, so--

I can't remember ever thinking that

was going to be a hit single, or that it mattered whether it

was going to be a hit single.

I just thought it was such a unique piece of music

that I was just proud of it as it was.

THE BAND: (SINGING) Rag, mama, rag.

Where do you roam?

Rag, mama, rag, bring your skinny little body back home.

Ain't it easy when you know how?

[laughter]

Sounds great.

Brother Garth.

The master.

BARNEY HOSKYNS: The concept of this album

was a very basic one, a very loose concept, which

was just to convey a sense of rural America

in all its many parts.

You know, as we know, some of the songs

specifically concern the South.

It was a piece of America that was just more musical.

I've no idea why, but when I first went there

when I was 16 years old, and I first

got off the bus in Arkansas, it hit me right away.

It smelled.

You could smell the music.

The air just-- you know, just, and you tasted it.

You could hear everything.

Right away, I said, I get it.

[music - "john henry"]

BERNIE TAUPIN: And the subject matter

was subject matter that was dealt with, probably,

all the way back to the '40s.

Because basically, many of those songs were history lessons.

GREIL MARCUS: I don't think it felt like a history lesson

at all.

I think it felt like a passport back to America

for people who'd become so estranged

from their own country that they felt like foreigners, even

when they were in it.

I think it made people feel, yes,

the Civil War is part of me.

Yes, a time when people worked on farms, and were

destroyed when their, when, by bad weather,

when they were vulnerable to things like that--

this is part of me.

I understand this.

We wanted it to have that, you know, the harvest is in,

the carnival is in town, and the Ferris wheel is turning.

And we wanted to have that good, good

time taste to it, if we could.

When we were doing The Band album,

and when I was writing this song,

my daughter, Alexandra, was just born.

So she was a newborn baby.

So when I was writing this, I had

to be very quiet, because it was, like, the baby's sleeping.

Don't make any noise.

So I just-- you know, I kind of got used to the idea

of working in quietness.

We're talking about all these subtleties and everything,

and it was not just about wanting to play the subtleties.

It was about having to play in subtleties.

So in this song, you can hear kind of what--

where it came from.

(SINGING) Virgil Caine is the name,

and I served on the Danville train,

'til Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again.

In the winter of '65, we were hungry, just barely alive.

By May tenth, 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, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.

JONATHAN TAPLIN: I remember being

brought to tears by that song.

It was so beautiful.

And it was such a amazing point of view on the South,

and what Levon and the people he had grown up with went through.

And it was like one of those things

where you have an epiphany, where you really

all of a sudden see a whole new point of view

on something, where, you know, I had

always had that kind of classic redneck stereotype in my head.

And just in one four-minute piece, that all changed.

We wanted to get a song like that, that kind of addressed

that particular little corner.

I remember one specific moment, actually,

where I was at Levon's house.

And, and I was there with him and his mom and dad.

And one point in the conversation,

his dad said, just kiddingly, but there was some sincerity

in it at the same time, and he said to me, well,

you know, Robbie, one of these days, the South

is going to rise again.

THE BAND: (SINGING) The night they drove Old Dixie down,

and all the bells were ringing, the night

they drove Old Dixie down, and the people were singing.

They went, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la,

la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.

Oh, OK, you can edit that out.

Great.

Bet you thought I'd never get out of that one.

JOHN SIMON: Garth Hudson is a wonderful, mad, but brilliant

genius, great eccentric, wonderful guy

who has so many gifts.

Right, right, right.

And Garth Hudson can play one melody with his left hand,

another melody with his right hand,

a wah-wah pedal with one foot, and another

thing with another foot.

And you put something in his mouth, he can play that, too.

He's truly one of a kind.

I once asked Garth, maybe with a little sarcasm in my voice,

why he--

how he got to be the way he is.

He looked at me, and he said very

slowly, well, I played for my--

at my uncle's funeral parlor.

Right, right, right.

You know, if you listen to "Up on Cripple Creek,"

I believe Garth was probably the first guy to use a clavinet

as a funk rhythm thing.

It was before "Superstition."

I mean, listen to that.

I always thought it was-- you know, for years, I

thought it was a Jew's harp.

But you listen to it, and he's playing

a funky wah-wah clavinet.

