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The Story of The Band: How they changed rock music forever · GARAGE TO STADIUMS Music History Podcast

• Garage to Stadiums Music History Podcast Episode Title: The Story of The Band Host: Dave Anthony Guest: Craig Harris, author of The Last Waltz: The Full Story of The Band Dave Anthony 0:01 Hi there. I'm Dave Anthony, and this is the garage to stadiums podcast rated as one of the top 5% of podcasts globally. On each episode, we tell you the story of how one of our music legends rose from obscurity to fame and play some of the songs that mark that journey. Welcome to garage, to stadiums. Today's episode is the story of the band. What you're about to hear is the unlikely, electrifying Rise of the band, four young Canadians and one American who quietly rewired the DNA of rock music. They came from small, rural towns, drawn to the bright lights and rough and ready bar scene of 1960s Toronto. And then fate intervened, when the most influential performer of the early 60s came to see them in action. Soon, they were recruited for one of the most controversial tours in music history, a tour that split audiences, redefined electric rock and forged them into something greater than a backing band. And then came their boldest choice, to step out on their own as the band. While the late 60s swirled with psychedelic color, they turned deliberately toward the past, Americana, folk memory, mythic storytelling, the result music that felt carved from history itself, influencing everyone from Crosby Stills and Nash to the eagles to even the Beatles and The Rolling Stones to guide us through the journey from bar stages to global influence. Our guest is Craig Harris, author of The Last Waltz, the full story of the band, a musician who has performed with a member of the band and the host of the Craig Harris show on W, A, M, U, F, M, bluegrass, country. Craig brings us inside the story of the band. Welcome to garage, to stadiums, Craig. Thank you. Craig what turned you on to the band and compel you to document their history? Craig Harris 2:07 Well, I first saw the band in 1971 central park. I didn't go there as a fan, but as somebody with an interest in a lot of different music. I remember sitting there in Central Park woman skating rink when Garth Hudson did genetic method, Craig Harris 2:35 the long walking solo that he did, and I can could imagine my my mind jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper. From that point, they had me hooked. Dave Anthony 2:46 It's quite a story of how these young guys all came together. Craig Harris 2:52 They came together. It all begins with Ronnie Hawkins. Ronnie. Ronnie was admitted in life. He always gave the impression that he was, quote, a hillbilly, but he actually his mother was a school teacher, his father was a barber, and Ronnie, very early on, was influenced by music. He made a lot of money early on, as soon as he could drive Ronnie Hawkins was a moonshiner. He would pick up whiskey, bottles of whiskey, bring it across the border and make $300 a trip, or $100 this Dave Anthony 3:29 is, this is in Arkansas. I guess Craig Harris 3:33 this is he came. He came from Arkansas. He had gone into the he had gone to college without paying. He sat in and matriculated and went to four years of college without being an official student. His mother insisted on him becoming educated because she was a teacher. Dave Anthony 3:55 And so he was very resourceful, and he ends up in Toronto, of all places, from Arkansas Craig Harris 4:01 well before, before all that happened. What actually? What actually happened was Ronnie Hawkins, after he graduate, left college, enrolled in the army, and because he had ROTC training, he only had to enlist for six months, and one One day, while he was serving his six months, he went into an am vest club, and there was an R, B band playing, and he was so enthralled by the excitement of the music that he got up, picked up a microphone, leaped on the stage, and started singing with them, and the Black Hawks were were invented. That's when they put together the Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks the first lineup of the group. They needed a drummer. I was not sure who came up with the idea of Levon Helm, but Levon, by that time, had cut his teeth musically, performing. In it at Forest clubs and festivals with his sister Modena on on Watchtower base. Levon was excited as hell when Ronnie Hawkins came out and offered him the job. Everybody brought him in to see he speak to his parents and get permission, and his parents refused to let him go with the band because he would be the first helm to graduate high school, they had to they agreed to wait until he was finished, and played local gigs and played and practiced and got their act together. There was another country singer who grew up on the other side of the border who had spent a lot of time in the turkey scratch and Helena area. That was a guy by the name of Harold Jenkins, or Conway Twitty, as he became known as a famous country and rockabilly star. Now, Conway Twitty was talking with Ronnie Hawkins, and he told who was raving about the big audiences he was getting up in Canada. As soon as Levon graduated high school, they packed the car and headed up to