The Band is Dead – Long Live The Band
No doubt you all heard the news this morning that Garth Hudson, the last living member of The Band, one of the most influential and admired (if you ask me) bands of the last 50 years, has died at age 87.
He is generally described as being a resident of the same city as me, but his birthplace appears to have been Windsor, Ontario. He was born in 1937, before the outbreak of WWII, so is genuinely of an earlier generation than myself.
Anyway, if The Band had done nothing more than write, record and release The Weight, one of the all-time great songs of the 20th century, we would all be greatly in their debt. In fact, they did much more than that, releasing a slew of songs that still induce me to lean over and turn up the volume when they come on my Geezer Rock Satellite Radio Station in the car. Chest Fever, The Shape I’m In, Up On Cripple Creek, Ophelia, The Night They Drove Ol Dixie Down, Stage Fright and Life is a Carnival (and ain’t it, tho…..), just to name the obvious ones.
They started a genre that had no name at the time, but probably now would be called roots rock, or, strangest of all for a band made up of four Canadians and the sweetest voice this side of Arkansas – Americana.
“Out of nine lives, I spent seven; How the hell you sposeta get to heaven?”
Over and above their own music, they backed up Dylan for a time, after backing up Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins in bars across Ontario for years, and, like all good rock bands of the era, they did drugs and fought. I saw them, sortof, do a benefit concert for The Stratford Festival, when they were touring without Robertson in the 80s. Helm (and maybe the others) had decided they had not been given sufficient credit for their co-authorship of all those great songs. I don’t pretend to know what was the truth of all that, but even in that circumstance, and without Robbie, it was exhilarating to hear them play live. (It was nigh 40 years ago, and I don’t actually remember if they performed The Weight, the writing credit for which is apparently solely Robertson’s.)
They influenced a lot of other music and musicians, but we shall not hear their like again. Praise god for those great recordings.