Hushabye Mountain

I'll tell ya, I'd pay good money, or give up one of my kids—and possibly all of 'em (hi, Max!)—for an album of Dave Gilmour singing minor key Dick van Dyke songs.

Toss in him doing "Pure Imagination" and I wouldn't have to pay anything, 'cuz I'd die of happiness.

Don't Do It

Look at these jamokes. If you were drinking in your local dive, or maybe a guest at the wedding of a distant acquaintance, and these guys got up to play, what would you think? I mean, really. Just look at them.

Levon looks like the really good mechanic you're pleased to have finally found, even though you can't help but feel—accurately—that he's always looking down at you because you don't know as much about cars as he does. Rick looks like the guy who works the counter at the autoparts store. Richard looks like the guy who stocks the shelves at the autoparts store: there's something about his smile that freaks out the customers too much, even the most manly ones, so they don't let him work the register. Robbie looks like the guy who mixes paint at the hardware store and tries to chat up the housewives, most of whom see right through him, and don't so much enjoy the attention as feel a bit creeped out and like they need a shower. And then there's Garth—in the end, there's always Garth. He's the guy who works in the stacks at the local university library, the one you hope the librarian won't have to go to for help when you ask your question, even though they always do, 'cuz he always knows, and there's no reason you hope they won't, as he's never said or done anything weird to you or anyone you know: in fact, he never does anything weird, other than never doing anything but studying old, arcane tomes and feeding his fish. It's just that he always stares at your shoes as he mumbles the answer to even the most esoteric of queries.

And then they start playing.

Would you get it right away? Would Levon's jittery yet slinky beat immediately clue you in that you're in the presence of a master, of a man who got as much funk, as much soul in his DNA as guanine? I'm not sure you would. What about when Rick starts in with that bassline? I like to think so, but I'm still not sure; the goofy way he bops might distract you. Sure, you'd think, okay, this might not be totally embarrassing, but I don't think you'd quite realize yet what you're in for.

It's Richard's piano that prepares you. His chording is simple, sweet, tasteful...but quiet as it is, it's got that tang of the roadhouse about it—but a roadhouse down New Orleans way—that subtly shifts your thoughts and expectations and even though you haven't fully grokked it yet, you're already starting to think, well...huh. This might just

And then Robbie starts playing. And the slightly sad lounge lizard reveals himself to be the greatest guitarist you've ever actually seen in person, with just a few chords. They're not difficult chords; this isn't Jim Hall playing some bizarre inversed voicing. They're just your standard rock and roll chords...but they're rock and roll chords played with that distorted Strat tone that bypasses your aural canal and goes directly into your very being and makes it clear that the guy making those sounds knows rock and roll and he knows the guitar and suddenly the smugness seems entirely justified.

And then they start singing. And it hits you, first, that this sweaty funk workout is somehow Marvin Gaye's boppy classic. And, secondly, you realize, accurately, that if this isn't the best group vocals you've ever heard, well, you never heard better. Never. Not by the Beach Boys, not by the Beatles, not even by the Everlys. Never.

Robbie's guitar solo only confirms what you could tell by his opening chords, which is that this superior bastard is indeed superior—he's got the technical ability, but he's more than just flash: he's got the spirit. And behind him, supporting them all, is that intense research librarian who, it turns out, plays the church organ like Bach, if Bach had been raised as a tobacco farmer in Kentucky.

Turns out, and who knew? that looks can be deceptive. And that the rock, the funk, the soul, can take root in the most unlikely of places, whether a guy who looks like a smarmy bastard or a creepy stockboy. And that the proof is always in the sound. And god-a-mighty, what a sound.

I Feel Good

I have often said that the first woman I ever truly loved was Batgirl. Sure, I was only 4.5 years old at the time, but the heart wants what the heart wants, and I think time has proven my ardent passion was not misdirected.

But if there's any human in the entire world I could understand, even respect and approve of being passed over for, it's the Godfather of Soul.

Frankly, I think the world is worse off for the fact that (as far as we know) they didn't have a bunch of kids. Can you imagine the offspring of these two? Surely, sartorially, at least—to say nothing of their talent, vision and appearance—they would have been unmatched.

