When did Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson start hating each other so much?

Here is the first song on a great two cd set called "One More Shot" by Danko, Fjeld, and Andersen. I bought it a few years ago, I love it.
This song is touching to say the least.

 

Speaking of the movie, there's also that brief moment where Scorsese follows Rick into Shangrila (?), what Rick tells him used to be a bordello, now turned into a recording studio. They sit at the console, in a darkened room, and Rick's achingly beautiful voice, singing Sip The Wine (from his solo lp) starts to play. Just a few moments...but a really sad scene for me to watch.

I do think, though, that Sip The Wine could have easily been a stellar Band song. I wonder when he (Rick) had that written? It made it into the movie.

 

I don't recall Levon blaming Robbie for Richard's death, at least not in his book anyway. He definitely did blame him for Rick's death, though:
“If Rick’s money wasn’t in their pockets, I don’t think Rick would have died because Rick worked himself to death.… He wasn’t that old and he wasn’t that sick. He just worked himself to death. And the reason Rick had to work all the time was because he’d been [expletive] out of his money.”

It's a similar argument to blaming Colonel Tom Parker for working Elvis to death. And in both cases it is BS. Rick died because he was a heroin/pill addict who also had an unhealthy diet, was obese, and was a smoker. All of which are significant risk factors for heart disease. Robbie certainly was not responsible for Rick's lifestyle choices, and I doubt that Rick would have lived his life differently if he'd had more money and been able to tour less. External circumstances are not what make addicts use.

One thing that's consistent in Levon's anti-Robbie comments is the lack of acceptance of any responsibility for his own or his bandmates' choices. Rick's financial problems were in part due to his own choices, particularly his drug habit, which I doubt was cheap.

 

How is the live recording? I understand that Disc 1 is the first album by the trio, which I have. I like both of their studio albums that were released by Rykodisc.

I really love Eric Andersen, I bought those albums more for his participation than Danko's, but they are nicely-varied collections and I love Rick's reading of Andersen's Blue River.

 

Thank you for the link within the link, as well. The Christian Science Monitor piece is quite interesting. Says, from Levon's book, that the others were "persuaded" to sign away their individual publishing rights...what the piece's writer calls a musician's retirement plan.

 

I don't know about that. Big Pink is, Richard's album in my opinion. Of the 11 songs, Richard wrote 4 songs, (Tears of Rage," "In A Station," "We Can Talk," and "Lonesome Suzie") cowrote one with Bob Dylan ("Tears Of Rage"), and he sang lead vocals on 5 songs and shared the lead on two others.

 

Fine with me! I was upgrading him from salt sprinkler class (recognizing his input).

 

Hard to disagree with any of that. When I listen to Richard sing I think rhetorically "why did he have to hang himself"? In a perfect world, all 5 guys would be singing and playing again. Thank goodness for the records. Nah, you're not selfish at all.

 

It's truly amazing that The Band was blessed with THREE iconic rock n roll voices.

 

I get the distinct impression that Levon Helm was a guy who just loved playing music and didn't really give a rats ass about being a star or big wealth and all that. I think he just wanted to be in his comfort zone playing music and enjoying life.
I think at the same time Robbie Robertson was very ambitious and seen dollar signs attached to music. I think he was likely the guy that carried a breifcase to band practices and wanted the band to be structured and operational like a business.
Neither approach is wrong, but the two approaches do not mix well. I have seen this situation in bands myself, and often those two personalities get on well until it actually comes time to work together.

I understand both of these personality traits, because I sit in the middle. I am someone who carries a breifcase to band practice but I don't put money ahead of the importance of a band enjoying what they do. I don't want to work my ass off playing and never set out in this world to prove anything to anyone or to get rich. At the same time I never turned down the chance to turn a good honest buck doing it and understand the importance of organization and structure.
Sadly most musicians tend to be the extreme.
In general, the ambitious guys always seem to be a bit paranoid that everyone else is working against them, and the guys who are b.sing their way along and only taking as serious as need be think the ambitious guys are exploiting them.
Again, that is a recipe for turmoil.

