Band

Somewhere, in the midst of Elliott Landy's vast photographic archive, lies an old black-and-white shot. Dusty and alluring, it demands a place of honor, but also a hiding place, waiting to be discovered and savored with the surprise it deserves. The image was taken in the countryside around Woodstock, in West Saugerties, New York State, in 1968.

A rickety wooden bench sits at the center of the frame: it could hold at most three people, and even then, uncomfortably.

That morning there are as many as five of them, pictured from behind, gazing pensively at the natural spectacle before them: a clear little lake, its silvery surface lit up by the morning sun. On the far shore, still land, trees bare for the winter, the Catskill Mountains closing off the idyllic view. Those five could be weary gold prospectors straight out of a Mark Twain novel, or young farmers dressed in their Sunday best, waiting for a better tomorrow, like the proud outcasts of William Faulkner, John Steinbeck and Walt Whitman.

Instead they're musicians, and they're recording their debut album.

A small step back

Ronnie Hawkins, singer and pianist from Arkansas, is an ambitious and brash rocker, a showman of modest fame and decent artistic talent. Struck by black music, he dropped out of university, and in an Oklahoma club in 1957 got the chance to see, and eventually join, an all-black band, the Black Hawks.

His first official recording came out in '58 from a dusty garage, titled "Hey Bo Diddley" and credited to the Ron Hawkins Quartet. On drums sits fellow Arkansan Levon Helm, then just seventeen: the first key member of what would become The Band, straight from the deep South, an eyewitness to countless street shows (minstrel shows), to concerts by Elvis Presley (before fame hit), Bill Monroe or Sonny Boy Williamson. He would become the driving force behind so many rural stories, the wellspring for the fables later told by Robbie Robertson. Definitively renamed Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks, the band cut its first two albums for Roulette, a self-titled one in '59 and "Mr. Dynamo" -- Hawkins's own nickname -- the following year. The real winning move, though, was strategic: leaving behind the seedy bars and clubs of the Memphis circuit and heading north, to Canada. Up there, far fewer rock 'n' roll idols came through, competition was scarce, and a certain restless youth was itching to shake and dance. The group, riding in a black Cadillac straight out of an old gang movie, found gigs easily, plenty of girls, and no shortage of after-show barroom brawls straight out of a western.

The gruelling touring schedule brought about several lineup changes: one by one, all the future members of The Band came aboard. Robbie Robertson (from 1960) on lead guitar and Rick Danko on bass, followed by Christmas '61 by keyboardists Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson. Unfortunately the career struggled to take off, hitting its one fleeting moment of glory with a cover of "Who Do You Love" by beloved Bo Diddley (1963). At that point the backing band left him and began touring Canada and the States under the new name Levon & The Hawks.

A true melting pot of different influences: rock 'n' roll, but also rockabilly, country, blues, gospel and R&B. The five Hawks fed off one another, gradually weaving a sonic blend that would soon crystallize into an unmistakable sound. Their backstories are just as compelling: Robertson, son of a Jewish gambler (who died when he was a child) and a Mohawk mother, raised on a reservation near Toronto with his ears permanently tuned to Nashville radio waves; Rick Danko a little further north, raised among the tobacco fields on the shores of Lake Simcoe; then Manuel, with his obsession for drink and for Ray Charles's singing; and Hudson, an organist and musical prodigy, a wild blender of Bach and Chuck Berry inside his uncle's funeral parlour business.

The music said it all: on one side, the rhythm section, precise, thunderous, solemn and evocative; on the other, Garth Hudson's organ, the most mature and musically trained of them all (with a classical background behind him), but also a charismatic experimenter with sound and arrangement. In between, Robbie's guitar work, sinuous like no one else's, virtuosic without a trace of arrogance, a passionate champion of unconventional melodic terrain. As for the voices: Richard Manuel's wonderful, lonesome, romantic falsetto served as a counterpoint to the rustic, rough-hewn cheerfulness of the beguiling Danko and Helm.

In two years of touring on their own, playing five sets a night, the boys managed to cut a handful of singles and, above all, to be seen on stage (summer '64) by a delighted John Hammond Jr. The latter, twenty-year-old son of the legendary Columbia talent scout John Hammond, offered them the chance to record with him in New York, acting as a deluxe backing band for a (still!) little-known white blues singer-songwriter. Those two albums would be the prelude to the decisive encounter with Bob Dylan, during the fateful summer of 1965. The quintet barely knew him, far removed from the new, aggressive, ante-litteram heavy aesthetic the songwriter was proposing. And yet...

