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Tag: The Band

  • Houston Concert Watch 12/26: George Clinton, Erykah Badu and More – Houston Press

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    Thanksgiving 1976 was one for the ages in San Francisco.  The 5,000 people lucky enough to score tickets for The Band’s “Last Waltz” concert attended maybe the best rock and roll party ever.

    A full Thanksgiving dinner was served to kick things off, followed by ballroom dancing and readings from Beat poets like Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Michael McClure.  Then came the concert itself, which began with a 12-song set from The Band.  Then it was time for (musical) dessert, as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Jone Mitchell, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters and others joined The Band to celebrate their shared musical heritage.  In all, over four hours of incredible and historic music making.

    Firing up the Martin Scorsese film which documented the event as part of your Thanksgiving celebration is a fine idea.  The Last Waltz looks great, and the audio is excellent considering the era.  However, don’t be sucked in by the myth that is created by Scorsese and Band guitarist Robbie Robertson.  Each man wanted out of the collaboration.  As a mega music fan Scorsese wanted a path into the world of rock and roll.  Robertson, on the other hand, was looking to get into the movie business. 

    All well and good, but Robertson had unilaterally made the decision to terminate The Band’s performing career, and the other members of the group – particularly drummer / vocalist Levon Helm) were not happy about it.  This accounts for their collective glum demeanor during most of the film’s interview segments, and it also explains Robertson’s desire to cast (with Scorsese’s help) The Band as musicians who had given their all for their art and were simply too depleted – physically and emotionally – to continue any longer.

    In point of fact, The Band had not toured all that much during its existence, certainly not in comparison to bluesmen like Muddy Waters.  Sure, business travel of any kind is taxing and not all the fun that it’s cracked up to be, but don’t buy dramatic (and probably pre-scripted) Robertson quotes like, “16 years on the road. The numbers start to scare you.  I mean, I couldn’t live with 20 years on the road. I don’t think I could even discuss it.”

    As a footnote, check out Scorsese during the interview segments.  Remind you of anybody?  If you said, “Marty DiBergi from Spinal Tap!” go to the head of the class.  But – to quote the esteemed Mr. DiBergi – enough of my yakkin’. Whaddaya say? Let’s boogie!

    Ticket Alert

    San Angelo’s purveyors of Texican rock and roll, Los Lonely Boys, kind of wandered in the desert (maybe literally, considering their location) for several years after hitting it big with the single “Heaven.”  After taking a lengthy break, the Garza brothers checked the balance in their bank accounts, got back together and released a new album (Resurrection) last year.  Tickets are on sale now for their concert at the House of Blues on Saturday, February 14. 

    Also performing on Valentine’s Day is Houston’s own Kat Edmonson, whose “Only the Bare Essentials” tour promises intimate evenings in which “[s]ubtlety and nuance will be served up as main courses for this show, and the music, so delicately played, will leave you feeling entirely full.”  Wow, that’s a lot to swallow!  You can get tickets now for Edmonson’s show on Saturday, February 14, at the Heights Theater.

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    Wolfmother will play at the House of Blues on Monday, June 8, marking the 20th anniversary of the band’s debut album, and tickets are on sale now.  Though the band has been hounded (sorry) by accusation of classic rock appropriation, that’s a bit off the mark.  Sure, you can tell that these guys listened to a lot of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath growing up, but is that such a bad thing?

    After working behind the scenes in the music business as a songwriter and producer for several years, Meghan Trainor’s solo career took off with 2014’s “All About That Bass,” a song that flipped the gender of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” and threw in some body-positivity messages for good measure.  Trainor’s “Get in Girl” tour will stop at Toyota Center on Tuesday, July 28, and tickets are on sale now.

    Much like the Beach Boys and Jimmy Buffett before him, Jack Johnson has made a career by creating a surf-and-sand vibe that is easy to listen to and not terribly demanding.  But hey, he comes by it honestly, having been raised in Hawaii and making a name for himself as a professional surfer during his teenage years.   Johnson will perform on Friday, August 28, at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, so get yourself a pocketful of edibles and get ready.

    Concerts This Week

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    While the following week will be occupied with Thanksgiving-related activities, there are a few options available if you and your cool cousins want to get out of the house for a bit.  On Friday, OG funkster George Clinton will perform at the House of Blues along with Parliament-Funkadelic. George is 84 years old, so you might want to catch his act while you can.  But, as “Flashlight” says, “most of all, most of all” this show represents the opportunity to experience some 100 proof funk as dispensed by the master.