Canada, and that's how they wound up in Canada. They were one of the first rockabilly groups to perform there. It took him a while to build an audience, but they eventually wound up being in the center of Yorkville, which is the big arts district in Toronto after Leon the first one to come was Robbie Robertson. Robbie Robertson had grown up in a poor neighborhood of Toronto called Cabbagetown. His father, or the person he thought was his father, was very, very mean. He he kicked his dog one time and blackened his eye. Robbie was beaten. His mother was beaten, and eventually the marriage broke up. Robbie hated this guy and his mother, he wasn't surprised when his mother brought him and sat him down and said, you know, he's not really your father. Robbie's real father was a Jewish gangster who wasn't a really good gangster who got wound up being killed a couple of days before Robbie was born. So he never met him, but he did wind up meeting his father's brothers, who were into organized crime, and Robbie did a few errands for them, also a guitar player influenced by his cousins. His mother was a mohawk Indian who had come for the Six Nations reserve outside of Toronto, and they would go there on vacations, on school vacations during the summer. And his uncles and cousins all played guitar, and he wound up absorbing what he learned from them, eventually exceeding what they were able to do. His mother was quite afraid of what was going to happen to him. His mother dolly and she pleaded with with Ronnie Hawkins to give Robbie Robinson a job. Robbie was only 15 years old at the time, Ronnie Hawkins hired him as as as a assistant to do little things. Robbie was meanwhile practicing and practicing and practicing and practicing when the time came for an opening in the band. You Craig Harris 8:46 the group was in Arkansas performing at one of Ronnie Hawkins clubs, and they sent notice to Robbie to come down and play. He was originally the bass player, but he practiced and practiced and practiced until his fingers bled and developed in a very unique style of playing a guitar. He also proved his weight when Ronnie Hawkins was looking for songs for his new album, Robbie Robinson came up with two of them, Ronnie Hawkins Speaker 2 9:22 and incredibly, Dave Anthony 9:32 after snagging 18 year old Levon Helm from Arkansas to anchor his drums, Ronnie Hawkins built A Toronto outfit made almost entirely at teenagers. Guitarist Robbie Robertson was just 16. Bassist, Rick Danko, 17, and a pianist, Richard Manuel, 18, while the eldest 25 year old Garth Hudson was a wild card multi instrumentalist who played everything from horns to accordions to. Bagpipes to organs of all kinds. These small town Canadian boys joined up with Levon and Ronnie and were drilled by Hawkins in showmanship and hardened by the grind of Toronto's Yonge Street strip, a neon soaked stretch of bars and clubs where they learned to command a room night after night. It's Dave Anthony 10:33 incredible how young these guys are. You mentioned Robbie Robertson joining it well, 15 or 16, the other guys were pretty similar in terms of being young, Craig Harris 10:44 and that proved to the detriment. Ronnie Hawkins, in my book talks, or when I interviewed him, told me that there were lots of clubs. The good better clubs, they weren't even able to enter. They were too young. They had to go for second grade clubs where there was often barbed wire and netting to protect them from the things that the drinkers were throwing at them. It was a really kill all type of existence. Yeah, they they played for Jack Ruby at one of his clubs shortly before he killed Lee Harvey Oswald wow and had to stay up all night guarding their instruments in 1965 Dave Anthony 11:28 most of them are in their early 20s. They decide to leave Ronnie Hawkins to form their own band and perform in clubs next the most influential star in music of the mid 1960s catches wind of these young Toronto based musicians and changes their destiny forever. Speaker 3 11:48 Garage to stadiums ranked as one of the top 5% of podcasts Dave Anthony 11:52 globally in 1965 they've left Ronnie Hawkins and they want to perform on their own and none other than Bob Dylan, probably the most influential performer in music at that point in the 60s, is told to check out this hot group from Toronto, and he watches them perform, and is particularly impressed with Robertson's guitar work and Levon helms drumming. He asks them to be part of the ultimately controversial electric tour that Dylan is going to embark on, where Dylan is going to turn from folk to ultimately rock, which goes from what October 1965 through May 66 eventually, he asks all of the Hawks to join him on the tour, and his intention is to, as I said, move out of the rock folk arena and into the rock genre. Craig Harris 12:38 There was a woman in Albert Grossman's office, who had come from Toronto and knew of the band, and knew Levon and the Hawks, as they were calling themselves at the time, and she's the one who convinced Dylan to try them out. He wanted the whole band, but Levon, but they were very resistant. They didn't think folk music was such a big deal. They didn't listen to, as they say, they didn't listen to Tom Paxton albums, and they thought he Dylan was just a drummer. So that's