Hurry Up Sundown

When I watch a film like the oh so pleasant and at times remarkably accurate "That Thing You Do" I can't help but marvel at how spot on the songwriting was. The title track fits its time period perfectly even as it's simply a fantastic song, able to stand up to being played in the movie roughly 73 times and never once do you come close to getting tired of it, as though it seemed as though you'd known it all your life the very first time they play it. That's some seriously skilled writing on the part of Adam Schlesinger, one half of the songwriters of Fountains of Wayne, as well as reportedly consultants at their much in-demand telephone hotline.

Based on this relative throwaway of an outtake, or outtake of a relative throwaway, Bruce Springsteen could maybe score a gig like that, should the whole rock and roll legend thing suddenly dry up. This song could easily fit on a hidden masterpieces of the 1960s collection and no one would doubt it for a moment. (Other than the vocal which, while great, sounds a bit too adult to pass for sunny bubblegum.)

You're the One That I Want

I loved this damn movie. I did. What can I say? I was 9 and even dumber than I am now.

But I was so unhappy with the ending. I could not believe that Sandy sold out. I mean, I get that Danny did too—except he immediately went back to his "real" self for her, and she had to stay as the "new and improved" her...and the new and improved her was absolutely no improvement over the original her because you cannot improve upon the perfection that was the original version of Sandy.

Or so I thought. Until I saw this.

h/t: the great Dangerous Minds

Arthur's Theme

There've been a spate of articles over the past year or two talking about the death of the very concept of the guilty pleasure. When it comes to art and/or entertainment, you like what you like and no need to apologize for it: if it brings you pleasure, no need for guilt.

I could not agree more.

Except when it comes to Christopher Cross.

Look, I like a lot of stuff that used to be considered by most people of discernment as bad: Genesis, Yes, Barry Manilow, the Carpenters, Air Supply, Eric Clapton, Wings. Most (although very much not all) of those have had their reputations restored, to a greater or lesser degree, over the years. Through it all I pretty much just shrugged, sometimes offering a reasoned defense and sometimes just explaining that the heart wants what the heart wants.

And it's true.

Except when it comes to Christopher Cross.

His music is simply bad. Never mind that the lyrics tend to be trite and clunky—even the gist of an idea behind the lyrics is often terrible. (Sailing! He had a hit about sailing! The next time anyone complains about music today and how much better it used to be, there's your trump card counterargument right there. You win.) ((Although I do have a serious soft spot for "Think of Laura," so maybe this entire piece is void and null.)) His voice, singing melodies that are undeniably catchy, has the amazing tonal quality of sounding completely and undeviatingly flat, even as it's actually on-key.

Now, to be fair, I only know four Christopher Cross songs. But I feel confident making such claims about his entire oeuvre anyway. Because this is a guy who got Michael McDonald to sing backup on a song, and decided to use his guest's voice...for exactly one line. Over and over. Just that line. Just that same six word sentence fragment. Anyone with judgment that bad deserves all the hackjobs he gets.

All that being said, I love this song.

It's not good. It is, in fact, bad.

But it's catchy and stupidly romantic and the theme song to one of my very favoritest movies of all times.

And the heart wants what the heart wants.

Ghost Riders in the Sky

Way leads to way and one moment you're reading an article on the Forex scandal and suddenly you realize you've gone from there to the wiki entry on Blazing Saddles and then you're watching a video of clips from what's often considered one of the worst superhero movies ever and that's saying something.

But damn if this doesn't look pretty good. But, of course, Sam Elliott plus the sound of Frankie Laine can make pretty much anything look decent.

The History of the Eagles, Part One

ESPN's Bill Simmons wrote this absolutely fantastic review of the recent Eagles documentary, the imaginatively titled "The History of the Eagles, Part One."

Simmons's love for the film is not only obvious—I mean, he pretty much declares a half-dozen times that he wants to run away to a desert island with it, so I sure hope it's obvious and he's not just a gold-digger—but infectious. I loved the docu too, but after reading the Simmons piece I'm even fonder of it. Reading Simmons gush about the film is like one of those old SNL sketches featuring Eddie Murphy that was already really good, but then Murphy starts to break, and that just makes it all the better. Simmons is so over the top with his love that it's almost irresistible.