It was easy to do, of course.

We'd tried it at home, not for that particular song,

but it seemed to be good for that.

It sounds like a bow harp, I think it is, bowed,

and with a metal string.

LEVON HELM: (SINGING) I don't have to speak.

She defends me, a drunkard's dream if I ever did see one.

I picked up all of my winnings, and I

gave my little Bessie half.

She tore it up and threw it in my face, just for a laugh.

Now there's one thing in the whole wide world

I sure would like to see--

that's when that little love of mine dips her donut in my tea.

This affect that Garth has the clavinet

and the organ are kind of like the lead instrument,

as far as instruments are concerned on this.

The guitar doesn't come wailing up or anything.

And the piano just does little licks here and there,

as far as sticking out.

The thing that sticks out is this Jew's

harp sound and clavinet thing--

just this kind of an odd construction of the song.

But you can hear how it all adds up in its own way.

LEVON HELM: (SINGING) When I get off of this mountain,

you know where I want to--

You can hear it even when he's singing, the leakage.

It's not too bad, the leakage in the drums, actually.

(SINGING) --an amazing girl I once knew.

She told me to come on down if there's anything she could do.

Richard and I are dealing with this--

[guitar playing]

Hear how they just kind of live together those two things?

And then Garth's thing, this

[clavinet playing]

Sounds funny with no rhythm in it.

And what happens is, Garth plays this Jew's harp clavinet sound.

And then when it gets to the choruses,

he changes to the organ.

He's up there playing, and then he comes down to the keyboard.

You can hear it change right here.

[organ playing]

It's like merry-go-round music, carnival music.

Listen how he changes here.

[clavinet playing]

Quick on the draw.

LEVON HELM: (SINGING) Took all of my winnings,

and I gave my little Bessie half.

It's quite extraordinary, the way that Levon could play what

he played and sing at the same time,

that it just didn't mix him up.

You know, I mean, just to put it,

couldn't put it more simpler than that.

But it's true, you know?

Well, you know, people give me good credit,

and I appreciate it.

They think it's harder to play when you sang.

But it's actually easier, because you play along,

and you leave holes in areas where you sing,

so you can actually punch your voice

on the punch lines of a song.

And by adding the cymbals and different things,

you can cover a couple of little choking patterns

that might hit you there in the middle of a tune.

JIM KELTNER: And he was the first one

that I ever saw play one, two, three, or rather,

one, two, three, four.

He would pull his hand up, and get out

of the way of the backbeat, just simply

a thing to do to get out of the way of the stick coming up.

And I thought, wow, what a brilliant way

to play the regular beat.

It kind of felt better.

And it made it more danceable.

So when "Cripple Creek" come around,

we couldn't find a place to put it.

If you go, up on Cripple Creek, she

sends me, if I sprang a leak, that's going to get old

pretty quick.

So up on Cripple Creek--

So with the half-time feel, we were

able to do that for "Cripple Creek," and for three or four

more that turned out "The Weight"

is another good example back on "Big Pink."

We just-- there were no rules, so it felt good.

And we went with it.

There's a music that comes from the heartland

of this country.

And Levon is part of that.

He's tapped right into that.

Levon's vocals have all this soul.

A lot of people who live in the South

try to sing with some kind of a flat, neutral American accent,

as a lot of people from Britain try to sing with some kind

of American accent.

Levon sings in his own voice.

LEVON HELM: (SINGING) Yeah, yeah, you know I sure

wish I could yodel like oh, [yodeling]

[applause]

It's so rare with any band that you've got this sort

of even distribution of talent.

Most bands have one talented guy or girl in them, maybe two.

This was a band of which all five members contributed

something very, very unique.

They were doing things with harmonies, again,

that it almost didn't feel like they needed to blend octaves.

You felt that they just sang in unison,

and their voices were so distinct

that they just automatically went into the right place.

I think in that context, when you have

all these different voices coming and going,

it carries an album.

It makes you-- holds the interest.

And yeah, I like that a lot.

But I don't think when I first heard it I was really

aware of what was going on.

I was just absorbing the sound.

I was just being carried along by what I was hearing.

The Staple Singers were one of our favorite groups,

singing groups, ever.

