Posts Tagged ‘Levon Helm’

The BAND – ” Cahoots ” Released 15th September 1971 45 Years Ago Today

Posted: September 23, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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‘Cahoots’ celebrates its 45th Anniversary!, This whole album is a masterpiece. Seems to be much more appreciated now than the initial fan reactions. Cahoots is the fourth studio album release by the American/Canadian  rock group The Band . It was released in 1971 to mixed reviews, and was their last album of original material for four years. The album’s front cover was painted by New York artist/illustrator Gilbert Stone,

“Run away Run away”  it’s the restless age, sings the Band at the beginning of Cahoots (Capitol SMAS 651) and they mean it. They also mean it when they sing of the endlessness of the river, admonishing the listener that “You can ride on it or drink it,/Poison it or dam it,/Fish in it and wash in it,/Swim in it and you can die in it, run you river run …” Cahoots is about finding a place for yourself in the restless age.

The mood of the album is filled with a “tinge of extinction.” As the chaos of the carnival is played off against the timelessness of the river, the Band mourns, always more in sorrow than in anger, the passing away of the things they have grown old with and the failure of anything of consequence to rise up in their place. “How you gonna replace human hands?” they ask us in “Last of the Blacksmiths.” And, “How can you sleep when the whistle don’t moan?” in “Where Do We Go From Here.” “Your neighborhood isn’t there anymore,” they jeer in “Smoke Signal.” “Run away Run away — it’s the restless age,” but, “the car broke down when we had just begun.”

Very complex song structures and features some of The Bands best vocals.

Allen Toussaint and Van Morrison. Where on The Band we were made to experience a mythical view of the past as a present reality, Cahoots is merely sometimes about the past, and then only insofar as the past can be made to comment in a direct way on the present. Unlike The Band, Cahoots endistances us from the past, constantly reminding us of what was then and what is now.

In Cahoots, the notion of the commentator is stressed over that of the participant. The narrator of these songs is most often observing others and in the process drawing explicit contrasts, comparisons, and morals. Instead of seeing phenomenon in motion, as they were being experienced, we see them as fixed entities to be described or dealt with: the process is now less important than the conclusions to be drawn about the process. At the same time, the orientation and musical texture is constantly changing so that we are left with the feeling of experiencing things through a stylistic kaleidoscope.

“4% Pantomime,” another song about performing, is named after the fact that the difference between Johnny Walker Black and Johnny Walker Red is 4%. It is also for the 4% of Mr. Van Morrison’s performance which had to be seen, not heard. Unlike “Stage Fright,” which analyzed the artist’s dilemma, “4% Pantomime” is simply about being a working artist. Many of the Band’s songs have been in the first person but none of them literal representations of themselves. This one even uses real names on the choruses, as two old fashioned juicers  Van Morrison and Richard Manuel — coax as much feeling as they can out of each other.

“Last of the Blacksmiths” is a crucial song embodying more than any other the definition of the “tinge of extinction” and “isolated artist” themes of the album. Sung and played in a desperate style, the lyrics parallel the question of the blacksmith (“how can you replace human hands”) with the question of the musician: “frozen fingers at the keyboard, could this be the reward?” Unfortunately, the acuity of perception then trails off in a typical bit of over-writing and the rest of the song is sustained more by the excellence of the performance than by its lyrical content.

“Where Do We Go From Here” comes dangerously close to being merely topical. Cute rhymes like “Just one more victim of fate/Like California state” do nothing to add to what the song has. The music, while brilliantly put together, has a stiffness which makes it once again forbidding. Like every cut on the album there is something to recommend it: in this case, the opening lines of Rick Danko’s beautiful vocal.

“Shoot Out In Chinatown” is a fairly grim story that makes the point that things cannot be shoved under the rug, to wit: “Buddha has lost his smile/But swears that we will meet again/In just a little while.” The music has more momentum and freshness than most things on the album and the cut is sustained exceptionally well. One of the most enjoyable things on the record.

“Smoke Signal” is a light play on the extinction theme. In “Chinatown” Robertson is talking about deliberate actions of the state while on “Smoke Signal” the humorous allusions seem to be to the process by which people merely lose control, instead of being actively forced to surrender it. Musically, it is a powerful song with some brilliant lines that stick in the mind, especially: “When they’re torn out by the roots/Young brothers join in cahoots.”

If “Life In A Carnival” is an overture,  The song features a lively Dixieland horn chart courtesy of  Allen Toussaint then “The River Hymn” was surely intended as a finale, a sort of ceremonial piece, and on it one’s ultimate impression of Cahoots must rest. It is surely the most ambitious thing the group has ever attempted. Lyrically, it is the culmination of Robertson’s growing style. It is so cinematic, that as it is heard the movie possibilities flash in front of you uncontrollably. Everything described is not only easy to visualize but is, in the listener’s mind, inevitably visualized.

“When I Paint My Masterpiece,” a Bob Dylan song making its recorded debut here as the second selection, is another welcome track, buoyed by mandolin and accordion in a charming arrangement appropriate to its tale of an odd trip to Europe.

Several of the songs’ lyrics come across as half-baked film scenarios, but they fail to be evocative, and they are paired to music lacking in structure. The failure is solely in the writing The Band sounds as good as ever playing the songs, with singers Richard Manuel Levon Helm and Rick Danko all performing effectively and primary instrumentalist Garth Hudson filling in the arrangements cleverly.

