This USA Today article on Robbie Robertson (former member of The Band) made me feel a little sad.
When The Band called it a day in 1976 and Martin Scorcese filmed their last concert together as The Last Waltz, rock n' roll, records, whole albums, record stores, FM radio and the like were still the standard bearers of youth culture.
Now the standard bearers are commercialized corporate pop music, digital downloads, web sites, and You Tube or other download sites on the web.
Rather soulless and alienating for me.
Listen, I know these trends were all ready in place by 1976.
FM radio was a far-cry from the free-form days of the 1960's, record companies were stealing millions from bands while promoting as much soulless corporate music as they could (Boston, Foreigner, Styx and Journey would all be at the top of the charts in a year or so after The Band called it quits), and the music business was ALWAYS about making money over promoting artistic expression.
I'm not naive about that.
But the music and popular culture have gotten so fragmented, so soulless, so alienating to me these days that whenever I put the The Last Waltz on for a spin, what I hear is not only The Band calling it quits from "the road," I hear an American culture and society veering toward the corporatization that took root in the 80's and now rules every aspect of our lives - from how we eat to how we work to how get our information to how we educate our children to how live and die.
I'm not quite articulating the feelings I want to with this post, but the overall sense I get these days is of something lost, something gone awry, something wrong - with American society, with Western culture, in the universe itself.
I feel a little like old Willie Boy about to crash on the reef, dreaming about that ole' rockin' chair down in old Virginia, knowing he'll never get back there again.
RIP: Richard Manuel, Rick Danko
Do yourself a favor, buy Robbie's record - just for old time's sake.
And Levon's too.
And don't forget Garth.
Wow, a USA Today article that's actually interesting to me! Thanks for Rockin' Chair clip. Richard Emmanual looks great there. Boy did he ever get mauled by that bus...
ReplyDeleteYou should read Levon's autobiography. It's wonderful. You may look at Robbie a little differently afterward.
ReplyDeleteI have read Levon's autobiography. Also "This Wheel's On Fire" - Levon really does hate Robertson, and he does have a very good point about the songwriting revenue. Also, Robertson went Hollywood, there's no doubt about it.
ReplyDeleteI guess reading the article just brought back memories of The Band for me and made me nostalgic.
Back in 1986, The Band minus Robertson (who was in Hollywood) and Manuel (who had hanged himself) were touring in a van up and down the East Coast. I tried to see them at My Father's Place but I was underage and they wouldn't let me in. I told my friends to go see the show and hung out in the van reading. After the show, my friends came back out and we were hanging out a bit. Suddenly this van pulls up and a man with a beard and a cap sticks his head out and asks if there is any way to get upstate without going through the city. It was Levon. Garth and Danko and the newer members of The Band (Jim Weider was one, I think) were in the back.)
That made me sad because I thought here was this band that had been the subject of a Scorcese movie just ten years before and now they're touring in a van like any other working musicians.
RBE, The Band were based up in the Woodstock/Bearsville area. I heard that Danko was trying to be something of a producer up in that area back in the '90's. They were not only working musicians, but they were in the tightest, most musically incredible band I ever saw back in my Queens College (halcyon) days, or any time after that. Their music is classic, woven with folk, rock, and classical motifs. That music is a far cry from the canned crap that passes as music today.
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