(If you don't want to sit through the entire 3-minute preview, just check out Glenn Frey's face at the 0:07—that pretty much sums up the entire story right there. Oh, what the heck, I'll cut to the chase and post it:)

Simmons does get a couple things wrong, though—really, really wrong—which isn't entire surprising, given that he opens the piece by admitting he never really even thought about the Eagles until seeing the film, even though he'd been listening to their music (unintentionally, for the most part) for 35 years. He always knew them, they were always around, he'd just never given them a moment's conscious notice.

Which would explain why he missed so many key elements of the Eagles story.

Here's the gist of what Simmons got right: Don Henley and Glenn Frey are assholes. They had awesomely bad 1970s hairstyles. Most of their fellow band members had even worse hair. They had more drive than maybe any other comparable band. The Eagles created some enduring songs. Their story is the same story as pretty much any other band that makes it big, breaks up and then gets back together, only even more so—because of the egos involved and the massive success of the band and the decade in which it all happened, in fact, much, much more so.

Here's where Simmons really missed the boat: he think it's funny that Don Felder's bitter about getting screwed by Henley and Frey. It's not.

Simmons compares it to Chris Bosh not getting as many touches per night as Lebron James or Dwayne Wade. Except that a band isn't a basketball team—George and Ringo made as much as band members for playing each concert and record as John and Paul did (apart from songwriting), as do Larry and Adam v Bono and the Edge, because that's how bands work. There are similarities between rock bands and sports teams, yes. And there are differences, and those differences should not be overlooked or minimized for a good line. Basketball teams are assembled by billionaire owners, and the players are employees. Rock and roll bands are formed by individuals who collectively agree to work together under certain terms. And Felder's not unhappy because Henley got to sing more than he did; he's unhappy that Henley and Frey changed not just the verbal contract they all agreed to when he joined the band but that they in fact changed the literal, legal, written contract they'd all signed when he joined. I'm sure Simmons'd think it'd be highstairical if ESPN unilaterally decided to do the same to his contract. Also, too, Felder wrote 100% of the music for "Hotel California," which (overplayed though it is) is by far their best song ever, musically, an Escher-like circular chord structure with a pretty astonishing (especially given when it was written) combination of Mexican and Jamaican influences melodically and rhythmically.

Simmons rightly points out that Don Henley, for all he's a jerk (although not nearly as big a jerk as Glenn Frey, despite being far, far more talented), is one of the greatest rock and roll singers ever, with flawless pitch, a great range and perfect timbre. But he's, at best, a serviceable drummer, perhaps the least good drummer of any major band ever, and you cannot have a truly great band without a great drummer. (Bands have tried. Bands have failed.) There's a reason Henley was a guest vocalist on so many records but pretty much never a guest drummer. (Compare and contrast with Ringo Starr, Phil Collins, Max Weinberg, Dave Grohl, etc.) Most tellingly, Henley himself hired real drummers to play on his own albums when he went solo. He's good enough to know he's not nearly good enough.

Simmons also glossed over the defining characteristics of the Eagles's music. The first is that it's catchy. Good Lord is it catchy. Love 'em or hate 'em, you have to admit that them boys could write melodies, and then surround them with impeccable (some would say sterile, and those somes would be right) backing tracks. They talk in interviews about how they used to record their vocals not just line by line or even word by word but (they claim) syllable by syllable...and, bizarrely, they're proud of it.

But the other main characteristics of the Eagles's oeuvre is that they are the most misogynistic major American band ever. (And if it weren't for the Stones, we might even remove the nationality qualifier.) Are there other bands as bad or worse? Sure...but none that are in their league as a sales force. I mean, they've the #5 selling band/artist ever. They've sold more than Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Madonna, AC/DC, Van Halen...need I go on? The point's made, I trust. Love 'em or hate 'em, they've sold a trunkload. Which means taking a hard look at their lyrical content's entirely valid. And when you do...oh boy.