why he got Robbie and Levon as as just the two of them to play on that first two shows. Right after that they needed, he needed a band to go on the tour. And that's when Robbie or or Levon said, look, we got a band that's already been working together for eight years, and it's pretty tight. And then went up and listened to them, and the rest was history. Dave Anthony 13:39 Now that tour was controversial. Crowds were sometimes less than receptive of Dylan's new approach to sound. Craig Harris 13:50 Dylan wasn't kind. He was out there slay the dragons. It's as close to punk rock as anything, since it was raw. It was exciting. Dylan thought that all you have to do is play with a band. He didn't know about arrangements. It was under rehearsed, but it was raw energy. And that's what a lot of people if he had come out and done natural Skyline rag as the electric thing, nobody would have complained, but He was out there to take no prisoners. Dave Anthony 14:41 Yeah, play it fucking loud. He said at one concert. Craig Harris 14:47 Oh, that's debatable. I have quotes from the drummer, Mickey Mickey Jones, who said he that it wasn't Dylan who said it that he was close to Dylan. And he never heard him say that, okay, but the myth, whether it's true or not, is that he said, play it fucking loud. But even if he didn't say it, the attitude was there. Yeah, this was music that was full of attitude, right? Dave Anthony 15:18 Punk ish, as you said, Yeah. How did the How did the boys take it being booed a lot of the time? What was, what was the effect on their psychology? Craig Harris 15:28 Levon hated it. Levon hated it so much that he left the tour after the United States portion of it, and didn't go on the World Tour, he went back home and played with the Cates brothers and traveled to New Orleans where he did some offline rigging. They didn't know what happened to him or where he might have gone. It wasn't until they got the offer of a record label, of a record contract from capital that they went looking for leave on it and said, Come on back right. That's when he did return. I mean, you Dave Anthony 16:07 got to admire the bravery of these guys to step up there and play through all this chaos that the that the tour was yielding to, sort of sit there every night, and your book talks about that, how the boos were raining down on these guys, Craig Harris 16:26 but they were making more money than they had ever made in their life. Dylan paid them much more than they would have made on their own right. That helped. They were a journeyman Club Band. They were they wouldn't have been in the arenas or stadiums. Dave Anthony 16:44 So it was a step up for them in terms of economics and everything. Craig Harris 16:49 They got paid many more times than they would have made on their own Dave Anthony 16:56 after coming off the road from that controversial World Tour. It's now the summer of 1966 and Bob Dylan has a pretty serious motorcycle crash in which he breaks several vertebrae in his neck. He gets off the road and retreats to a home he's bought in Woodstock, New York, about three hours north of New York City, in the Catskill Mountains, with his wife Sarah, the guys decide to settle near Bob's Woodstock home and rent a funny looking house with pink siding near Woodstock, New York, about a 10 minute drive from Dylan's house. He shows up every day they jam in the basement. In September 1967 Lee von Helm, after ditching his bandmates on the Dylan electric tour returns to the fold, leaving his job on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana to come back to provide vocals and drumming for the group. The band members work with Dylan almost every day, creating music in the basement of this rented house. Rick Danko dog, which he actually got from Dylan, can actually faintly be heard on a few of the tracks. You can hear the jamming approach on songs like you ain't going nowhere, Dave Anthony 18:18 and the Dylan song wheels on fire, Dave Anthony 18:33 which would ultimately be released on the famous album The Basement Tapes, a joint album that was not released for years after, you can literally hear the album sounds like a band jamming in a basement with echoes wheels on fire would actually appear on a future band album. So how did they get the name the band? Well, they shared the same manager as Bob Dylan. His name was Albert Grossman. Grossman negotiated a deal for them to land an album deal, and around Woodstock, people simply called them Dylan's guys, or the fellas, or most often the band. It started as a placeholder, a casual shorthand, but the more it stuck, the more mythic it began to feel. But something funny happened. The more they heard it, the more it felt right, unadorned, timeless, almost defiant in its simplicity, and while other groups fussed over cosmic monikers and psychedelic word salads, these guys embraced the most stripped down name imaginable. They chose the name that had chosen them. They became simply and boldly the band The Basement Tapes jam sessions, got them in the groove to start confidently writing their own songs, and their first album named after the pink house they lived in, called music from big pink debuted in July 1968 containing songs like the wait written by Robbie Robertson. Southerner Levon Helm and