According to Ronnie Hawkins, RR was the writer from the beginning and Levon was highly skilled at arranging the tunes. This should have given Levon some credit. However RR was the creative force. Levon was broke and bitter in the end and hence his book. The booze and drugs did him no favor especially on the business and financial side. Did you also read RR book? Two sides to every story and believe me I like Levons contribution to The Band as much as Robbies. The tunes Levon sings are my favourite tunes. Also keep in mind Robbies solo work sold millions and I can't think of anything the others wrote on their own. May be some real jewels I am not aware of . .. ....
Robbie Robertson (album) - 842400 certified sales from the five above countries. Total worldwide sales, for the first album only, will easily exceed a million sales. Levon Helm made five solo records. Levon Helm & the RCO All-Stars (1977) Levon Helm (1978) American Son (1980) Levon Helm (1982) Dirt Farmer (2007) Electric Dirt (2009) All the songs were written by someone else. Levon Helm wasn't credited with anything. Not one song.
As I think has been mentioned somewhere in this thread, Robbie now writes songs for HIS voice, not someone else's.
But Ringo's songwriting contributions are not limited to three numbers! He is credited for at least half of his solo production, I would estimate - including some hits like "Back Off Boogaloo" and "Photograph". On his recent albums, he's credited on maybe 90%-100% of the material. There's no comparison to Levon Helm, whose solo output was slim, and his own songwriting contribution to that output even slimmer (limited to one co-write, I believe). For Robbie to compare Ringo's songwriting to that of Charlie Watts and Levon Helm is just ignorant, and merely a way for him to play into some drummer stereotype.
I love Ringo, he's rightfully in the Hall of Fame, it would not have worked like it did with Pete Best in his place ... but if any of y'all have heard George's version of "It Don't Come Easy," which is my favorite of Ringo's solo works ... let's just say it doesn't come across as George giving Ringo a guide on how to perform it, as the public consumption tale goes. And you can infer what you will from that.
I should've said specifically Levon and Robbie. Robbie was a sharpie from the city who had interests way outside of music, he hung around with famous movie directors and actors (he had an incredible Jones for the movies early on, "The Weight" had its genesis in a Luis Bunuel film; it's no surprise at all that he ended up in the biz) and was tangentially a part of the Warhol scene that spawned the VU. Levon was a hick from the sticks with a country boy's attitude that will be familiar to any of you from the South (ornery, defensive, "the big dogs are screwing the little man"). Robbie in "Testimony" says three negative things, best I can recall, about Marc Lavon Helm. 1. He said Levon lied to him about being on heroin. 2. He said Levon was grumbling as early as '65 about being screwed by the man (he didn't want to work with Dylan because he thought Dylan was "show business"). 3. He said one time when he wanted to talk group business, he couldn't get Levon's nose out of the television watching Arkansas Razorbacks football. The rest of the 499 pages is really quite positive to Levon, unlike Levon's book toward Robbie.
And particularly not by the rules in place in 1968-76. IMO, Levon saw how bad his cash flow was and wanted to retroactively apply modern standards as to who gets credit.
Clearly Levon was projecting his own issues onto Robbie, very typical human behaviour. Why take responsibility when it can be someone else’s fault? One thing I respect so much about Stewart Copeland is, despite his own impressive ego, he has said multiple times on the record, “thank you Sting for writing those great songs”. It’s easy to say Robbie should’ve done this or that but how about, “without The Weight, Dixie, Shape I’m In, etc... everyone would’ve made considerably less money”.
I agree that he showed considerable restraint after having to put up with this bs for years. He’s philosophical about it when asked, usually just saying that Levon was sick.
C'mon, Levon has two co-writes across six solo albums... There's just no comparison with Ringo. I don't think there's a big conspiracy here.
Oh I know. I just try to be realistic about Sir Richard Starkey's actual level of competence as a songwriter when there's not help around. But his level of competence is absolutely, clearly superior to Levon Helm's competence as a songwriter. Which basically was no competence.
It's ironic that the principal lead singer on "The Weight", such a beautiful record, carried such a resentful, bitter, and hateful weight on his back for decades. Sad that Levon could never take that load off.
Which brings up an interesting point... Surely The Band helped Richard arrange his compositions just as much as they helped Robbie. Surely the music on those tracks reflected their collective vision too. Yet Richard did not share songwriting credit with his bandmates. So why wasn't Levon angry and bitter towards him?
LOL. USA sales wont make the million for Robbie. It will be close but I betting he falls short. I think Levon had a few co writes on some of those latter albums.
Levon has one co-write on Electric Dirt. And Larry Campbell made clear Levon didn't actually co-write the song in any conventional sense of the word "write." Campbell gave him credit as an act of generosity: The thing is, though, like the song ‘Growin’ Trade’ on Electric Dirt, I had pretty much finished that song and brought it to him, to play for him and just get his opinion on it. And then we sat and had a discussion about the subject matter, and just by kicking the stuff around with him, a guy who came from that, from what I was tryin’ to say in the song, I went back and completely rewrote the song. And it was his input that made it a better song. So I had to make him a co-writer on it, because it was a better song because of his input.
I dont know that Levon was a great arranger. The Band albums were put together by Robbie. Did he take any arranging credit on any of the solo albums.
Come on now! How far are we trying to knock the guy down? We might as well just say Robbie sang and played everything.
I never heard that Levon was an arranger. Robbie has said on many occasions that he wrote the songs to fit specific voices in the Band.
I'm a big Robbie fan, and I agree that Levon was a pretty damn good actor. He could have done a lot more in that world if he was more ambitious, I think. Perhaps to the level where royalties from Band albums would have been irrelevant. I think Levon was a much better actor than Robbie, who's really not very good at all, in my opinion. He was passable in "Carny," but pretty atrocious in "The Crossing Guard" or whatever it was. The scene in "Ain't in It For My Health" where Levon is whoopin' it up doing donuts in the mud on a tractor makes it quite clear that he and Robbie are simply very, very different people.