Well I'm a runnin' down the road tryin' to loosen my load
Got a world of trouble on my mind
I'm lookin' for a lover that won't blow my cover
She's so hard to find

Okay.

Well I know you want a lover
Well let me tell your brother
She's been sleeping in the Devil's bed

Whatever.

Ev'ry night when the sun goes down 
Just another lonely boy in town 
And she's out runnin' 'round

Man, they've sure got some bad luck.

Just remember this, my girl, when you look up in the sky 
You can see the stars and still not see the light (that's right) 
And I'm already gone 
And I'm feelin' strong 
I will sing this vict'ry song, woo, hoo, hoo, woo, hoo, hoo

Huh. I'm guessing that the stars to which they're referring aren't only the constellations but also the stars with whom the "girl" in question's been privileged enough to sleep.

So, okay. When you look at a bunch of them one after another, a pattern starts to emerge. And then there's "Lyin' Eyes," which is simply toxic from stem to stern.

(That graphic is every bit as classy as the song deserves.)

God. The seductive, serpentine melody, the glorious harmonies—the harmonies! Good golly the harmonies!—the lush backing...it's all magnificent. As long as you don't listen to the words.

But let's take a gander at the open and close (and the middle's just as bad):

City girls just seem to find out early 
How to open doors with just a smile 
A rich old man and she won't have to worry 
She'll dress up all in lace and go in style

[snip]

She wonders how it ever got this crazy 
She thinks about a boy she knew in school 
Did she get tired or did she just get lazy? 
She's so far gone she feels just like a fool 
My, oh my, you sure know how to arrange things 
You set it up so well, so carefully 
Ain't it funny how your new life didn't change things 
You're still the same old girl you used to be 
You can't hide your lyin eyes

Again, context is so important. So, at first, when you notice the casual sexism, you think, well, hey, it was the 1970s, it was rock and roll, no big deal. Besides, it's just one song—maybe the singer's in character. And then you realize it's a constant throughout their entire catalog. And you realize, hey, you know, the Who and Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan and Jackson Browne (who co-wrote "Take It Easy," but not the quoted verse) and James Taylor and David Bowie, they were pretty big acts at the time, and they don't seem to have had such animosity, such malice towards women like that.

And, look, it's not like those are cherry-picked off some b-side or deep album cut—those are half the damn songs on their greatest hits album, the best-selling album in the history of albums.

Know what, though? They were just kids. Maybe it got better as they got a little older, a little wiser, a little more successful.

What kind of love have you got? 
You should be home, but you're not 
A room full of noise and dangerous boys still makes you thirsty and hot 
I heard about you and that man 
There's just one thing I don't understand 
You say he's a liar and he put out your fire 
How come you still got his gun in your hand? 
Victim of love, I see a broken heart 
You got your stories to tell 
Victim of love, it's such an easy part and you know how to play it so well

Guess not. Then again, that's only a well-known cut off their best-selling album. It's not like it's

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends

Oh.

The other thing, and this goes hand-in-hand with the misogyny, is the overwhelming sense of victimization. I'm staggered Simmons didn't bring this up, 'cuz it's all over the damn film. The Eagles are always the victims. Of their first producer, Glyn Johns who, sure, helped them become stars off the bat but (correctly) didn't think they could rock like the Stones or the Who or Zeppelin, all of whom he's worked with and therefore was in position to know. Of their first label owner, David Geffen...who signed them sound unheard and screwed them so bad that Henley later signed with him again as a solo artist. Of their bass player who suffers from stage fright. Of their guitarist, who unreasonably demands that the term of the contract they all signed be kept. And, in the lyrics, of seemingly every female they come across.

I like the Eagles—their music, that is. In small doses. Their hits are still enjoyable 40 years down the line. (For the most part, however, their album cuts are some of the most disposable filler of any major artist since the early 1960s.) But listen to too many of their songs in a row and the ugliness builds and builds, slowly at first, so you hardly even notice how nasty it is until you're suddenly ready for a Silkwood shower.