bassist Rick Danko sharing lead on vocals. Dave Anthony 20:15 Chest fever, also written by Robertson with pianist, keyboardist Richard Manuel on vocals. Dave Anthony 20:32 And a song written by Bob Dylan called I shall be released with Manuel again on lead vocals. Dave Anthony 20:49 And tears of rage sung by Manuel Dave Anthony 21:01 and this wheel's on fire with Danko this time singing. Dave Anthony 21:15 The album was generally met with unanimous critical praise for stripping away psychedelic excesses and returning rock music to its country folk, rural, southern roots, its root rock style significantly impacted Eric Clapton, leading him to leave cream to pursue a similar musical direction. Rolling Stone magazine Review wrote, quote, This album was recorded in approximately two weeks. There are people who will work their lives, away in vain and not touch it. UNQUOTE, in 2001 music critic Ian McDonald called the band's first album The most influential record of its time, probably the most influential in rock history. Just as the band is releasing music from big pink their first album, a near tragedy occurs. Bassist Rick Danko himself has an accident with his car and breaks his neck, delaying the potential to tour the big pink album, but they eventually get out on the road eight months later and play their first public appearance in San Francisco in April 1969 a few months later, they actually appear at Woodstock Festival, but were very unhappy with their performance and did not allow it to be in the subsequent film release. Their second album, simply titled The band, is released September 1969 containing the night they drove old Dixie Down starlight. Dave Anthony 22:47 King harvest up on Cripple Creek if Dave Anthony 23:02 i Mama rag, Mama rag, I can't Unknown Speaker 23:07 believe it's true, Dave Anthony 23:19 and across the great divide. Dave Anthony 23:33 The third album, stage fright is released containing the title track, stage bright. Unknown Speaker 23:41 Right. He got Unknown Speaker 23:47 caught in the spotlight. Dave Anthony 23:49 And another song, the shape I'm in, Speaker 4 23:52 go out yonder. He's in the valley, comes downtown at the rumble in the alley. Shape, there's Dave Anthony 24:04 a few things that are very interesting. They've really pioneered this Americana path of music, or at least at that time that was kind of cited as one of their accomplishments, 68 6970 and Craig. It's kind of amazing that four to five members are Canadian. You have to become this definitive American roots rock band. Do you think being outsiders helped them capture something and get so dialed into the American music and mythology? Craig Harris 24:33 No, I don't think it has to do with them being an outsider. I think it has to do with they, like many, many kids at the time, where it would listen to radio stations and hear RnB and rock and early rock and roll shows. Okay? They were old fans of hearing the music from America because at the time, radio stations had 100 quad clear power. Yeah, true. I remember sitting in New York growing up listening to the used. An Astro baseball game that they would tune into. Those radio shows they were in, they were there was very little music coming out of Canada at that time, and so consequently, the only thing that was hit was coming out of America. Dave Anthony 25:18 Yeah, you're right. And then in the radio stations in those days were flowing across borders and at long distances too, Unknown Speaker 25:26 and the same happens now with the Internet. Dave Anthony 25:29 The band's fourth album, entitled Cahoots, features a song life is a carnival. Dave Anthony 25:44 Written by Robertson, Rick Danko and drummer Levon Helm, and another song written by Bob Dylan, when I paint my masterpiece and sung by drummer Helm, she'd be there with me when I paint. The band was plagued by drug use. Levon Helm was a heroin user. Pianist. Richard manual used cocaine and drank extremely heavily, and remember that broken neck suffered by Rick Danko just after the band's first album was released. Well. As a result, Danko became addicted to prescription morphine and also regularly used cocaine and heroin. The Can you describe, if I said to you, describe, in you know, 20 words or less each guy, what words come to mind when you think of each guy? Gossip? Craig Harris 26:42 Hudson, brilliant, but a super musician. Robbie Robinson, very tuned into a business sense and the making of money with music. Rectangle, a fun loving penguin. Levon Helm. Levon Helm experienced a Grinch like moment in the old days when he was doing heroin, he had that shield around him that he that I didn't want to penetrate, I didn't want to go over and say hello to him. He just seemed so distant after he came down with his sickness, it was like his heart grew 10 times larger, and everybody loved him. He became a very lovable kind of guy, interesting, rich Emmanuel, a brilliant genius of musicians, but very emotionally and psychologically troubled. Interesting. Dave Anthony 27:35 Those are interesting takes on those fellows. Next, some cracks begin to emerge in the band in the form of interband relationships and offstage troubles, Speaker 3 27:49 enjoying garage to stadiums. Check us out on your favorite socials, Instagram, YouTube, X, Facebook and