ENDLESS HIGHWAY THE MUSIC OF THE BAND
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Featuring performances by: Death Cab For Cutie, Guster, My Morning Jacket, Gomez, Jack Johnson, Jakob Dylan, Trevor Hall, Jackie Greene, Blues Traveler, Josh Turner, Widespread Panic, Lee Ann Womack, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers, Joe Henry, John Hiatt & the North Miss Allstars, Steve Reynolds, Gov't Mule, Allman Brother, The Roches
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Check out this fantastic take on The Band's The Last Waltz by Guster!
The Band (From The Liner Notes)
One bitterly cold Winter evening in 1969 I bumped into Robbie Robertson and Rick Danko in the cookie aisle of the Grand Union in Woodstock, a sleepy hamlet in upstate New York. I had just come from a long rehearsal with my band Happy & Artie Traum. We were one song shy of finishing our debut album for Capitol Records. Rick, Robbie and I chatted for a while in the harsh flourescent light somewhere between the Fig Newtons and Mallomars. After a while Robbie said, “Hey, we have a song that’s perfect for you guys.†Rick sang a verse of Going Down The Road To See Bessie on the spot. I was so in awe of The Band it took a minute to realize they were offering the first recording to us. Rick shook his head and said, with his slight Canadian accent, “I’ll teach you the harmonies. Let’s get together in a couple of days, eh?†To celebrate, I broke open a large bag of Oreos and we gobbled them down before going back into the night.
My brother Happy had met The Band a couple of years earlier at Thanksgiving dinner at Bob Dylan’s house. Dylan kept saying, “The boys are going to show up tonight. They should be here soon.†Happy didn’t know who Dylan was talking about. “Then these five guys arrived in kind of strange hats and long-rider jackets,†he remembered. They were like a posse out of a Sam Peckinpaw movie, young men who had wandered in from an earlier century. They had rolled into Woodstock under a veil of mystery and secrecy. Holed up at Big Pink, the ugly suburban house in West Saugerties, the boys honkered down in the basement like outlaws. They were an odd conglomerate: funny, charming, literate, back-woods, sophisticated, down-home and in some odd way other-worldly.
Like The Band, we were managed by Albert Grossman, the brilliantly feisty music-business mogul who handled Dylan, Peter, Paul & Mary, Janis Joplin, Paul Butterfield, James Cotton Blues Band. I knew The Band as Bob Dylan’s emminently boo-able back-up band. They were the guys who took Dylan away from his Woody Guthrie roots and helped turn him into a brilliantly angry rock n’ roll poet. We knew The Band was working on an album. A huge buzz about the goings-on at Big Pink was already circulating on the local rumor mill.
In March of 1967 we were invited to Robbie Roberston’s colonial stone house on the Bearsville Studio property. In Robbie’s livingroom, with light snow coming down, we sprawled across pine-plank floors as Robbie played 1/2 inch masters of Music From Big Pink. I watched the tape snake quietly through the play-heads of a Studer deck. A small amount of tape hiss eased through the speakers and then we heard Richard Manuel’s voice wailing on Tears of Rage. Albert Grossman, hair pulled in a long pony tail, his mouth in a perpetual half-smile said, “This album is going to change everything.†Albert’s prescient sense of the music business was already legendary. Chest Fever, The Weight and This Wheel's On Fire set the tone for a new era. At the time I realized I didn’t care what the world thought of this extraordinary music. I just knew I was changed. Over the next year we’d pop over at Big Pink or Dylan’s large living room to jam, eat, laugh and hang out. They were wonderful neighbors. Little by little, we got to know each of the guys: Rick’s infectious laughter; Garth’s deep voice and often unintelligible words of wisdom; Robbie’s eyes quietly tucked somewhere behind his glasses; Richard’s self-effacing dark moods that brightened immediately when he played a Ray Charles tune; Levon’s way of looking you honestly and directly in the eye when he offers advice.
The Band rode a wave of indelible songs, impeccable musicianship and plaintive singing. They pulled energy down from the heavens and cut to the heart of the matter. They brought chills up your spine and made the hair stand up on your arm. Levon Helm is perhaps the greatest drummer I’ve ever heard - his groove isn’t just deep, it’s profound. His voice cuts through the air and jolts the nervous system as though a window to tradition and history has suddenly opened up wide. Richard Manuel has been called an old soul. His pain was our pain; his vocal control was brilliant; he played with the edge and in the end that edge claimed him back. Rick Danko, one of the kindest, most compassionate men to ever walk this planet, always made me smile. He’d call once in a while and say, “Hey man, got a minute?†I knew that was an invitation to sit around the livingroom and play for a few hours. Garth shared these guys generosity. My fondest memory is watching him cut a track and before listening back say, “You know the 22nd measure 3rd note? Take that out.†One time I asked Levon about the process of recording and how to know the music was done. He said, “Well Artie, you guys give the people something real and they’ll come back for more. I guarantee it.†The Band gave the people something real, and indeed we keep coming back for more.
Artie Traum
Bearsville, NY 2006