Which leads to one conclusion: the Eagles just weren't very good.

At the end of the day, for all they have more than their fair share of songs that stand up—and despite everything, the Hotel California album really is pretty good, and the lasting popularity of their Greatest Hits understandable and I even really like "The Long Run," despite the fact that they ripped off the Otis Clay song "Tryin' to Live My Life Without You" so blatantly that their friend and mentor Bob Seger felt compelled to cover the original to try to make amends for his protégés (note the way he emphasizes several times that it's an old Memphis song...not a recent SoCal smash hit)—the Eagles just were not a great rock and roll band.

They wanted to be. Oh, did they want to be. And that's the key. Because there's certainly no shame in being a good country band, or pop band, or reggae group or certainly jazz combo or whatever. But that's not what the Eagles wanted. They were very clear about it: they wanted to be a rock and roll band. And not just a rock and roll band—the rock and roll band. The best in the world. Greater than Led Zeppelin or the Who, bigger than the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. They wanted to be the best.

At first glance, they seem like they are. They have most of the ingredients to be. But it never quite jells. Henley is a fantastic singer but a pedestrian drummer and Frey's shallowness keeps Henley's lyrics with the Eagles from consistently hitting the reflective heights he occasionally obtained as a solo artist. Felder is a truly great guitarist, but he was constrained by Henley and Frey's perfectionism from cutting loose, resulting in songs that have a constricting sterility to them. I mean, these are guys who managed to tame Joe Walsh. (To be fair, possibly keeping him alive in the process, although that was far from their motive.) Their recordings are so perfect that they're virtually devoid of life. When you listen to the isolated tracks of the Beatles or the Beach Boys or the Stones or the Who or Zeppelin, you hear so many damn mistakes—bits of dialogue accidentally left, occasional clams, even editing mistakes. There's none of that in any Eagles record. And the things is? People like some humanity in their art. Otherwise, we'd listen to computer generated recordings. There's so little humanity to the Eagles—the exceptions being the vocals of Henley and Walsh, and some of Walsh's and Felder's guitars, and those human elements are one of the main reasons the band has lasted.

The success of the Eagles is largely—although far from entirely—due to Henley and Frey. The failure of that pair to see the forest for the trees is what also kept the band from truly achieving not just the commercial success for which they worked so hard, but also the critical acclaim and lasting greatness they desired so desperately. They missed the forest for the trees. They wanted so bad to be the greatest rock band ever that they forgot to actually rock. And they committed a fairly unforgivable rock and roll sin, a denial of the very origins of rock and roll: they punched down. And then they blamed everyone but themselves.

I turn on the tube and what do I see 
A whole lotta people cryin' "Don't blame me" 
They point their crooked little fingers at everybody else 
Spend all their time feelin' sorry for themselves 
Victim of this, victim of that 
Your momma's too thin; your daddy's too fat 
Get over it 
Get over it 
All this whinin' and cryin' and pitchin' a fit 
Get over it, get over it

On that one, they were right. It's just that, as usual, they were blaming the wrong people. They looked, sneeringly, in every direction, except the correct one: towards the mirror. Oh, the irony.

Don't Let Me Down

Way leads to way, as it's wont to, and trying to find Paul McCartney inducting James Taylor into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame leads, inexorably, to watching the final rooftop concert by the Beatles yet again.

I've always loved the look on John Lennon's face of slight embarrassment mixed with his trademark mischievousness when he forgets the words and just starts singing gobbledygook—it's at the 2:04 mark.

"This type of music's all right in its place." 

I love that Ringo, behind him, is laughing. But what's even better is the look Paul and John share right after as they wordlessly agree to get back on track together. And that smile on John's face, one of quietly confident pleasure, of absolutely secure trust in his musical partner, proves—as if we didn't already have more than enough proof—that John was right on target when he later said that no matter how bad things got between them, whenever they started playing music, it was always good.

But it's the very brief look John and George share shortly afterwards, during the following chorus, the small nod George gives just before the camera cuts away, that drives home that before the brilliant songwriting, before the groundbreaking studio work, before the unprecedented fame and fortune, they were very simply the finest rock and roll band ever.