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    The always unpredictable and irrepressible Erykah Badu will play two nights, Friday and Saturday, this week at the 713 Music Hall.  Badu’s “Return of Automatic Slim” tour marks the 25th anniversary of her album Mama’s Gun, and indications are that “reimaginings” of some of the disc’s tracks will be on the set list.  Hope she doesn’t stray too far from the original arrangements – they were classics.

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    Think you might need some honky-tonk after all that turkey and dressing?  Then Shoeshine Charley’s Big Top Lounge is your spot on Friday, when Dale Watson and His Lonestars will be tending the flame of traditional country music.  How rootsy is Watson?  He opened a recording studio in Memphis with the original board from Sun Studio, where Elvis, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lewis produced all of their early hits.  Now that’s hardcore.

    This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.

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    Tom Richards

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  • This Day in Rock History: November 25

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    On this day in rock history, the Jimi Hendrix Experience made their U.K. debut, The Band performed for the last time, and The Beatles’ The White Album was released in the U.S. Keep reading to learn more about the major rock music events that took place on Nov. 25.

    Breakthrough Hits and Milestones

    These are some of the most memorable milestones in rock history from Nov. 25:

    • 1966: The Jimi Hendrix Experience made their official live debut in the U.K. at the Bag O’Nails Club in London. Many of the biggest names in music at the time, including Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, and some members of The Beatles, attended the show.
    • 1976: The Band played their final concert, which was turned into a documentary film called The Last Waltz, at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. The show featured guest appearances by many legendary artists, such as Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Van Morrison.

    Cultural Milestones

    A couple of notable musicians were born on Nov. 25, including:

    • 1940: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Percy Sledge was born in Leighton, Alabama. Sledge shot to stardom in the 1960s and 1970s with a string of soulful hits. His most successful one was 1966’s “When a Man Loves a Woman.”
    • 1964: Singer-songwriter Mark Lanegan was born in Ellensburg, Washington. He was the lead singer of pioneering grunge band Screaming Trees and also released 12 influential solo albums.

    Notable Recordings and Performances

    Concerts and albums are rock music’s two main ingredients. These unforgettable performances and album releases are associated with Nov. 25:

    • 1968: The Beatles’ self-titled ninth album, commonly known as The White Album, was released in the U.S., just three days after its U.K. launch. It spent 215 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart and has sold over 12 million copies in the U.S. alone.
    • 1997: The original members of The Zombies reunited for a one-off performance for the first time in 30 years at the Jazz Cafe in Camden Town, London. The band promoted their greatest hits box set, titled Zombie Heaven, and played only their two biggest songs: “She’s Not There” and “Time of the Season.”

    Nov. 25 has been an eventful day in rock history, with the Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Beatles taking center stage. Visit this page again tomorrow to discover all the noteworthy events that happened on that day in rock history.

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    Dan Teodorescu

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  • Robbie Robertson, Canadian music legend, dead at 80 | Globalnews.ca

    Robbie Robertson, Canadian music legend, dead at 80 | Globalnews.ca

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    Robbie Robertson, the guitarist and main songwriter in The Band, the Canadian-American group known for songs including The Weight and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, has died at the age of 80, his manager said on Wednesday.

    Robertson, who left his Toronto home at age 16 to pursue his rock’n’roll dreams, died Wednesday in Los Angeles after a long illness, Robertson’s manager of 34 years, Jared Levine, said in a statement.

    “Robbie was surrounded by his family at the time of his death,” the statement added.

    The Band included four Canadians – Robertson, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel – and was anchored by an Arkansas drummer, Levon Helm. Originally dubbed The Hawks as the backing band for rockabilly wild man Ronnie Hawkins, they gained attention supporting Bob Dylan on his Going Electric tours of 1965-1966.


    CALIFORNIA – JUNE 1976: Guitarist Robbie Robertson of the rock group ‘The Band’ plays his Fender Stratocaster electric guitar as he performs outside onstage in June 1976.

    Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

    After changing their name to The Band and rebasing in Woodstock, New York, they became one of the most respected groups in rock. Their 1976 farewell concert in San Francisco was the basis of Martin Scorsese’s 1978 movie The Last Waltz.

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    The Band had a unique chemistry. Known for their vocal harmonies, they had three excellent singers in Helm, bassist Danko and pianist Manuel. Organist and multi-instrumentalist Garth Hudson was also crucial.

    “They were the goods,” Robertson wrote of his four band mates in his 2016 autobiography, Testimony. “This band was a real band. No slack in the high wire here. Everybody held up his end with plenty to spare.”


