A little faded and soft picture but great sound and music to cry for!
Robbie Robertson – Lead Guitar
Rick Danko – Bass & Vocals
Levon Helm – Drums & Vocals
Richard Manuel – Piano & Vocals
Garth Hudson – Organ & Keyboards
Continue reading “July 20: Watch The Band Live At Casino Arena, Asbury Park, NJ 1976”
When we were working with Bob Dylan and we moved to Woodstock, everybody referred to us as the band. He called us the band, our friends called us the band, our neighbors called us the band.
~Robbie Robertson (from “The Last Waltz”)
Continue reading “July 5: Happy 74th Birthday Robbie Robertson”
One of the most anticipated gigs of 1983 came at the very end of the year, when the Band returned to the city of The Last Waltz when invited to open for the Grateful Dead at their annual New Year’s Eve extravaganza. Before a sold-out crowd at San Francisco’s Civic Auditorium, the Band proved they were still one of the best sounding groups on the planet, delivering a performance that not only delighted the San Francisco audience, but the Band members themselves. Performing classic original material as well as a smattering of choice covers, this performance was captured by the Bill Graham Presents crew and is presented here in its entirety.
~concertvault.com
Continue reading “December 31: The Band played at Civic Auditorium SF in 1983”
I saw Ronnie Hawkins play near my hometown, Port Dover, Ontario, and I saw him play there on New Year’s Eve and the following spring I booked myself to be his opening act on maybe five shows, and he hired me after the first night.
-RickDankoYou put a song on the record or on tape and you stop singing it. You just don’t sit around and sing it anymore unless you’re performing. That’s kind of sad.
-Rick Danko
Continue reading “December 29: The late great Rick Danko was born in 1942”
This film should be played loud!
This is a message on a title card at the beginning of the film. The greatest concert movie ever made. This post concerns the movie, the audio releases have to wait for it’s own post.
Wikipedia:
The Last Waltz was a concert by the 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 end of The Band’s illustrious touring career, and the concert saw The Band joined by more than a dozen special guests, including Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Ronnie Hawkins, Dr. John, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Wood, Bobby Charles and Neil Young.
The event was filmed by director Martin Scorsese and made into a documentary of the same name, released in 1978. The film features concert performances, scenes shot on a studio soundstage and interviews by Scorsese with members of The Band. A triple-LP soundtrack recording, produced by Rob Fraboni, was issued in 1978. The film was released on DVD in 2002 as was a four-CD box set of the concert and related studio recordings.
Trailer:
I have several versions of the film, and I’ve seen many versions of it. I’ve seen it at the cinema, I’ve played it to death on video casette, I have two DVD releases , a blu-ray release and I’ve seen/heard quite a bit of bootlegs of the show.
This is a film that I’m really passionate about, and I have often wondered if there’s footage, filmed sequences, that is not in the official version. Whatever condition such film would be in was irrelevant, I wanted to see as much as possible of the legendary concert.
Continue reading “November 25: The Last Waltz was recorded in 1976 (full 4h20m concert)”
“It is full of sleepers, diamonds that begin to glow at different times. As with the Beatles and Dylan and the Stones and Crosby-Stills and Nash, the album seems to change shape as you continue to play it. The emphasis shifts from song to song and songs prominent in the early listening will retreat and be replaced in your consciousness by others, only in later hearings to move to the fore again.”
– Ralph J. Gleason (Rolling Stone Magazine)“Perhaps the best album by any Rock and Roll group ever. Timeless, soulful, seamless, a work that goes far beyond and yet is front-porch friendly.”
– M.E. Cooper (author)
The Band is the eponymous second studio album by the Band, released on September 22, 1969. It is also known as The Brown Album. According to Rob Bowman’s liner notes for the 2000 reissue, The Band has been viewed as a concept album, with the songs focusing on people, places and traditions associated with an older version of Americana. Thus, the songs on this album draw from historic themes for “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” and Richard Manuel’s “Jawbone”.
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (from The Last Waltz):
Continue reading “September 22: The Band released their second album The Band in 1969”