It was like we had early records of theirs

that they don't even have, just because we

thought there was something so special

about the use of the voices.

[MUSIC - STAPLE SINGERS, "WADE IN THE WATER"]

STAPLE SINGERS: (SINGING) Wade in the water to the--

wade in the water.

He's gonna trouble the water.

He's gonna trouble the water.

Wade in the water.

Wade in the water, children.

When we would get a piece of a song or an idea for a song,

we'd take it as far as we could.

Then we would start swapping it around.

People, different ones of us, would sing the lead.

And then we would back up and start it again.

And somebody else would sing the lead.

And that's how we determined, really, who would sing lead

and who would sing the harmonies on our songs.

Sound like we need to tune that guitar, don't we?

Hang around, Willy boy.

Don't you raise the sails anymore.

Here's the chord.

LEVON HELM: Bring the voices with it.

THE BAND: (SINGING) Now there's only one

place that was meant for me.

Tell me who's on top and the bottom.

OK.

Richard's singing the lead.

Then here, it squishes.

Richard's going up on top.

And I'm doing the tonic.

THE BAND: (SINGING) We're gonna soothe

away the rest of my years.

We're gonna put away all our fears.

And Rick's tying it together.

Rick's in the middle, tying it together.

But Richard has got the ability to [falsetto]..

RICHARD MANUEL: (SINGING) Slow down, Willie Boy.

Now Richard goes back and sings

the song, the body of the song.

RICHARD MANUEL: (SINGING) Your heart's

gonna give right out on you.

It's true, and I believe I know what we should do.

Turn the stern and point to shore.

The seven seas won't carry us no more.

Here comes three parts again.

Now Richard will jump up.

RICHARD MANUEL: (SINGING) Oh, to me

home again, down in Old Virginny,

with my very best friend.

Yeah, they call him Ragtime Willie.

I can't wait to sniff that air, dip that snuff.

I won't have no care.

That big rocking chair won't go nowhere.

Hear the sound--

That's why the voices sound pretty balanced.

Richard.

RICHARD MANUEL: (SINGING) The Flying Dutchman's on the reef.

It's my belief we used up all our time.

This hill's too steep to climb, and the days that remain

ain't worth a dime.

Oh, to be home again, down in Old Virginny

with my very best friend.

You can imagine if I'd have tried to go up.

[laughter]

RICHARD MANUEL: (SINGING) Would have

been nice just to see the folks, listen

once again to the stale jokes.

That big rocking chair won't go nowhere.

I love this part here.

Me, too.

RICHARD MANUEL: (SINGING) I can hear something calling on me.

And you know where I want to be.

Oh, Willie, don't you hear that sound?

So a lot of the times with The Band,

it was somewhere between real harmonies,

and because of our lack of education in music,

they would be things that just sounded interesting.

Or it's what the only thing the person could hit.

You know, there was-- sometimes, the limitation

of the instrument can provide the originality as well.

How did we come up with that Chinese ending?

I don't know, it seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess.

Yes.

Sometimes I draw the parallel between The Band and Duke

Ellington's orchestra, because in Duke Ellington's orchestra,

there were special sounds, like Johnny Hodges' tenor

sax and Harry Carney's baritone sax,

and Cootie Williams' trumpet, and Lawrence Brown's trombone.

There were just special, distinctive sounds

that Duke Ellington, and Billy Strayhorn,

and the other arrangers were able to pull out and use.

And The Band was the same way in rock music.

As far as being technically great, I don't think--

Robbie wasn't that kind of guitar player.

Robbie was like a feel guitar player.

Robbie was more like George type of guitar player.

You, know there's some players who

can play 10,000 notes a second and that,

but it doesn't mean anything.

People who-- you know, sometimes I wish I

had a little bit of dexterity.

But I don't really want to be that type of player.

And I always thought Robbie was that type of guitarist, who

was more concerned with the overall song and structure

than his own personal prowess.

I think Robbie Robertson's a freak as a guitar player.

I think he's--

I think he still plays great.

I think he played great then.

It's mystifying.

I've tried to analyze his sound.

He's got a kind of bite on his guitar playing, like BB King.