    FILM – In this May 29, 1978 file photo, American director Martin Scorsese, left, and producer Robbie Robertson are shown in the French Riviera in Cannes, France, to present “Last Waltz” at the 31st Cannes International Film Festival.

    (AP Photo, file)

    “The impact of The Band’s first album can’t be exaggerated,” critic Greil Marcus wrote in 2000, referring to their 1968 debut album, Music from Big Pink. It contained The Weight and Dylan’s I Shall Be Released, among others.

    Their 1969 sophomore album, titled simply The Band, was even better. With their frontiersman look and unique blend of folk, rock, country, soul and gospel, The Band influenced the likes of Eric Clapton, Elton John, the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, and generations of later musicians who played music that was by then called “Americana.”

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    Their music harked back to an earlier America, reflected in such song titles as Across the Great Divide, King Harvest (Has Surely Come), Up on Cripple Creek and The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show.

    INDIGENOUS ROOTS

    Jaime Royal Robertson was born in Toronto on July 5, 1943. His mother, Rosemarie Dolly Chrysler, was an Indigenous Canadian of Mohawk and Cayuga descent. She married a Canadian Army enlistee named Jim Robertson. Robbie Robertson later learned that his biological father was a man he described as a “card shark” of Jewish heritage named Alex Klegerman, who was killed in a highway hit-and-run accident before Robertson was born.

    As a boy, Robertson was impressed by his visits with relatives on the Six Nations Indian Reserve in southwestern Ontario. It struck him that “everybody there could play or sing or dance or do something with music,” he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Metro Morning in 2017. “To see somebody sitting beside you in a chair and hear their fingers moving on the instrument, and hear them breathing when they were singing, all of that, it gave me chills.”

    Robertson became infatuated with the guitar early on and gained a reputation as a guitar hot shot during his time with the Hawks. Rolling Stone magazine eventually ranked him No. 59 on its 2015 list of “100 Greatest Guitarists.” His unique guitar style was displayed to great effect on such Band songs as Jawbone and Smoke Signal.

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    CALIFORNIA – JUNE 1976: Guitarist Robbie Robertson of the rock group ‘The Band’ plays his Fender Stratocaster electric guitar as he performs outside onstage in June 1976.

    (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

    After soaring to the highest heights on their first two albums, The Band continued to produce good work in the 1970s but a certain lethargy and lack of direction set in, not helped by the substance abuse problems of Danko, Helm and Manuel. They decided to pack it in by holding a star-studded concert in 1976 with such guests as Dylan, Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Van Morrison and Muddy Waters.

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    After The Band’s breakup, Robertson created soundtracks for Scorsese films, including Raging Bull. He made a foray into acting in 1980 with the film Carny, starring Jodie Foster. He released several solo albums, exploring new sonic territory rather than trying to recapture the distinctive sound of The Band.

    DARK TIMES

    In the 1990s, acrimony emerged when Helm accused Robertson of failing to give co-credits to the other members on songs he claimed they had co-written. Robertson denied he had unfairly withheld credit.

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    Helm painted a scathing picture of Robertson in his 1993 autobiography. Robertson reacted more in sorrow than anger, often saying in interviews that Helm, in the early days, was “the closest thing I had to a brother.”

    The Band’s members reunited in various configurations in the 1980s and 1990s and even made a few albums under The Band name, but Robertson never took part.


    Robbie Robertson performs at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival 2013 at Madison Square Garden in New York on April 13, 2013. Tapping into the recesses of his memory is almost second nature for Robbie Robertson. Given his touring with Bob Dylan during his folk-electric years and playing guitar in the seminal 1970s rock group the Band, he gets a lot of questions about the past.

    THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File

    After The Band’s breakup, a lifetime of hard living took its toll on the members. Manuel hanged himself in a Florida hotel room at age 42 in 1986. Danko died at age 55 in 1999. Helm died of throat cancer in 2012. Hudson is the remaining member still alive.

    In February 2022, Variety reported, citing sources, that Robertson sold his music publishing catalog to a firm called Iconoclast for about $25 million.

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    After all the highs and lows, Robertson looked back at his Band mates with love and affection. “Through all the turbulence, I am left with such a deep appreciation for my journey,” he wrote in his autobiography. “This shining path I’ve traveled being part of the Band – there will never be another like it. Such a gift, such talent, such pain, such madness … I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
    — Reporting by Matthew Lewis in Chicago; additional reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; editing by Diane Craft and Rosalba O’Brien

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