FEATURE:
The Shape I'm In
Remembering The Band’s The Last Waltz on Its Forty-Fifth Anniversary
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IF you can get a copy…
IN THIS PHOTO: Rick Danko and Robbie Robertson on stage with Bob Dylan - who famously tapped The Band to serve as his first electric backing band in 1966 - on stage at the Winterland/PHOTO CREDIT: Neal Preston/Morrison Hotel Gallery
of The Last Waltz on vinyl, I would advise you do. I wanted to mark a hugely important concert that turns forty-five on 25th November. Even though the documentary film was released in 1978, the concert itself happened a couple of years prior. The documentary made about it is often viewed as one of the best ever made. There is an interesting story behind the famous concert itself, in addition to the concert film. If you have not heard The Last Waltz, then this Wikipedia article explains a bit more:
“The Last Waltz was a concert by the Canadian-American rock group The Band, held on American Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. The Last Waltz was advertised as The Band's "farewell concert appearance", and the concert saw The Band joined by more than a dozen special guests, including their previous employers Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan as well as Paul Butterfield, Bobby Charles, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Dr. John, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Wood, and Neil Young. The musical director for the concert was The Band's original record producer, John Simon.
The concert was produced and managed by Bill Graham and was filmed by director Martin Scorsese, who made it into a documentary of the same title, released in 1978. Jonathan Taplin, who was The Band's tour manager from 1969 to 1972 and later produced Scorsese's film Mean Streets, suggested that Scorsese would be the ideal director for the project and introduced Robbie Robertson and Scorsese. Taplin served as executive producer. The film features concert performances, intermittent song renditions shot on a studio soundstage, and interviews by Scorsese with members of The Band. The soundtrack and DVD were later released.
The Last Waltz is hailed as one of the greatest documentary concert films ever made. In 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
It is insane to think of the calibre of musicians that joined The Band for the farewell! Of course, one-time member Bob Dylan was there. Though it was such a star-studded and incredible line-up, one cannot help but to marvel! I want to bring in an article from Rolling Stone. They discussed (among other aspects) how the concert came together, and how a Martin Scorsese came to be direct the concert film:
“Over 40 years ago, The Band gave their final concert in their original lineup, a massive swan song that these Canadian troubadours turned into an all-star spectacle. Calling the event “The Last Waltz,” the group’s de facto leader Robertson – who’d grown tired of being a rock & roll road warrior – and San Francisco promoter Bill Graham staged a no-expense-spared adieu that started with a Thanksgiving feast and ended with everyone from Neil Diamond to Neil Young accompanying the quintet. As far as farewells go, this one was major, and it might have been relegated to the you-had-to-like-have-been-there-man history books had a bearded, jittery Martin Scorsese not decided to ditch some responsibilities and call in some favors. The idea was to simply record the evening for posterity, though the then-35-year-old filmmaker had a few ideas of his own to add in to the mix. What he ended up with was the definitive document of these American-music scholars, an epitaph to a specific era of rock history, and the single greatest concert movie of all time.
Though it didn’t hit theaters until April 1978, The Last Waltz is the time capsule that we talk about when we talk about that marathon bicentennial show; for some fans who never saw the Band in their blissed-out, buzzed-out-of-their-skull heyday, it’s usually the first thing that comes to mind. More than Ronnie Hawkins’ bar-band commandos, Dylan’s basement buddies and electric-folk enablers, or even the guys who gave us the game-changing Music From Big Pink, they’re the guys on that Winterland stage, tearing through gutbucket blues runs, New Orleans rave-ups and hillbilly-holler ballads. Next to the iconic black-and-white picture of the group standing in a field that graces the left inner panel of the Pink LP, it’s their main visual representation, and the difference between these two documents speaks volumes. That 1968 photo positions these five musicians as old-timey outlaws going against the hippie grain – the rock group as Dalton Gang. The guys in 1976, dressed in everything from Robertson’s Italian gigolo duds to Manuel’s plaid suit (“something W.C. Fields would wear to a wedding” Robertson remarks in his new memoir, Testimony), are the B-side versions headed for a burnout. After 16 years on the road, the Band are no longer musicians who seem beamed in from another time. They’re men running out of time.