LinkedIn. Dave Anthony 27:59 Craig and what were they doing in the studio that was so different from what other bands were doing at the time. Craig Harris 28:05 Even though they were into rhythm and blues, there's many flavors of rhythm and blues. They weren't into the big up tempo showcase type of stuff. They were into the stuff like the staples singers and Curtis Mayfield more smooth and softer Craig Harris 28:34 Robbie. By that time, Robbie Robertson was sick of being a guitar hero. He just wanted to play and make the arrangements stand as arrangements. Dave Anthony 28:45 That's a great point, because Robertson was a guitar virtuoso. Dave Anthony 28:59 I mean, he's up there with anybody, but you don't hear that necessarily. He's not trying to be that Sonic hero, as you said out front. Craig Harris 29:09 And there was a time when he was with Ronnie Hawkins, and when he was with Dylan, that he was a wild when he was with Ronnie Hawkins, people would come the top players would come to the shows just to gaze at his fingers. He was tired of that. He wanted. He was looking for music, something more substantial. Dave Anthony 29:30 That's interesting. He became more of an arranger. I like that word, Craig Harris 29:34 yes very much. So which ultimately, yeah. Problem is that he wasn't the only arranger in the band. Each of the five were making valuable contributions to that arrangement. The problem comes in, you can't copyright an arrangement. You can only copyright the songwriting, writing ship, right? Dave Anthony 29:56 You're now hinting at some controversy over the years that Robbie has taken. More songwriting credit than he deserved, potentially, according to the band, while he counters that, hey, I also begged you guys to contribute too, but there was some other issues that affected their ability to contribute and and to your point about the arrangements, sometimes those are not credited. So what's your take on that debate? Craig Harris 30:21 It's a tough one. Robbie. Robbie's motivation was different than the other guys in the band. For the other guys in the band, music was something you enjoy and love doing, and you do it because you love and enjoy doing it. It's fun. It's enjoyable for Robbie, Robbie grew up in the slums. Like we said, the only way he can pull his bootstraps up was by making, was by songwriting and making money, enough money to get out of the slums. It was a different motivation. Consequently, he wasn't into the drug. Part of it, he was into the work Potter. His addiction was sitting there writing and working on music, working on songs. Dave Anthony 31:08 That's an interesting take. I mean, that explains his he had the work ethic, is really what you're saying. Craig Harris 31:14 And three of the five guys were drug addicts. Richard Manuel was an alcoholic from the time he was a teenager, when they when he moved out of his Santa Monica apartment, they found 2000 empty bottles of Grand Marnier. She said, Rick Danko was into speed balls, which is a combination of heroin and cocaine, and Levon was was into ups, and then he got into heroin for a while. That's what. That's what pissed Robbie off. He's working his ass off trying to get this machine functioning. And he didn't even know what the other guys were going to show up for the recording date, right? And in what shape they were going to be when they did show up, right? I got to play at one time with Rick Danko. And everybody told me, you spend 15 minutes with Rick and you know exactly who he is. And in 15 minutes, I saw two sides of him. He it was a gig that he was doing with a friend of his, Tony Medeiros, in Worcester, Massachusetts. And during the break, we were down in the dressing room, and he was teaching Tony a harmony to a song, and came nose to no nose with Tony Medeiros, and pulled that harmony out with such strength that you felt you could take a knife and cut it. It was so three dimensional on the other side, no matter who came into the dream Green Room, before he even said hello, he asked if he had something to smoke. And that was right after he came back from Japan, where he had been busted and had to go through drug rehabilitation for the number of times. Dave Anthony 33:03 Yeah. Interesting. The dichotomy of the of the band, the different lifestyles, work ethics, it's very interesting. A hint of Robbie Robertson's weariness about perceiving himself to be shouldering the load might be indicated by the tracks on the next album in 1973 called Moon dog matinee, because it was really just a collection of cover songs by 1976 at 33 years old, principal songwriter Robbie Robertson was ready to call it quits, citing the substance abuse issues in the band and the weariness of touring, but as one final act, he recruits acclaimed young director Martin Scorsese to film a final concert. Scorsese being fresh off directing the gritty movie taxi driver starring Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster and the band's November 1976 farewell concert called The Last Waltz, released in 1978 as a documentary, became legendary, not just for the performance, but for the stunning lineup of performers, including Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Neil Young Joni Mitchell Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, Ringo Starr of