[playing blues guitar]

It's a wild twist on American blues and American rhythm

and blues guitar playing.

But it's a smooth kind of thing, that's like kind

of Curtis Mayfield influenced.

And then Curtis--

Curtis Mayfield's thing, this--

[playing guitar]

In this, a lot of things came out of that for me.

For instance, just this what I was playing

reminded me of something like--

[playing guitar]

That I got from that--

[playing guitar]

I got the introduction to "The Weight,"

and with that attitude.

That's all it is, is an attitude.

It isn't necessarily what you're playing.

It's what mood you're playing.

I suppose he plays the guitar as a songwriter

plays the guitar.

He'll put together in his head, and then through his fingers,

the series of phrases and melodic lines

that make sense to him, and then make sense to you.

And the emphasis to me at this point, too,

was much more on the song writing than on jamming,

on figuring out songs that are built

around the guitar playing.

I wanted the songs to be built around the songs themselves.

And whatever I played, or whatever anybody else played

in the songs, it was really just to say

we are playing this song.

And you could hear the music to it, without the voices,

without the singing.

And you could hear it with the singing,

and it is the same song.

It isn't like somebody is off doing some jam

thing on it or something.

I just-- I didn't want that.

I had been there.

And it was time to shuffle the deck

and do something that was just completely song oriented.

(SINGING) Unfaithful servant, I hear you

leaving soon in the morning.

What did you do to the lady?

Now she's gonna have to send you away.

Unfaithful servant, you don't have to say you're sorry.

Was it just for the spite, or was it just for the glory?

Unfaithful servant, I can hear the whistle blowing.

Yes, that train is a-comin' and soon you'll be a-goin'.

The unfaithful servant, believe it or not,

was one of the few songs that I've recorded in my life

where it was done on the very first take.

Yeah.

That's the one that we recorded it.

And then I did it 30 more times, 40 more times.

And John Simon, I think, came in and said,

hey listen to this, Rick.

And he said, you know, you're right.

And that was the first take.

(SINGING) Makes no difference if we fade away.

It's just as it was.

It's much too cold for me to stay.

And on "Unfaithful Servant," you

could really hear the horns.

It's one of the few solos on the record.

I mean, it's not a solo, it's a duet.

Right toward the end, there's a little horn duet.

And you can hear that moaning, a band

horn section sound, that people say,

how did you get that sound?

Well, because that's the only sound we could make.

That's a good one.

Yeah, that's fine.

Anyway.

The trend at the time, of course,

was the acid rock phase.

That was the new trend.

That was the new fad that was going on,

and tune in, turn on, and drop out, that kind of thing,

and hate your mom and dad, and don't trust anybody over 30,

and a bunch of other stuff that didn't make a lot of sense.

And we just steered clear of all that,

and tried to keep it on musical terms,

and got away with it, pretty much, for the most part,

anyway.

And they wanted people just to listen to the music,

and not get too involved with star worship

and being star struck.

They had been with Dylan for many years,

and saw how disastrous this was, both for the audience

and for the performer, to be the object of so much attention

and personality focus.

So they had consciously tried to avoid that.

ROBBIE ROBERTSON: Through that and the nature of the record,

this kind of mysticism got built up around The Band.

These guys are up there in the hills.

They dress weird. We didn't dress weird.

We kind of dressed regular.

Other people were dressing weird,

you know, in polka dots and psychedelia.

ELLIOTT LANDY: When we did the second album cover photograph,

I got, again, quite a number of what

I considered to be good photographs that we

looked through very carefully.

And I had two choices.

One of them was Levon's back to the camera--

everyone was looking forward and Levon had his back

to the camera, and the other one was just the five

of them looking straight on.

RICK DANKO: The cover picture that's

on the brown album, The Band album, we're standing there,

kind of--

it's a cloudy day, you can tell.

But we're actually standing in the rain.

And that's why we likely look that way.

We don't look too cheerful.

Elliott likely didn't tell you that part of the story.

Did he tell you we were standing in the rain?

We have these pictures of them in the basement of Rick's house

that was taken for The Brown AIbum during The Brown AIbum sessions,

and Iook how joyous they are in those photographs.

They're having a good time, they're playing music,

and the camera shyness had gone by that time.