The little man from Duluth was, at that moment, folk's new prophet, hailed with equal fervour by musicians, fans, critics, industry insiders, the young and the old alike.

"The times", however, "they are a-changin'", just as he himself had predicted: tired of tradition and protest ballads, Bob picked up an electric guitar for the first time and put together a backing band, determined to match (and, deep down, to surpass) the seismic socio-musical shockwave set off by the Beatles. Hence "Bringing It All Back Home", his first million-selling success, and his "rock baptism" on the Newport Folk Festival stage in late July, with Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield and 3/5 of the Butterfield Blues Band.

The first real contact with the Hawks came through Robbie Robertson's friendship, acting as the Hawks' emissary -- the band having, among other things, been strongly recommended to Bob by Mary Martin, secretary to his manager Albert Grossman.

Robbie struck up an excellent rapport with Dylan, becoming his inseparable sidekick: from there it was a short step to appearing alongside him at the Forest Hills concert (27/08), with Levon Helm on drums. Two distinct sets, one acoustic and the other (booed by the old "purist" fans) electric and clattering. Bob was thrilled and chose the Hawks themselves (helped along by the departure of Kooper, Bloomfield and Harvey Brooks) to continue the dates of the exhausting, legendary '65/'66 world tour. That endless run of concerts, interviews, protests and time zones wore down both the bodies and spirits of the merry crew: Helm quit almost immediately (late November), in constant disagreement with a new leader who had gradually usurped his status as the group's charismatic tribal chief.

And so, amid drummer swaps (from Bobby Gregg to Mickey Jones for the European leg) and daily boos from the enemies of electricity, one of rock's most storied tours came to a close -- a pivotal moment in the evolution of a medium becoming aware of itself. Dylan's tragic motorcycle accident in the countryside near Woodstock (29/07/'66) did the rest.

His convalescence dragged on, and Bob chose to settle permanently in that rural "buen retiro", far from amphetamines and journalists. He imposed a year of complete artistic silence, raising children with his partner Sara. Then, something loosened. Hudson, Danko and Manuel decided to rent a large pink house nearby (fittingly nicknamed "Big Pink") and turn its spacious basement into a recording studio and musical refuge. A few miles away stood Albert Grossman's mansion, with Robbie and his wife permanent guests, while Helm came and went from the South. Out of that bucolic calm came the Dylan demos later released as the "Basement Tapes", and, more importantly, the material for the debut under their new name: The Band. The mood was lazy and relaxed, the mild weather allowing for small group excursions into the surrounding woods, outings and long chats with the neighbours, between a picnic and a game of football.

The rest of the adventure

The first thing that stuns the rock audience is precisely the content of the Band's debut album (July 1, '68, No. 30 on the US charts), miles away from what listeners had grown used to hearing up to that point: no Indian ragas, no ten-minute epics, no references to mind-expanding drugs. On "Big Pink" there's no room for flashy outfits or ethnic instruments. Words like "virtuosity," "solipsism," "stardom" are banned from the vocabulary. On the contrary, what listeners (at first curious more about Dylan's presence/event than anything else) stumble upon is a "bittersweet celebration of old & young americas." The hidden story behind that strange watercolour cover (a gift from Bob, credited on three tracks) deals with the present as seen through the eyes of the past, reeking of the old West, cowboys and indians, the Great Depression and wide open spaces, a sense of belonging and a longing to escape.

Nothing, not even ten years of "professionalism" behind them, would have suggested a fresco this spectacularly vivid, one that takes quite a while to sink in before it can be fully absorbed. The groundwork was there, the background was there. Dylan had paved the way with his cryptic "John Wesley Harding," recorded with local musicians in Nashville and released the previous winter. On "Big Pink" there's a collective completely at ease with its technical means, with all the different musical languages learned over time (country, folk, blues, gospel, rock, soul, R&B), with songwriting that had finally matured. Above all, a deep knowledge of America, its vices and virtues, an analysis made sharp and possible thanks also to the privileged "outsider" perspective of these singular Canadians, more American than the natives themselves. The album's key themes are family, faith, friendship, lineage, freedom of choice and the urge to flee a rigid, pre-established order. War is distant yet present in the background: tragedy and anxiety are palpable through those elusive, enigmatic lyrics. The music conveys a sense of freedom, of a loose jam session among old multi-instrumentalist friends swapping lead vocals like joints: "Big Pink" is the product of five personalities fused into one, five different visions of homeland interwoven with one another.