The Beatles, Ronnie Wood of the stones. And in a respectful nod to their own origins, Ronnie Hawkins, their old Toronto band leader, was invited to perform. Dave Anthony 34:42 Walking side by side, filmed and directed by Scorsese and released two years later in 78 it remains widely considered the definitive concert documentary in rock history. Dave Anthony 35:06 And of course, this culminates in The Last Waltz. And I wondered what your opinions are of that, that the Last Waltz, I know Levon Helm has his own opinions of it based on reading your book. Both i Craig Harris 35:23 Well, last walls was not a band production. Last walls was a last walls production company, production, you would think that the band were members of last walls production and had a say in the film. Last walls productions was Robbie Robinson and Martin Scorsese, the band were paid for 13 weeks a certain amount of money, and that was it. Robbie Robinson and Martin Scorsese reaped rewards every time that film was reissued and reshown and put into syndication on TV, the band didn't make any other the other guys of the band didn't make any money beyond the initial part. Dave Anthony 36:07 That's incredible. That is so incredible to me that they would not have shared in that. Craig Harris 36:12 Wow. And it goes even deeper than that. The band was signed to Capitol Records for a 10 album deal. Last Waltz did not come out on Capitol. It came out on Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers made sure that the rest of the band didn't know what was going on by supplying them with so much cocaine that they couldn't even function like I said, they were into the party aspects, wow, but they got screwed because of it. Dave Anthony 36:47 How would you describe the relationship of Levon and Robbie post the Last Waltz? Craig Harris 36:52 Then Levon had no nothing to do with them anymore. Dave Anthony 36:57 He didn't show up, which is sad. These guys grew up together. Craig Harris 37:02 They grew up together. But there was the differences. Levon felt like he was being cheated, which he, in a way, was, and Robbie was fed up with having to deal with people on heavy drugs. It was like babysitting. You didn't have to do that. So you can see both sides having valid reasons to not like each other. Dave Anthony 37:26 They release an album in March 1977 but Critics generally felt the album ultimately fell short of the standards set by the band's earlier work. In 1983 the band members decide they want to tour again, but without Robbie Robertson, Robbie had moved on and had no interest in touring the band's song catalog. Robbie had leveraged his relationship with Martin Scorsese to become a composer of movie scores and a consultant on a range of Scorsese films, including Raging Bull, the color of money, and ultimately, casino Gangs of New York, Wolf On Wall Street, the Irishmen and killers of the flower moon and sadly, Richard Manuel, the pianist, keyboardist with the beautiful voice, after a long battle with drugs and particularly alcohol, dies by suicide in 1986 while on tour with the reformed band, the remaining band members, with some new recruits to replace Richard Manuel and Robbie Robertson. Release a new album in 1993 called Jericho, containing a series of covers. One notable one is a cover of Bruce Springsteen's Atlantic City Speaker 5 38:40 up ready and meet me tonight in Atlantic City. Dave Anthony 38:47 And then on a 1996 album called high on the hog, they covered Dylan's famous song Forever Young me. Dave Anthony 39:10 How do you feel about the band? Re hooking up without Robertson eventually, I guess they need cash. They want to keep performing. They love performing. How do you feel about that later work? Does it get overlooked unfairly, or is it kind of like, hey, we just throw some cover tunes on albums and roll them out. Craig Harris 39:29 The first album, Jericho? I think Jericho was the first one. Yeah, it was. Jericho was mostly original material, because Levon believed that you're at your best when you're doing originals. The second and third albums, they will put out the word that they needed songs and songs coming from everywhere, from Jules Scheer to Bruce Coburn to the Los Lobos. It was a whole different thing. But. They were a whole different band. They weren't. They were much more closer to what Levon Helm and the Hawks would have sounded like. They were more a Club Band, an up tempo dance band, than they were when Robbie Robertson was there. It wasn't so grandiose, right? It wasn't so done for art. It was done for partying and having a good time. Dave Anthony 40:27 Despite trying to tour and release albums without Robertson, the band members, except for Robertson, continued to struggle with drug and alcohol addictions and ran into financial problems. Robertson bought their share of the band royalties, and this led to even more bitterness about his control of the group, his side of the story. They were desperate for cash, so we found a way that would work for all parties. And it sounds like, it sounds like, ultimately, they really got into some financial problems, likely because of some of the issues we've cited about royalties, et cetera. But then Robertson steps in, in what 2002 and buys out their share of of the of the band. That must have led