Rick Danko – bass, acoustic guitar, vocals
Levon Helm – drums, mandolin, upright bass, vocals
Garth Hudson – organ, piano, accordion, tenor and baritone saxophones
Richard Manuel – piano, drums, organ, slide guitar, vocals
Robbie Robertson – guitars, piano
Additional personnel
Allen Toussaint – brass arrangements on “Life Is a Carnival”
Van Morrison – vocals on “4% Pantomime”
Libby Titus – backing vocals on “The River Hymn”[6]
Mark Harman – engineer

The BAND – ” The Band ” Released 22nd September 1969

Posted: September 22, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Maybe it’s difficult to overstate the contributions to modern day music that began with a group of five young men with no clear frontman. But the Band  which released its eponymous masterpiece 46 years ago this week — brought a swollen heart and a down-home groove to the rock n’ roll landscape that was unprecedented at its time. Not that surprising, considering the group was referred to as “the best damn band in the world” before they even settled on a name. The Band is the eponymous second studio album by The Band, released on September 22nd, 1969. It is also known as The Brown Album. According to Rob Bowman’s liner notes for the 2000 reissue, The Band has been viewed as a concept album, with the songs focusing on people, places and traditions associated with an older version of Americana. Thus, the songs on this album draw from historic themes for “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” and Richard Manuel’s “Jawbone” (which was composed in the unusual 6/4 time signature.)

In the mid-sixties, four rag-tag kids from Canada were lured to the open road by Rockabilly legend Ronnie Hawkins and his teenage drummer, Levon Helm. Unlike the rest of his bandmates, Helm was the son of a cotton farmer from Turkey Scratch, Arkansas and brought the authenticity of Delta blues with him wherever he went.

He was eventually recognized by fans and friends alike as the heart of the group’s sound, sharing vocal responsibilities with bassist Rick Danko and multi-instrumentalist Richard Manuel. But it was Helm who took the reins in four of the songs on that self-titled release with his signature country drawl. Two of those songs became timeless Band favorites- “Up on Cripple Creek” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” a hypothetical civil war tune overflowing with classic Americana.

It is a remarkable song, the rhythmic structure, the voice of Levon and the bass line with the drum accents and then the heavy close harmony of Levon, Rick and Richard Manuel in the theme, make it seem impossible that this isn’t some oral tradition material handed down from father to son straight from that winter of ’65 to today.

… I kept coming back and coming back until now I am prepared to say that, depending on one’s mood, these songs stand, each on its own, as equal sides of a twelve-faceted gem .

Just a month before its release, the Band took to the stage at Woodstock on the final night of the three-day festival, playing seven songs from their 1968 studio debut, Music From Big Pink. Along with generally favored reviews, this earlier record fell flat with certain critics, The album which would eventually be referred to adoringly as The Brown Album.

[The Beatles’] Abbey Road captivates me as might be expected, but The Band is even better, an A-plus record if I’ve ever rated one. That should come as no surprise to those of you — which I assume means most of you — who regarded Music From Big Pink as epochal. Though I somehow always managed to avoid saying so in print, I didn’t.

Except for Dylan, [guitarist Robbie Robertson] is the only American songwriter to write good fictional/dramatic songs… and the only one to master the semi-literate tone, in which grammatical barbarisms and colloquial ellipses transcend affectation to enrich and qualify a song’s meaning.

Months before recording the LP, Robertson, the group’s primary songwriter, had no idea just how iconic their work would become. Robbie was asked how seriously the group took their craft.

“Just seriously enough to satisfy us, enough so that we can smile at one another when we’re through playing.”

And you can feel it; that satisfaction especially in these songs. The musicianship between all five members on the album is electric, heartfelt, and casual. With the ping of every ride pattern, you can practically sense Helm’s broad, boyish grin behind that drum kit.

The Band released five more albums with the same lineup before Robertson’s departure, taking an overwhelming majority of disputed songwriting credits with him — an issue that left some of the remaining members bitter for decades. None of those records would come close to the success of The Brown Album.

Apart from several other best of all time lists, The Brown Album has became a national treasure. It was added to the National Recording Registry in 2009, deemed “culturally, historically, and aesthetically important,” and it “informed or reflected life in the United States.”

Not bad for a few Canadian boys and a dusty farmer.

LEVON HELM

After unsuccessfully attempting sessions at a studio in New York, The Band set up shop in the pool house of a home the group rented in West Hollywood. The home, located at 8850 Evanview Drive, was once owned by Judy Garland, Wally Cox and, at the time the group worked there, Sammy Davis, Jr. According to Robbie Robertson, the location was chosen to give the songs a more Basement Tapes-like feel in what was termed “a clubhouse concept.” Work was later completed at The Hit Factory in New York City.

The album was also reissued in 2009 by Audio Fidelity as a limited edition gold CD. Remastered from a 1980s CD pressing, the album also included a single b-side “Get Up Jake” as a bonus track. originally it was dropped from the line-up at the last minute, either because the band felt it was too similar to another track on the album, or because there physically wasn’t enough room on the album.

The album includes many of The Band’s best-known and critically acclaimed songs,  In 1998 Q magazine readers voted The Band the 76th greatest album of all time. Upon hearing the record one critic declared it better than Abbey Road, which had been released four days following, writing that The Band’s LP is an “A-plus record if I’ve ever rated one.” He ranked it as the fourth best album of the year in his ballot for Jazz & Pop magazine’s annual critics poll.

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