These are eleven songs that go straight to the heart, moving the listener through their simplicity, sincerity and performative immediacy. The dialogue, the questioning of one's own roots, proves to be a populist commitment that will end up influencing plenty of peers and heralding the revival of roots music, the Great American Sound codified once and for all.

This "ancient book of young ancestors" opens with the indolence and bitterness of "Tears Of Rage," the story's first chapter, co-written with Dylan.

What stands out is Robbie's electric guitar filtered through a Leslie speaker (a rotating-action speaker originally designed to alter the sound of the Hammond organ, later tried out on voice and other instruments too), which distorts its tone, Garth's organ carpet and Levon's superb drumming, one of the greatest and most underrated drummers of all time. Manuel's voice, halfway between sentimentality and "big chill" depression, begins to frame a father-son conflict. Things seem to take a bad turn: the desire for reconciliation curdles into resentment, the anger over a dialogue that came too late and was never encouraged is plain to hear. The son, an original "homo novus" of democratic America, is searching for himself, for love and for the fellowship of his peers. The parent's disappointment is inescapable, punctuated by the piano and the lovely embroidery of the two saxophones in the second verse. The independence celebration evoked in the lyrics is ruined by the farewell, but it's the whole of America that weeps bitter tears, a homeland afflicted by war.

The father's grief continues in "To Kingdom Come," nothing less than a zen reflection on death: the old man warns the new generations not to make mistakes, not to show their hand too soon. Lead vocals go to Robertson's rasping, shrill delivery, with Richard on harmonies. The tone is ironic and playful, more naive than the previous track. The rhythm spins like a whirling round dance, driven by a lovely piano groove. The golden calf is the first in a series of unsettling biblical and mythological figures haunting Robbie's sleep, with Manuel as the main lyricist here: in this case the beast is outside the window, eyeing the unlucky old man menacingly. "In A Station," ushered in by electric piano and clavinet, is another stunning showcase for "loner" Richard Manuel: a dreamlike ballad still steeped in sadness and a sense of abandonment.

There's a strong urge to hide in the crowd and disappear, to identify with whoever one meets on the street. Unfortunately, that "Christian" desire clashes with suspicion, with the divisions of a society that has stopped believing in friendship.

However hard he tries (another reference to the forbidden fruit of Eden), there's no chance: hence dissatisfaction and a sense of weakness. The song plays entirely on this feeling of angelic suspension.

The protagonist's "road trip" becomes more concrete with "Caledonia Mission," a wistful memory of a love gone cold. Rick Danko takes the wheel of the story: a girl from a good Jewish family lives content and self-confined in a Southern mission. Spoiled and conservative, she doesn't have the nerve to give in to the escape promised by the romantic musician, and instead works tirelessly, a prisoner of her own garden, of her own locked gate. The song builds and catches fire in the chorus, where Manuel joins in on backing vocals. However vigorously the voices intertwine, together with piano and electric guitar, the underlying perspective never changes.

The heart, the message of the whole album, is contained in "The Weight," also released as a single, the only hit of their career, later featured in the soundtrack to "Easy Rider." Here the music alone would be enough: an acoustic guitar opening, a handful of inimitable arpeggios, then the drums kicking in ("Ba-dum-badum-dum"). Then the piano and the voices. In between, gorgeous three-part harmonies, as fragile and fleeting as a gust of wind. It's the perfect paraphrase of the sound: handmade, immediate, built on the happy balance of a few well-chosen ingredients. In the Ancient Book there's room for everyone, working as a team like seasoned boy scouts. The hallucinatory quality of the lyrics is comic: the pilgrim hero's encounters (part Jesus Christ, part Donald Duck or Don Quixote) in Nazareth, searching for rest and shelter. Notice the protagonist's will to absorb people's pain free of charge, to lift the weight of life off society's weary shoulders. The answer, still a no, is nonetheless handled with irony and fatalism.