to even more bitterness at some levels. Craig Harris 41:13 Oh, there was bitterness galore, that financially, none of them came from families that had a lot of money, right? They didn't know what a lot of money was, and when you get a big, giant check, you rejoice. You buy everything you really want. Yep, Ronnie Hawkins told me that before things really hit for them, they were still buying everybody's dinner, paying for everything. And you don't do that unless you have a number one hit, they didn't have a hit, and those things cost money. The big, biggest problem came from the the way that songwriting is paid. When a record company takes money back because they paid you in advance for an album, right? They don't touch the songwriting royalties. They go after the performance royalties. And that was the only thing that the other guys in the band lived on. They weren't getting any songwriting royalties Correct. That cost them, that put them in a whole financial they spent much more than they should have spent, and then they had big troubles. Garth Hudson's ranch burnt down. Levon helms studio and home burnt down a couple of times, and that cost big money, Dave Anthony 42:36 and so did Robbie. Robbie bought their share of the performance royalties. Craig Harris 42:40 Yeah, yeah, incredible. They, they had a portion, a percentage, of ownership in the band. Dave Anthony 42:49 Right when we look back at the band, what will they be remembered for when the history of music is told, what did they, what was what was it about them that will be remembered? Craig Harris 43:06 They were one of the first Americana bands that could mix country blues, R and B and classical and rock and do it with a singular voice, blend it all and have it all sound like the band. That's what they will be remembered. They started. They were one of the founding fathers of what we call Americana. Dave Anthony 43:31 Another thing that came to mind, and I don't know how you feel about this, I felt that it was very distinctive, that they had three different lead singers who were all incredible. How did they figure out who would sing which songs and what made the you know, what? How did they divvy that up? Did they just kind of have a feel for a tune? Craig Harris 43:51 When they started rich, Emmanuel was the lead vocalist. Leave Rick and Levon would sing a song to break up, break it up and give him a rest. Robbie. Robbie didn't write for each player, but he chose the player, Levon. For example, if Robbie had written a song about the South Levon would be the voice of it. Craig Harris 44:28 I don't mind. Is no good. Richard could stand up once or twice in a set and make a count. Okay? Craig Harris 44:45 I Richard really had the voice that there was a great gift, if you can sound like Ray. Charles Stevie Winwood made a career out of that, and Richard Manuel sounds just like Ray, right? Hmm, he had that soul down. Dave Anthony 45:03 He even did a cover of Georgia on my Mind. Craig Harris 45:19 That goes back to the rock and rebels days. That was always his showcase. Unfortunately, on islands, which is the album that's included, was their last album, and they just put together recordings that should never have come out. The recording of Georgia, on my mind, is not the best version. Dave Anthony 45:41 Who Who would you say Craig, the band influenced who then took off from them and said, Okay, I'm going to take some of this sound and incorporate it. Who do you think those bands Craig Harris 45:54 were the Beatles they were clapped in broke up cream after hearing acetate of music from big pink and said, This is what I want to do. And if you look it would be albums like Oh 461, Ocean Boulevard, slow hand, that's exactly where he was coming from. I don't care if you never Speaker 6 46:18 come home. I don't mind if you just keep on going away on a distancy. Because I distance. Craig Harris 46:26 Dead were influenced to record working man's dead, and American Beauty poco started coming out with country music, and Craig Harris 46:42 he I just taped my radio show featuring the new nitty gritty dirt band, and they were one who were there right at that right time when everything was coalescing and country was becoming cool again, or cool for the first time, right? Dave Anthony 47:04 I was thinking the Eagles ultimately in bands like Craig Harris 47:07 that too. Well, the eagles were later on. But yes, logging some Messina, crooked steals, Nash and Young and new Ron stack, Dave Anthony 47:15 even the stone, even the stones went through their country kind of phase. Craig Harris 47:19 I'm going to do a show on the Rolling Stones, country and folk side. Dave Anthony 47:26 Craig, every episode, we ask our guests to pick three songs of the featured performer and sort of why you picked these three songs? Craig Harris 47:35 Well, the greatest one is the weight. I was once doing an author talk when my first book about the band came out, and I was in an audience in a city. I forget which city it was, but I was the only white person in the whole audience, and I knew if I got up there and started talking about the band, no one would understand what I was saying. I started it with, pulled into Nazareth and everybody exactly what I said. That's the song that made the band. It's been recorded over 