So when Robertson decided that he’d had enough and wanted the Band to call it a day as a live act, he pitched the idea of one last gig to Graham, since San Francisco was where they first played under that name. The guitarist was also thinking about the possibility of filming their final bow; the original Woodstock pioneers joined the longhairs who’d flooded their new home for an era-defining concert, only to witness themselves cut out of the narrative when their performance was left out of the iconic accompanying doc. (Most folks don’t even know that the Band played those three days of peace and music.) He remembered seeing a screening of Mean Streets, which had been produced by the group’s tour manager, Jonathan Taplin – and he remembered the movie’s director, a live-wire Italian-American who’d helped shoot Woodstock and loved rock & roll. A lot.
Martin Scorsese was neck-deep in finishing New York, New York, his ill-fated attempt to fuse Old Hollywood musicals and New Hollywood revisionism, when Robertson and Taplin approached him. The last thing he wanted to do, or was allowed to do by his producers, was take on another project before he delivered a final cut. But the notion of being present at something symbolizing the sun setting on rock’s unruly early adulthood, and with a guest list that read like a who’s who of modern popular music, was an offer he could not refuse. “I don’t have a choice,” Robertson quotes him as saying in the oral history Bill Graham Presents. “I must do it”.
I cannot really think of a modern-day equivalent where you would have this band put on a final concert with so many other big artists alongside them. I guess, if a band like The Rolling Stone decided to bow out, they might put on something similar. We have not really seen anything like The Last Waltz since 1976. On the forty-fifth anniversary of the concert, it is important to mark its significance. I have the DVD of the concert, and I would recommend everyone to get a copy, just so they can see and experience what happened and the reaction The Band (plus guests) received! In this article, we discover how, despite some sonic imperfections and cracks here and there, the documentary film and concert itself are spellbinding and captivating:
“Despite the disagreements, The Band did all commit to The Last Waltz album and film. “I talked with Levon, Garth, Richard and Rick individually about this experiment we were embarking on,” said Robertson in Testimony. “None of us truly understood where we were headed, but we knew change was inevitable. Levon said, in a quiet, brotherly tone: ‘Maybe if we can have one last stand, it will give us a good look at tomorrow. I’m ready to give it my best shot, so you can damn well count on me’.”
Rehearsals began in earnest at Shangri-La, The Band’s studio and ‘clubhouse’, which was situated off the Pacific Coast Highway, across from their Zuma Beach base in California. Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Bob Dylan all attended these rehearsals, while Van Morrison and Eric Clapton ran through their material in San Francisco, days before the event.
On the day of the concert, the Winterland Ballroom had never looked grander. An elaborately designed lighting system included three giant onstage chandeliers and a set borrowed from the San Francisco Opera’s production of La Traviata created a warm, homey atmosphere. The 5,000 invited audience members were treated to a lavish Thanksgiving Day banquet and ballroom dancing to orchestral accompaniment.
Anticipation was high. Scorsese was backstage looking anxious but ready, Robbie Robertson recalled in his autobiography, while in the dressing room, The Band were in a huddle. Robertson remembered their spirits soaring, but with a “focused calmness”; Danko looking “pumped – ready and raring”; Richard Manuel held out a hand to show he wasn’t shaking too badly, and Helm reminded Robertson to look over to him for certain breaks and endings in the set.
“Gentlemen, are we ready?” asked promoter Bill Graham before they stepped out on the stage in complete darkness. “When the cameras were rolling, I signalled Levon, and he said over his mic through the darkness, ‘Good evening,’” recalled Robertson. “The crowd erupted, and we kicked into Up On Cripple Creek. The lights came up – warm, natural and cinematic, nothing like a regular rock show. The sound on the stage felt powerful and clear. Levon’s vocal was strong and authentic. I looked over at Rick and Richard, and they were both in the zone. This was it…”
Four decades on from its release, it’s easy to lionise The Last Waltz as a peerless work, but it’s not. Some of the performances are lacklustre, and the various sonic tweaks and edits have rendered any sense of audience participation obsolete. But as a document of The Band at their finest, it enthralls.
Despite the roll call of household names who stepped up to the mic that Thanksgiving Day back in 1976, it’s the performances by The Band themselves that really stand the test of time. Here was a group like no other, writing songs that were timeless before their albums even hit the shelves. The Last Waltz captured the essence of what made them great. As journalist Jack Hamilton observed, writing in The Atlantic magazine in 2012: “They wrote songs so great they sounded like they’d existed for centuries. But they played them in ways that no one had played songs before”.