They still had it and they still have it somewhat.

Um, but they were--

Ihey were just very joyous to take those photographs

and really enjoyed it.

Just looking at that picture, on the sleeve for The Band,

seeing that that funky, little console

in the middle of the room, and a guy's feet up on it,

and the wires lead, and just the mess in that room,

I wanted to be there.

You know, just because we weren't

available to the public, the public really wanted us,

the promoters really wanted us to play, you know.

So at one point, it just got ridiculous.

I mean, they were--

it went from $2,000 a night to $50,000

a night by the time we played our first shows.

And we played two shows for Bill Graham on the West Coast.

And we also played two shows for Bill Graham on the East Coast.

And it was very interesting.

JOHN SIMON: I didn't really detect any nervousness

on anybody's part.

The only frustration was not being able to finish recording,

and having to know we had to pick that up again

in New York when they finished their gig in San Francisco

at Winterland.

The only nervousness that was apparent

came after we got up there, and Robbie, all of a sudden,

went into some kind of a psychosomatic malaise.

So by the time we got to play, or it

was time to rehearse for the things up there,

I couldn't even rehearse.

I was just two weak to go and do that.

And then it was the night we were supposed to play,

and it was like everybody was going crazy.

And the stress of the whole thing wasn't helping any of it,

either.

And as a last-ditch effort, Albert Grossman and Bill Graham

decided to call in this hypnotist.

Robbie was in bed.

And he put him in a trance.

And then he said, whenever you hear the word,

"grow," these feelings will surge over you.

You will feel strong.

So he brought him out of the trance.

And everybody is kind of watching.

And Robbie said, "I feel better."

And so he got up, and he got out of bed.

And he fell right on the floor.

He just collapsed on the floor.

So the guy, he said, oh, I forgot.

You've been sitting in bed for two days--

your legs.

And so he put him back in a trance.

And he said, "Your legs will feel

like strong, iron springs."

And then he put him--

took him out of the trance.

And Robbie got up.

And at this point, we were, like, two hours late

already for the gig.

So anyway, the first night, you know, with me

was pretty rough.

And then the next day, I started to feel a little bit better.

And then the next night, I felt--

because I think we played three nights or something.

And by the third night, I was kind of

over this bug a little bit, and was feeling better.

But it made for great copy and everything

at the time, this hypnotist on the side of the stage giving me

these signals and everything.

But it worked.

ROBBIE ROBERTSON: (SINGING) 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.

Anybody seem my lady?

This living alone will-- it'll drive me crazy.

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

Richard was always our lead singer.

And I always just felt real confident

with Richard in the band.

I knew that nobody had a better singer in their band

than what we had.

Yeah, he was--

you know, there was only one Richard without a doubt.

He was a friend of mine from--

I met him before I actually started playing in The Band.

I met him in 1959.

And yeah, he was a party, party kind of guy.

And he sure was one of my favorite singers.

He had this amazing power to move you with his music,

and with his voice, and with his presence.

I suppose it's just that thing of if he came into a room,

you just felt very drawn to the amount of energy

there was in this guy, that was-- you know,

he was very shaky, and he was very fragile, and scared.

And at some-- in some reverse way, that had a lot of power.

That drew you and attracted you.

When we started making The Band records,

the hurt in his voice, the--

it's kind of-- there's a certain element of pain in there,

that you didn't know whether it's because he was trying

to reach for the note, or he was just a guy with, you know,

a heart that had been hurt.

(SINGING) If you find me in a gloom, or catch me in a dream,

inside my lonely room, there is no in between.

Whispering pines, rising of the tide, if only one star shines,

that's just enough to get inside.

I will wait until it all goes 'round.

With you in sight, the lost are found.

You know, I just--

I, you know, it's just a--

I'm sure it was a big accident or a big mistake.

In my, my head, that's what it was, at least.

You know, I can't believe that--

I can't believe that anybody feels that way.

Richard was right there.

And he never changed.

Richard was as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar.

He wasn't wishy-washy at all.

Richard's opinion today was the same as it was yesterday.

And Richard's policy was to hold up his glass,

and say, spend it all.

And which is a pretty good policy,

when you think about it.