130 times, everybody from Aretha Franklin and staples singers to the greater dead. Unknown Speaker 48:18 I was feeling by half dead. I just need some place where I can lay my head. Craig Harris 48:28 I would say genetic method, just to see the madman, organ player of Garth Hudson into into chest fever. You. Craig Harris 48:49 Right and I would pick baby, let me follow you down Dylan and the band you on Dave Anthony 49:07 right? Well, those are great picks. Craig Harris is the author of The Last Waltz, the full story of the band and Craig, we wanted to thank you for telling our audience about their compelling journey to the top, from bar band to changing the trajectory of rock music, and you've done a good job illuminating that journey today and giving us insight into some of the personalities involved. Thank you for coming. Craig Harris 49:35 You're very welcome. Thank you for having me. I've enjoyed this hour. You Dave Anthony 49:43 some closing notes on the band. The band was part of a Guinness World Record in 1973 they played at Summer Jam at Watkins Glen, New York, alongside the Allman Brothers Band and the Grateful Dead with over 600,000 people in a. Attendance. The festival set a Guinness World Record for Pop Festival attendance. You know that mention of Nazareth and the song The wait? Well, it refers not to the biblical location, but to Nazareth, Pennsylvania, where Martin guitars are made. Robbie Robertson came up with Nazareth by looking at the label inside his Martin guitar, which stated it was made in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. It sparked the opening line, I pulled into Nazareth and led to the creation of the song's allegorical journey, blending biblical illusions, personal memories and characters from his travels in writing the weight Robbie Robertson was influenced by the surrealist films of director Luis Bunuel, a Spanish and Mexican film director who had recurring themes about the impossibility of sainthood in his films. Garth Hudson came up with the excuse music lessons to convince his conservative parents to let him join a rock and roll bar band. The classically trained multi instrumentalist Hudson insisted that the other members of the Hawks, later known as the band, pay him an extra $10 a week for music lessons. Garth even influenced the evolution of funk music. Here's how he ran his clavinet through a wah wah pedal on up on Cripple Creek to create a unique frog like sound that was later adopted by funk musicians. Dave Anthony 51:35 We discussed how keyboardist Richard Manuel had an extreme drinking habit during the band's time in Malibu, friends discovered 2000 empty Grand Marnier bottles in the house. Richard Manuel was renting a stark indication of his severe alcoholism. Levon Helm had a side acting career. He was the sole American member of the band, and he had a successful side career as a film actor, notably playing Loretta Lynn's father in Coal Miner's Daughter and receiving strong reviews. He also played test pilot, Captain Jack Ridley and acted as the narrator in the film. The Right Stuff, Speaker 5 52:12 farther and faster than any other American. 22 complete orbits around the world. Dave Anthony 52:19 Elton John's leave on song was named after leave on Hill, whose name lyricist, Bernie toppin, apparently found intriguing, even though the song itself is not actually about Hill. Rick Danko worked as a butcher's apprentice in his teens. Around 16 or 17 years old, he was known for being a friendly, popular kid, he would jokingly put his thumb on the scale when weighing meat for customers. The Last Waltz documentary of the band's final concert was filmed at the winterland Ballroom in San Francisco on November 25 1976 in front of approximately 5000 people. Because it was filmed so close to Thanksgiving, a full Thanksgiving dinner was included in the $25 ticket price, an extravagant sum for a concert. At that time, the audience ate at long tables draped in white tablecloths before the music began. The full list of food items served to Attendees included 220 turkeys totaling over 6000 pounds, 90 gallons of gravy, 2000 pounds of peeled yams, 400 pounds of pumpkin pie, 500 pounds of cranberry sauce, 1000 pounds of potatoes and 300 pounds of Nova Scotia salmon, reportedly provided by Bob Dylan for a vegetarian option. Special thanks to our guest today, Craig Harris, author of The Last Waltz, the full story of the band. Thanks to you for making garage to stadiums, one of the top 5% of podcasts in the world. We'd love for you to follow our shows on your favorite podcast platforms so you can be alerted when our next episode drops. Follow us for some great music history content posted on our social channels, Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Our YouTube channel has additional bonus coverage from our interviews. Visit us at that website for more bonus content on all the bands featured and links to great downloadable playlists on Apple and Spotify, thanks to our producer, Cameron dolliver, our program director Scott Campbell, Creative Director Chad Raymond and video director Nigel Campbell, you've been listening to garage to stadiums. I'm Dave Anthony, see you next time for another garage to stadium story, Unknown Speaker 54:41 another blast furnace labs production in.