Levon Helm: The Heartbeat of The Band

Some time in the very early 80s, my brother brought home Bob Dylan's first greatest hits collection. I'd seen the psychedelic poster before, hanging up on the wall of a farm house in upstate New York we rented for a week once. (Perhaps the least exciting vacation ever.) I'm pretty sure when I first played the record I skipped all the way to the last track on the first side: "Like a Rolling Stone." I knew his voice was going to be weird, and it was. I knew the song was important, and sure, I could hear why that was. But what I didn't expect was for the song to be as great as it was. 

I mean, by that point, I'd been reading what I'd been told were great novels and watching what I'd been told were great movies and most of them were...well...to a kid my age, really dense and boring. So I guess I was expecting the same thing with early Dylan, and was therefore very pleasantly surprised by just how asskicking and plain enjoyable it was. Great and fun? Sign me up. 

Oddly, I think my next Dylan might have been Blood on the Tracks and, again, it was one of those relatively rare (for me) experiences of clicking with a piece of music from virtually the very first second. Usually it takes me a while to warm up to something, or at least figure out how I feel about it. But with Dylan, the connection was instantaneous.

The rest of his 60s studio albums followed, from the debut up to and including John Wesley Harding. After that, I skipped ahead to Desire and then Infidels, leaving (obviously) some big caps in my collection.

One of those gaps was Dylan live. Back in those days, he only had a few live collections out—this being well before his official Bootleg series release was even a twinkle in the record company's eye—and I had none of them. Instead, my first time hearing Bob Dylan live was The Last Waltz.

We were still years away from getting cable TV, so I spent what still seems an insane amount of money—something like twenty-five bucks, I think—and ordered the VHS tape from J&R Music. I was so excited, in no small part because of the guest stars, being already an admirer of Martin Scorsese and a huge Eric Clapton fan. And sure enough, the movie was mostly enjoyable, even if Neil Young played what was then one of my least favorite of his best known songs and I'd not yet developed an appreciation for Joni Mitchell and most of all what the hell was Neil Diamond doing on that stage and how did he manage to warp the space-time continuum so that his one song lasted four decades and counting? (I'm pretty sure it's still going, even as I type.)

But my boy EC tore up his song—even if Robbie Robertson upstaged Slowhand by leaping into the breach when Clapton's strap come off and ripping a solo which at least equaled, if not bettered, anything Eric himself played that night—Van the Man was brilliant and Muddy Waters was just about the hippest, most elegant and suave damn thing I'd ever seen. And The Band themselves were simply on fire, playing their hits so energetically they very nearly ruined their more stately studio versions for me for some time.

And then came the night's final guest, Bob Dylan, wisely and unsurprisingly kept for last. The young me was disappointed that he played "Forever Young," a song I didn't know at the time and which, if I now love it and obviously get the choice, held little relevance for the not even quite a teenager yet me.

But then the song starts to wind down. The Band gets a bit quieter and maybe a bit slower. Dylan leans in and has a brief conversation with Robbie. He looks back at Levon. And then he slams into "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down" in total rock and roll mode. And The Band follows perfectly, as though they'd rehearsed copiously, even as it's crystal clear they very much have not (the way Rick Danko turns away the moment the song starts is just so smooth and assured).

I had never heard Dylan play this sort of rock and roll before. Sure, his trio of rock and roll albums from the 60s were called rock and roll, and they were—the label "rock and roll" is a big one and an awful lot of things fit under it comfortably. But to a kid who'd ingested Led Zeppelin's entire oeuvre by that point, not to mention a heaping dose of Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult and Aerosmith, those Dylan albums were wonderful...but seemed tame, sonically, by comparison. I loved them, don't get me wrong—I even loved his earliest, folk albums, including his original recording of "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down." But they weren't rock and roll, not the way I categorized it at the time, not the way Bruce Springsteen screaming "Adam Raised a Cain" and hammering away at his guitar solo was rock and roll.