 

Robbie must have had more of a head for business than the other guys. But I doubt he was as much of an uptight, money-oriented, all-business guy as you are suggesting. If he was, I doubt he could have lasted for 15 years in a band with those other guys. And I doubt he would have quit, since he definitely could make more money with the Band than without them.

 

Perhaps not. If he was that way then he would have striven to keep a band with a "presence in the community", as it is called in business, afloat until the time came when it was more of a liability than an asset.
By the time he left the band he was recognized as a songwriter, probably enough so that it would have seem like a far easier and more lucrative way to spend his time than with The Band.
He could very possibly have been more marketable without The Band, considering they never really made the kind of rock star status many other bands did.
Don't forget, just because a band is a hit with the critics doesn't mean it is making big money. When he left rock music was changing and in transition between the hippie rock scene that The Band came out of and headed toward the 80s pop and rock parody scene. Leaving when he did could very well have been a guy looking at other portfolios and deciding they looked more lucrative.

 

He doesn't seem to have been concerned about marketability, since in the first ten years after leaving the Band he released no solo albums and devoted most of his time to doing film scores. He probably did all right financially doing that, but I would think he could have made more money on another Band album and touring, at least in the late 70s. In restrospect, it's likely the Band would have declined in popularity around 1980-81 (as many veteran artists did), but he didn't know that at the time he chose to leave, so I don't see how that could have factored into his decision to quit.

At any rate, I guess a better question would be, what evidence do you have (aside from embittered statements from Levon Helm) that all Robertson cared about was money?

 

Even though this question wasn't posed to me, it is interesting to consider the statement Robertson made in The Last Waltz about how the songwriter used to be the low man on the totem pole....and then how the songwriter in The Band definitely was not the low man on the totem pole. He cared about more than just money, but also could have thrown out a few more co-writer credits that may have gone a long way to keeping the peace in the band.

 

Sales of their studio albums had been declining since Cahoots (and, with the exception of Northern Lights/Southern Cross, so had their quality IMO), so I certainly couldn't blame Robbie or anyone else for concluding that the writing was on the wall as far as their commercial fortunes. Sales of their live albums had fared somewhat better during that time, but with his decision to take them off the road, there was no chance of any further live albums.

 

He was already working as a producer on other artists records, so he had opportunities. There's a statement of Levon's that I will only be paraphrasing, Robbie wanted to do things intellectually that he shouldn't have wanted. That

 

Their last three albums before he decided to quit all hit the top 20. They didn't sell as well as The Band or Stage Fright, but they certainly weren't commercial flops either. Moreso, do we have any evidence that declining record sales were a factor in Robertson's decision to quit the group? Did he or anyone else in the know ever say that? I don't think even Levon ever accused him of that. At the time, Robertson said he quit because he was tired of touring. His actions in the following decade seem to bear that out. It seems likely he was also interested in doing something different, as evidenced by his turn to film scoring instead of making records. It seems to me to be a big leap to suggest (without evidence) that Robertson quit the Band because he felt like he could make more money in other ways.

 

I agree; but then, I was responding to your suggestion that "It was likely the Band would have declined in popularity": to some degree, that was already happening.

 

Oh, I see. I thought you were responding to my assertion that the Band's decline in popularity was likely not in factor in his decision to quit the group.

 

That's a refreshingly honest tribute song... doesn't whitewash his addiction issues.

 

The live disk is great. Very clean, not a lot of background noise and you can tell these guys like playing together. They each do a couple of songs solo and then call everyone out for the last 5 songs.
I recommend you get it, the vocal harmonies are fantastic, you don't hear this kind of singing any more and that, imo.,is a shame.

 

I don t think Robbie called it a day with the Band mainly by financial reasons. He realised that the life-style on the road was not the healthiest and therefore called it a day. That the remaining members of the Band struggled in small clubs during the eighties is sad and says tons of the musical climate that decade.
Personally I don t think Robertsson is a very nice person. On the other hand-he was the main songwriter in the Band-without his songs the Band would not be the Band
Manuel had many personal problems-including alcohol and drugs from early on. Danko also developed a very eccessive lifestyle.Noone could be blamed for that but themself and the habits they developed on their own .
The story of the Band is one of great triumphs and tragedy-just like life itself.
I prefer -as a music-fan-to concentrate on the music-both by the Band and their various soloprojects.