The second half of the Ancient Book dwells on the themes stated at the outset, gradually losing some of its flavour by the end. In "We Can Talk," a gospel mid-tempo carried by organ and piano/drums, conflict returns to the stage, now between peers: instead of the beloved, a friend enslaved by an oppressive working condition. The advice is to rethink what's been done, to convince oneself it's never too late, since the dialogue favoured in the title can overturn the plough, the cows and the yoke of an ignorant master.

A case apart is "Long Black Veil," the only cover of the bunch (a country hit for Lefty Frizzell in '59, one of Robertson's idols). The gloomy murder-ballad atmosphere is reinterpreted without pathos, in an unexpectedly relaxed key, with vocal harmonies that build and a lovely interplay of keyboards and acoustic guitar. Only a sinister bass-tuba drone (?) ripples the surface.

The best part of the unrestrained "Chest Fever" is the opening, a chance for Garth Hudson to show off his talent: an infernal Hammond organ intro, a rare bird's virtuosity (which Led Zeppelin would recall when recording "Your Time Is Gonna Come") layered onto scaffolding that, as we've seen, is otherwise fairly choral. In the lyrics, as in the achingly sweet slow tune "Lonesome Suzie" that follows, we get yet another attempt to rescue a hero/princess in danger. In "Fever" it's a self-destructive femme fatale, a ferocious beast enough to make your knees tremble; "Suzie" is the lonely, sad, elderly spinster in need of human warmth. In both cases, the protagonist's solution is the same: escape, freedom, a new life.

A shame about the last two numbers, written in cahoots with Dylan: as mentioned, they lose a bit of the narrative unity, and the arrangements suffer somewhat from having to measure themselves too closely against the originals, already in the works back in the days of the "Basement Tapes." "This Wheel's On Fire" stands out for its driving fast tempo, its harmonies and Robertson's cutting electric guitar. The anguished lyrics threaten a new encounter between enemies, two imaginary gunslingers waiting to face off before the end, before darkness and destruction swallow everything. The farewell of "I Shall Be Released," sung by Manuel, ties up the album's threads in the tones of a torch song: the irreconcilable dichotomy of weakness and hope, the distances of the heart still to be bridged, the need to give and receive love (symbolised in the song by light), freedom as a chimera to be grasped with one last, titanic effort.

Can you picture that night from so many years ago: the dim glow of candlelight, the dusty basement, five stormy, bearded Heathcliffs in their hats, with that bitter smile capable of cracking even the hardest rock. "Any Day Now, Any Day Now, I Shall Be Released"...

After all that singing, getting worked up, getting moved, night has fallen. Silence over the green valleys of Woodstock, the moon hides away and the stars play their usual game of beauty. Not a breath of wind, only owls among the bare trees, the river flowing, leaves on the dry ground. Somewhere nearby, the man once called Dylan stops typing. His children are asleep, it's too late to go hunting for a melody on the guitar. The album he's mulling over will be another revelation: Johnny Cash, country-rock, a soft voice.

Unheard words slip quietly out of his mind and blur into a haze of mercury and quicksilver, exciting him. But it's time to sleep, tomorrow is another day, you never know. Off come the clothes, the little glasses, the shoes. His last drowsy glance falls on a pile of negatives scattered across the wooden desk, left there by a photographer friend. They're photos of his friends in the Band. His favorite, unsurprisingly, is of a battered old bench. "That bastard is damn good," he mutters, before wrapping himself in the sheets. "I've absolutely got to work with him."

Extra: music influenced by Big Pink: Fairport Convention, "Liege & Lief" (the same premise as the Band, but with a desire to rediscover their own roots, ferrying them into old Victorian England); The Byrds, "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo"; Rolling Stones, "Beggar's Banquet"; Elton John, "Tumbleweed Connection"; Grateful Dead, "Workingman's Dead" or "American Beauty"; Paisley Underground on the Green On Red side; Alt. Country via Uncle Tupelo, then Wilco, Jayhawks, Lambchop. Unsuspected names like Eric Clapton or Procol Harum, self-confessed disciples of the caliber of Will Oldham or Mercury Rev, superstars like Ryan Adams or Norah Jones. And the list could stretch longer than the Mississippi, far longer than those forty-two minutes which, by this point, you'll be dying to rediscover.

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26/10/2006