Except that this performance was rock and roll. It was so rock and roll. There was no other way to describe it. And then he started singing. Only it was closer to shouting, yet melodically and in tune. They way he screamed the final line of each verse was spine-tingling. There was no way you could imagine that this guy had started as the world's premier folk-singer—he was far closer to Johnny Rotten or Joe Strummer than Peter Yarrow or Paul Stookey. 

(Not long after that, I acquired Before the Flood, the live Bob Dylan/The Band album, and it remains not only one of my favorite live albums ever, but one of my favorite releases from either Dylan or The Band. And even after The Last Waltz, I was flabbergasted by the way Dylan absolutely ripped into "Most Likely You Go Your Way." Just incendiary and bordering on abusive. Glorious.) 

Last night I turned on VH1-Classic, as I do towards the end of most nights, to see what's on and whether it's worth watching again. The 394th showing of Metal: A Headbanger's Journey was scheduled, but they'd wisely preempted it for the 23rd airing of The Last Waltz, obviously in honor of Levon Helm. I'd just happened to catch Clapton's song starting and, as usual, I watched almost the entire film from there, including Van Morrison's magnificent "Caravan" and Dylan's miniset. 

Which is when I noticed something I'd never caught before, no matter how many times I'd watched. Scorsese's close friendship with his one-time roommate Robbie Robertson is well known, and his preferential treatment of the songwriter, to the unfortunate neglect of the rest of The Band, much discussed. It's one of the film's few glaring flaws and something which has grated over the years. But maybe because Helm had just died, or maybe because he's fairly magnetic, I was watching him and Dylan, directorial decisions be damned. And what I noticed was that I wasn't the only one focusing on Levon. So was Bob Dylan. 

Check it out. As "Forever Young" winds down, Dylan and Robbie have their discussion, and then Dylan looks towards Levon to make sure he's in on the plan. And from then on until the end of "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down," Dylan keeps touching base with Levon. He looks at Robbie, he looks at Rick and Richard, he's checking with all The Band—or maybe just sharing the joy of making music—but it's Levon he looks at most. Even when he and Robbie switch positions, so Robbie's cagily between Dylan and Levon, Bob keeps looking past Robbie, behind him or over his shoulder, towards Levon. Again and again and again he looks back towards the drummer. 

This could mean that he's worried that the drummer's not on the same page. It could mean that the drummer's screwing up, or that he's afraid the drummer's about to screw up. Except that this is Levon Helm, who had music in his DNA, one hell of an instinctual drummer with an almost unsurpassed feel, a fine mandolin player, and every bit as great a singer as Robbie Robertson is a writer or guitarist. No one, no one, ever needed to worry about Levon on stage. It'd be like worrying that water wasn't going to be wet. 

So it wasn't that. It was just the opposite. It's clear that Dylan—often oddly underrated as a musician, for all he's lauded as an important and brilliant writer—knows exactly where the heart of The Band resides. Robbie may have been the intellectual guide, Richard the tormented soul, Rick the rock and Garth the most accomplished musician. But Levon was the heart of The Band. Of its three outstanding singers, he was the best. He was the one from the deep south, the one who'd been there at the birth of rock and roll, the one who'd absorbed the sounds of purest country and blues as he grew up—and as the drummer he had, as all drummers do, an outsized impact upon the sound and feel of the group. 

Dylan obviously knew all that. Which is why he glances at Robbie and Rick and Richard, but keeps looking past his closer friend Robbie, to touch base with Levon, to make sure they were on the same wavelength, to see how Levon's feeling, to see where he's going, to make sure he's following okay. 

Which he is. When the song winds up, somewhat sloppily, but not nearly as awkwardly as it might, you can see Bob once again look back towards Levon, having to bend forward to look past Robbie. Then he looks around at everyone else. And then Dylan moves, so he can look behind Robbie this time, in order to get a better view of the drummer. And as he and Levon wrap up the song, not quite together, Bob Dylan suddenly gives his one big genuine smile of the night. 

That's the effect Levon Helm and his music had on people. 

Van the Man and Yarrrrragh

Levon Helm just died. The news only broke a few hours ago, but fans were prepared by the previous day's reports of his impending death.

