For me the whole point about The Band is that they all contributed to the sound. I remember when they made their first records it seemed like thay all knew how to sing and it was pretty difficult to know who was singing what. That gave it an organic feel. When I saw them in concert in 1971 it was the same feeling. They would move around the stage picking up different instruments. It felt like they had endless possibilities and were all contributing to the sound. So if you took one part of this magic combination away then The Band no longer existed. The reformed Band was a groovy group who did nice things but nowhere near as good as the originals. Roberston on his own could obviously come nowhere near in quality or feeling. In fact I've never heard a single solo Robertson song that has had any emotional effect on me whatsoever.
cahoots has 6 strong tracks from what i remember. life is a carnival, when i paint my masterpiece, smoke signal, last of the blacksmiths, river hymn and where do we go from here. how is that a near disaster. his first solo album is amazing. also this tune, man just imagine levon singing this one. imo the missing link between the band and his solo stuff
I generally agree that his songwriting declined. Cahoots is a bummer, and it's not just the songwriting. The whole album has a bad vibe, like there's a black cloud over it. On the other hand, he bounced back on Northern Lights, coming up with three classic songs that rank among the best he'd ever written. What I said was that if Townshend had refused to ever perform with the Who again, I think Daltrey and Entwistle would have wanted to go out using the Who's name. I don't know whether Townshend would have sanctioned it. Probably not, but I think Daltrey and Entwistle would have been more than willing if Pete would have approved. On the first album, Richard wrote half the songs, and Rick contributed also. That's certainly true. But after that, their songwriting contributions didn't amount to much more than what Entwistle contributed to the Who. Why did Robbie's songwriting decline? Who knows? Your premise seems to be that he couldn't write good songs without the Band assisting him. If that's true, how do you account for "It Makes No Difference" or "Acadian Driftwood"? I think it's far more likely that he simply ran out of gas, just like John Fogerty did around the same time. Sometimes a songwriter runs out of inspiration. Pretty much every songwriter declines eventually. Why did Richard stop writing songs altogether?
i don't get the "belated solo career" remark either. robbie was scoring films and said when he had something to say he would and he's stuck to his guns.
He certainly ripped off the rest of the group's screen time in The Last Waltz. Only Levon was able to get a word in edgewise. But thank Scorcese for that.
In the most recent edition of This Wheel's On Fire (Levon's autobiography, co-written with Stephen "Hammer Of The Gods" Davis) an epilogue is added detailing Rick's death. Levon does indeed say that he thought "Rick worked himself to death" and he does lay at least part of the blame at Robbie Robertson's feet due to how Robbie, in Levon's opinion, ripped off Danko and the rest of them, thereby causing Rick to work until he dropped. However, naturally Levon leaves out the part about how Rick was still abusing hard drugs when he died, he'd rather blame Robbie Robertson rather than Rick's own bad habits, which were likely an even bigger factor in Rick's passing. It's pretty harsh to read, Levon is pretty unforgiving, and dare I say goes a bit over the top with his acrimony toward Robertson there.
Yep. "Worked himself to death" is bullsh*t." It was drugs, an unhealthy diet, and obesity that did Rick in, period. And I doubt very much that he would have cleaned up his act and gotten healthy if he'd had more money and hadn't had to work so much. It was pretty craven of Levon to suggest Robertson deserved any blame, and it does Rick a disservice to gloss over the real reasons for his death.
Absolutely. Levon's claims are total boolsheet. Bordering on slanderous, quite frankly. I know you seem to get a boot out of it when I try to read these guys' minds (and my mindreading is pure conjecture on my part, I grant ya), but can't you imagine Rick somehow reading that crap Levon wrote in his book in the afterlife and saying, "Aw, jeez, Levon, c'mon..." and rolling his eyes?
Matthew, Sorry, I don't consider 'Smoke signal', 'last of the blacksmiths', 'the river hyymn' and 'where do we go form here' strong tracks. Each of these songs is far weaker than anything that appeared on the first 3 Band albums. In my view, there are only 3 strong tracks on 'Cahoots', 'Life is a Carnival', 'When I paint my masterpiece' and '4% pantomime'. That's a very poor batting average for a group that had just recorded three outstanding albums. I consider 'Cahoots' a dsaster, I've listened to it many times over the last 30 years hoping that it will make some sense to me and it never does. Frankly, the album should have been scrapped. Regarding Robbie's solo career. Well, it seems like the work of an entirely different person. And one who is far less inspired than the younger Robbie. I've enjoyed Levon and Rick's solo work far more than Robbie's,
The Band were not only doing clubs with Manuel as I saw them at the Tower theater a week or two before he passed, Manuel giving one of the most passionate - almost possessed - performances I have ever witnessed.