ROBBIE ROBERTSON: (SINGING) hopes will never die.

I can feel you standing there, but I don't see you anywhere.

Right?

How do I get out of that one?

That-- Ouick, quick, quick...

- D-- - Ouick, quick, C minor.

I started to discover

uh, Ihat this--

That this rocord could'vo been called America.

Um, it could've been, you know--

It was thematically such, uh,

a mirror of so many things that we--

We all know from somowhere, from some story

or somebody telling us something or something.

It emanated so much about Amorica and where America came from,

and the beauty of it was it was timeless.

And even if we were talking about a certain place

and something very Americana,

I'd Iearned later on that it did have a universal quality to it.

And that maybe that's why it meant such a Iot to someone like me,

as somebody who was 3,OOO miles away, you know?

And I think maybe an American songwriter couldn't have

um, couldn't have written the kinds of songs that Robbie did.

But at the same time the fact that Lovon Helm

was in the group,

uh, gave it that American backbone, if you like.

Um, I think if it had been five Canadians,

who knows what have happened.

We're talking about Canada, we're not talking about Belgium.

Um, people are dirferent in Canada.

They're not Americans, there's no question about that.

But the people in the band were Iistening

to American radio stations when they grew up,

um, that's what got to them, that's what drew them.

You know, I think it, uh, itwas more due to the fact

that we had, uh, Iistened to tho same kind of music, you know,

and, uh, from country music to rhythm and blues.

Good music, actually, any music that's good,

uh, you know, uh, I Iike.

When we first saw Rick,

he was playing-- he had a Iittle group,

the group wasn't too hot,

um, and-- but it made him really stand out.

He Iooked good, he-- and, uh, he was playing guitar.

But you could tell that he was very musical,

and he sang good.

He had this sound in his voice

and, uh, this tobacco belt sound,

and, uh, he was somowhere botween the tobacco belt

and Sam Cook to us, you know?

His vocals are just-- they just soar.

He's got a very high light tenor voice.

It's just a great voice.

Well, that's something you would never play on the piano,

Because the nature ofthis back to that...

Johnny Cash thing, or whatover it is.

Tho dead giveaway is...

these chords that are not even Iike real chords,

Like that, they're just guitar things,

the open strings and everything.

Because I remembor Rich would say,

',Wait a minute, wait a-- what are the notes in that?"

Or, ',Wait. Uh, I'm trying to find what, uh, one of those was,"

and I'd just say, "I don't know what it is.

It just sounds pretty good in that place."

So-- but I mean, that's a porfect example

of something thatejust--

And then it gots translated to the piano.

And you find out in the process

whether this thing really works or not.

And you say, you know what, this doesn't sound good on piano.

Why don't you play drums on it?

Right?

I mean, some of these big brainwaves just come through, like,

things like that.

That doesn't sound good.

PIay something else, you know?

Here's an example of this guitar,

uh, thing that I was explaining, this kind of half fingor style.

So, that's why you can a song like this on the piano.

See, that's a direct thing from a Merlo Travis deal.

And it changes keys.

Perky Iittle devil, huh?

The way that rirfs with--

It's a certain kind of beat in its own right, you know?

And I never-- When we were playing like this,

I don't remember anybody else doing that kind of thing.

This kind of ragtime-ish kind of--

Yeah.

It's fun to Iisten-- to go back and do this now, just...

Nobody on the planet was thinking along these terms then.

BERNIE TAUPIN: I think that The Band took basically

the legacy of bluegrass, roots, rhythm and blues, Cajun,

mountain music, whatever you want to classify

different terms of music as, and basically created

their own stew out of it.

You take a song like "King Harvest (Has Surely Come.)"

Is that a blues song?

There's a lot of blues in it, but it's not a blues song.

Is it a country song?

Absolutely not.

There's a progression in there, a sweep, that

country music doesn't have.

And yet, there is an anxiousness, a nervousness,

a sense of being alone in the singing,

it's pure country music.

Is it rock and roll?

Sure, it's rock and roll.

And you can go on from there.

But there was a thing that was absolutely essential for me

in the song for it to work or not work.

And I'll show you what this thing

is here, as soon as the rhythm comes back into the verse.

THE BAND: (SINGING) leaves from the magnolia

trees in the meadow.