Robbie Robertson got all the acclaim, and not without justification—he wrote the majority of the songs and is a stunning guitarist. But Levon was the real linchpin of the band. Robbie wrote the words—massively inspired by Levon—but Levon Helm was the one who gave them life. A great drummer, a great singer, a great musician. The world is a lesser place today.


This all put me in mind of a post I wrote a few years ago about one of my favorite Band performances—a performance, ironically, not of a Band song and not sung by any of the Band's three fine singers, but by one of the very few singers who was at least their equal. 

So I was channel surfing and I stumbled across The Last Waltz. Levon Helm was giving Martin Scorsese a little history lesson, which dragged me in; Levon's interviews are far and away the best in the film.

I planned on then turning it off, but immediately afterward Van Morrison came on to perform with The Band, which meant I had no choice but to keep watching. Sure, I own the film and, yeah, I've seen this part at least a half-dozen times, but that's not nearly enough. Not for a performance this great.

I wrote about it before, and you can read it here, if you'd like. I'm going to repeat some of what I said, but watching it again a year and a half later was…well, it wasn't like seeing it for the first time, but I noticed things I'd never seen before.

Van is just incendiary. He's on fire. He is Music Personified in one fat little Irish bundle of Yarrrrragh.

He sings "Caravan," a song which is not just the best song about radio ever but one of my personal all-time favorite reasons for being alive. And on this night Van is beyond belief. And the song is, as always, magnificent, as is The Band’s playing of it.

But here's the thing: where the words are normally moving, here they mean nothing. They are simply syllables he's singing, utterly devoid of their initial or indeed any meaning at all. The syllables are nothing more than a vehicle for his voice, his voice being simply a vehicle his body is using to convey his soul. Something like a fractal, the sounds he's making contain all the beauty that is and ever had been and ever will be in the universe.

Yet the words themselves are barely comprehensible at times. Which doesn't matter. They’re wonderful lyrics but in this case they don't need to be intelligible. You don't need to understand a supernova to be overwhelmed by it.

It's fascinating to watch him watching the band. For a musician who so clearly trusts the muse, he's also aware that playing with a band is team sport. This is his song: he wrote it, he recorded it, and it's one of his signature pieces; he owns this song in every sense. Yet playing here with a different group of musicians, you can see him feeling his way. He's good friends with The Band—they were neighbors and drinking buddies up in Woodstock. But it's not his band, and there's a certain tension there, albeit a happy and productive one.

When it comes to the coda, the "turn it up!" section, Robbie Robertson starts dropping tasty little bits of guitar obbligato in. Twice Van goes to sing, pulling the microphone up to his mouth, only to pause and lower it again, waiting for the right place to dive in. There's no wrong place, per se—it's all the same set of chords over and over. But just because there's no wrong place doesn't doesn’t mean that there's not a right place.

And finally he finds it. And off he goes, tentatively the first time, feeling his way in, but pleased, knowing he's on the right track, murmuring, "yeah." The next time he's sure of his footing, and starts scatting. And he and The Band are simply locked together.

And then to the accompaniment of a musical sting he suddenly throws his arm up in the air and you can hear the crowd go wild. Again he does it and again the cheers. The camera pans and you can see The Band—or least Robbie, Levon and Rick Danko—are all laughing. Four, five times he does this, and then finally the camera pulls back far enough that you can see what he's really doing: he's kicking his leg in time to the sting. He does a little prefatory bunnyhop and then the kick.

There are many musicians with outstanding physical grace, such as Elvis Presley and Sam Cooke, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie, Bono and Kurt Cobain, and this is without even going into amazing dancers such as James Brown and Michael Jackson and Prince.

Van Morrison is not one of them. He's chubby and stubby and has perfect looks for radio.

But it doesn't matter. At all. Not one bit. Because this isn't about beauty, it's about joy, music and art and life and joy, which makes even his ungainliness beautiful. Still ridiculous but impossibly beautiful and oh so perfect. Just frosting on the cake that is the universe. All of which, for four and a half minutes, are contained in the music pouring out of one pudgy little Irish troubadour.

Originally published at Left of the Dial.