I dunno, I like Cahoots more than Stage Fright...always have. I heard Stage Fright once and was decidedly underwhelmed. IMO Cahoots, like Islands, are better Band albums than people like to give them credit for being. Always struck me as one of those things where, "Oh, people said it was a bad album, so it probably is" even without listening to the thing.
Yeah. The royalty money from Tom Petty's cover of I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better fueled plenty of overindulgence on Gene's part. He died two years after the album was released.
Well...maybe I do like the title track and "The Shape I'm In". It was a long time ago when I heard the album, fifteen years ago, at least. Ditto for Moondog Matinee, now that I think about it. I think I got them from the library at the same time, actually...
The only song from 'Cahoots' that stayed in the Band's set list after 1971 was 'Life is a Carnival', while they continued to play a generous selection of songs from the first 3 albums, so if that's any indication, than the members of the Band didn't think much of 'Cahoots' either.
Absolutely. The Band still had the capability of giving amazing live shows in the 80's and 90's. Have you heard 'The Last Moving Shadows' bootleg? That features Manuel's last NYC performance with the Band from the Lone Star Café in early 1986. Very strong performance and well worth seeking out.
I thought they played "Smoke Signal" on the '74 tour as well. I think "When I Paint My Masterpiece" got a live airing or two as well, didn't it? Certainly Robbie didn't think much of Cahoots- he's on record as saying he's not fond of the sound of the album at least ("It doesn't play comfortably for me"), but reckoned "there's some good work on there". I'm not sure if the other guys' opinions of the album are on the record or not...really, it's not that bad of an album. I don't think The Band ever made a "bad" album although some are certainly better than others, no question there.
I think the fact that only one song from Cahoots remained in their setlist both as a group or individually is a pretty strong indication that none of the members of the Band thought very much of the album. And yes, I do think that Cahoots is that bad. It's a tremendous drop off after Stage Fright, The Band were not superhuman, there's no reason to think that they couldn't make a bad album when the overwhelming aural evidence suggests that they made at least one very bad album, namely Cahoots.
Amen. Show me a person who complains about a denied writer's credit, and I'll show you a person who's never written a song in their lives.
Stagefright is tied with the brown album for me. Incredible vibey album. Maybe he was in the wrong mood when he played it that one time.
Stage Fright is my favorite Band album, the only one on which I never skip a single song (that puts it in some extremely lofty company, maybe a dozen albums in my entire collection).
In fairness, I was initially disappointed with Stage Fright when it came out, but topping or equaling their self-titled sophomore effort was a tall order. Just ten songs?!? What a rip-off! But y'know, time wounds all heels, and after a while I grew to like it almost as much as Music From Big Pink and The Band. In the past 25-years it's been my go-to Band album because I didn't get overexposed to it the way I did with the first two (and one listen is not enough). Big Pink will always be my favorite though.
That's a really nice song, but when you look at the musicians on it there's Richard Manuel on backing vocals and Garth Hudson on synthesizer. As you say with Levon on vocals it would have made a great Band song. I'd have appreciated the gesture if Robertson had acknowledged this and sung it with them all on a post break-up Band album with equal rights to all members.
Well, what happened to him? Nowhere does he play better than competently well after the Band started recording.
Robertson himself has said when they made Big Pink, they set out to do everything differently (that's why the album opens with a slow song, for example - no one else was doing that at the time). Part and parcel of that was no flashy guitar solos, and sure enough, there's only the one solo (on "To Kingdom Come") and it's beautifully executed but not flashy at all. I've heard one reason why people considered him a genius at the time was that he knew what not to play as much as what to play. So I think the answer to your question is simply that it was part of their signature sound that he didn't try to take over the whole record with his guitarslinging. Rather ironic in light of the ways in which he did take over, huh? That said, I stand by my theory that his reputation really stems from the few who were ahead of the curve in 1968 and knew of his work with Hawkins, Dylan and Hammond, and then everyone else listened to Big Pink and didn't see what the big deal was but didn't want to be the one to say so.