King Harvest has surely come.

This--

THE BAND: (SINGING) A dry summer, then comes fall.

This--

THE BAND: (SINGING) Which I depend on--

And the rhythm.

And this is primarily coming from--

[drums and bass playing]

What happens between the bass and the bass drum

was, to me, the whole basis and foundation of the song.

And it took us a long time to get

that feel so we just had it--

that we didn't have to search for it or fight for it.

It was just automatically there.

But what you don't really want to do with that song

is you don't want to take it apart.

You don't want to separate it into its constituent elements.

You just want to go with it.

You want that song to take you somewhere you haven't been.

Or if you know the song, you want it to take

you where it took you before.

You want to get lost in that song.

And when you're lost in that song,

you're floating through a whole vast American story.

In the story, to me, is another piece

that I remember from my youth, that people looking forward,

people out there in the country somewhere,

in a place we all know it, and may have been there,

may have not.

But there's a lot of, lot of people

that the idea of come autumn, come

fall, that's when life begins.

It is not the springtime where we kind of think it begins.

It is the fall, because the harvests come in.

THE BAND: (SINGING) The smell of the leaves from the magnolia

trees in the meadow.

King Harvest is surely come.

A dry summer, and then come fall,

which I depend on most of all.

Hey, rainmaker, can't you hear the call?

Please let these crops grow tall.

The guy who's singing the song,

the farmer, this scared person whose farm has failed,

and whose--

who has run to the union, a farmers' union,

for identity, for protection, for a way to make a living.

The ambiguity of that, if you know anything at all

about the story that's being told there from other sources,

it's a very, very confusing, tricky song.

And because it's so confusing, you just listen

to the worry in the voice.

I mean, the desperation in that singing

gets stronger, and stronger, and stronger as it goes on.

And you can either embrace it, or you can leave the room.

THE BAND: (SINGING) Last year this time, wasn't no joke.

My whole farm went up in smoke.

Our horse, Jethro, well he went mad.

I can't ever remember things being that bad.

Then here come a man with a paper and pen,

telling us our hard times are about to end.

And then, if they don't give us what we like, he said, Men,

that's when we gotta go on strike.

Corn in the fields, a little bit of rice when the wind

blows 'cross the water.

I forgot that guitar bit there.

THE BAND: (SINGING) King Harvest is surely come.

So this is this guitar solo.

[MUSIC - THE BAND, "KING HARVEST"]

Obviously, we didn't hear that part on the finished product.

It's Steinbeck, you know, it's Faulkner.

It's just-- I mean, and without hoping that that

doesn't sound pretentious.

But it's like classic American literature.

And it's classic American music.

I've got a jukebox in my house,

and their albums are on it.

And I only put music on there that--

I want stuff on there I don't want

to keep changing every week.

I want stuff that has a long life to it.

And that's how I valued The Band's music.

Their whole body of work is very important,

and not just to me, but to the history of rock and roll,

of music as it stands.

The Band was unique in that we didn't listen to anything else.

We didn't care what was on Sergeant Pepper at Pet Sounds.

We liked them, but we just were in isolation,

influenced by very old, established influences.

So it kind of comes around, goes around, you know.

And I'm glad that we were able to pass some of that along.

Because when we were younger, of course,

we always wanted to change the world, and thought we could.

But now, I think we're smart enough to know that we're just

here to help the neighborhood.

I thought, like, this is definitely, you know--

it's taken a while, and it's taken some work,

but this is a place that I was really hoping it would go.

The music was good.

And everybody's intentions seemed

to be so right on, in our goals and seemed to be in line.

Everything seemed to be righteous.

Everything seemed to be righteous.

[music playing]

It's on.

JOHN SIMON: OK, you want to try this?

Let's see if it's all right in the earphones.

Just going to do a take.

LEVON HELM: Let's just do a take.

JOHN SIMON: OK.

Rolling, "Cranberry Sauce," take one.

Socks.

- Socks. - Cranberry Socks.

One, two, three--

[MUSIC - THE BAND, "WHISPERING PINES"]

THE BAND: (SINGING) If you find me in the gloom,

or catch me in a dream, inside my lonely room,

there is no in between.