The Band are one of these groups that you here on the radio, though they are not spoken about as one of the all-time great acts. I think they were. Definitely, when you listen to albums like Music from Big Pink and The Band (their first two albums), there is nothing quite like it! In the final article I want to draw from, the Los Angeles Times spotlighted The Last Waltz back in 2002. In a sense, the concert and film marked the end of an era. The closing of a chapter of music. A time when music was an essential part of modern life and conversation. Now, perhaps, there is a sense of novelty or the throwaway:
“On nights when the group was in “the zone” on stage, as Robertson would say, it was hard not to feel this was the best rock ‘n’ roll band in the world--the Beatles, Rolling Stones or you-name-it notwithstanding.
In guitarist Robertson, bassist-singer Rick Danko, drummer-singer Levon Helm, pianist-singer Richard Manuel and keyboard whiz Garth Hudson, the Band was blessed with five master musicians, three superb singers and a storehouse of songs (mostly by Robertson) about family, community and tradition that were so finely crafted they felt as if they had been carefully handed down for generations.
The blend of country, blues, gospel and folk seemed as pure as rich Delta soil. The Band’s first two albums--1968’s “Music From Big Pink” and 1969’s “The Band"--are classics of American pop culture.
Robertson isn’t big on looking back, but he is proud of the Band’s legacy and the way it was captured in “The Last Waltz.” That’s why he spent six months upgrading the sound for various “Last Waltz” projects, including film’s current re-release and the DVD, which is due in stores May 7. The DVD includes two commentary tracks and other features. The boxed set, from Warner Bros./Rhino, supplements the 30 tracks from the original soundtrack album with 24 other performances from the concert and rehearsals.
In the restored film, which will be shown on VH1 on May 11, the Band is joined by some of the most respected musical figures of the era, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and Eric Clapton. Scorsese focuses closely on the interaction between the musicians, offering an intimacy and power that have been rarely captured on film. Above all, it’s an eloquent toast to the glories of American rock ‘n’ roll, especially those ‘60s musicians who turned the raw energy of the rock pioneers into an art form.
“I remember sitting around back then with Joni [Mitchell], Bob [Dylan] and Neil [Young] and we would talk about Hank Williams and Billie Holiday the way people now talk about the people on stage with us in San Francisco--and I wanted the film to be as presentable as possible,” Robertson says, as on the TV monitor the Band goes into the playful “Up on Cripple Creek,” one of its most popular numbers.
“I wanted the sound and picture to be as [sharp] as possible so younger generations could see where some of the sounds they hear today came from. I didn’t want people to look at it and say it’s kind of faded now, it’s not up to par with what we are used to hearing these days
Robertson isn’t interested in playing “what if?,” partially because the Band’s post-"Last Waltz” history has its share of darkness. The group--minus Robertson--hit the road again in 1983, but the shows had little impact. Manuel, who long battled alcoholism, hanged himself in a Florida motel bathroom in 1986. Danko, who also had substance abuse problems at various points in his career, died in his sleep at his home near Woodstock in 1999.
In his 1993 autobiography, “This Wheel’s on Fire,” Helm complained that Robertson tried to control the group and eventually forced it to break up. Robertson declines to reflect on his relationship with the Band members, other than to praise them for their musical gifts.
Some observers paint “The Last Waltz” as the end of an era, a time when artistic impulses were more valued than the novelty flash that surrounds so many hit acts today. You can feel the Band’s influence on lots of critical favorites, including just about everyone who’s played on the Americana radio format. But the mainstream pop airwaves have little connection to the music of the Band or the other stars who stroll through “The Last Waltz.”
“The big difference to me is these people in this movie and at that time were like the voice of that generation,” he says when asked about the difference between the music scenes then and now. “The music wasn’t just background. It played a pivotal part in everyday life. They wore these records out. Today, the music [on the radio] isn’t the voice of a generation. It’s entertainment. It’s hard to find complete artists. I find it to be more to be individual cuts than full albums.
“But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things worth finding and supporting now. A lot of my friends think everything today is [worthless], but I don’t. I really appreciate a lot of it, and I’m enjoying this process at DreamWorks, working with a bunch of young artists I want to help groom”.
Forty-five years since the incredible farewell, The Last Waltz, took to the stage, I wanted to spotlight an occasion that some people might not be aware of. If that is the case, it is well worth reading about it and watching the documentary. Check out the album and you can feel a semblance of what it would have been like to be there back in 1976. Even though it is forty-five years old, the amazing The Last Waltz is still in…
PRETTY good shape.