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by Seth Rogovoy
``Never has there been a rock group in which there was such a balance, such an even distribution of talent,'' writes Hoskyns. ``None of them put any less into the sound than any other. None of them was ever `just' the drummer or bassist or keyboard player.''
Indeed, they were the Platonic ideal of a band as a pure, musical democracy. The Band had no leader or frontman. Three of the five members not so much shared lead vocals as they tossed them around, sometimes within one song, sometimes even within one phrase as if it was too hot for any one mortal to handle. While each had a distinctive vocal quality, they also blended together in a way that often made it hard even for aficionados to be absolutely sure who was singing what part.
Songwriting duties were shared among the members, at least for the first two albums, and although later Robbie Robertson took over the lion's share of the writing duties, the fact that he didn't sing lead and only occasionally backup kept him from ever overtly being considered the group's leader. As we shall see, this was of more than just musical importance.
Adding to the mystique, they shared instrumental duties. While Robbie was the main guitarist, Levon the drummer, Rick the bassist, Richard the pianist and Garth the organist, at any given time in the studio or on stage they played musical chairs. Robbie might pick up the bass to free up Rick to play fiddle. Richard would move over to drums to free Levon to play mandolin. Garth might step out from behind his keyboards to play horn. In this way, the group was fully self-contained, which also distinguished them from other groups that routinely brought in studio musicians to help fill out the mix. (Like The Beatles, they did, however, have one ``unofficial member,'' producer John Simon, who would occasionally augment their instrumentation when their hands and mouths were outnumbered by their instruments.)
As individuals they pretty much always remained faceless. The members of The Band were never recognizable pop stars like the members of The Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Their image was one of dignified anonymity. Writes Hoskyns, ``There was something about the group's very reluctance to make themselves a pop spectacle that...set them apart from the madding crowd of rock victims....'' It was arguably not until the movie ``The Last Waltz'' plastered their classic Rushmorean visages on the silver screen that anyone really had any idea who these guys were.
By the time of the group's fourth album, ``Cahoots,'' writes Levon Helm, ``...it was felt that Robbie was getting more than The Band. Greed was setting in. The old spirit of one for all and all for one was out the window. But...none of this was talked about much among the five of us, so resentment just continued to build.'' Towards the end, they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the recording studio in what they regarded merely as efforts to fulfill their contractual obligations, rather than the creation of lasting, musical artifacts.
In his autobiography, Levon Helm is particularly merciless in his treatment of Robbie Robertson, ridiculing his behavior and his intellectual aspirations, mocking his choice of friends and associates, and accusing him of cheating his fellow Band-mates. He even insinuates that Robertson's business partners sicced the Internal Revenue Service on him after one particularly heated meeting at which Helm lost his temper.
Some of Helm's most vicious attacks are saved for ``The Last Waltz,'' the group's high-profile, multi-media finale. His attitude about the whole project, he writes, was ``Do it, puke, and get out.'' He calls the much-acclaimed Martin Scorsese concert documentary ``a disaster'' and claims that the entire soundtrack to the live event was re-recorded in the studio, except for his drum tracks. ``It was mostly Robertson, showing off and acting like he was the king,'' writes Helm. ``For two hours...the camera focused almost exclusively on Robbie Robertson, long and loving close-ups of his heavily made-up face and expensive haircut.''
(Ironically, it was precisely the charismatic portrayal of Helm in ``The Last Waltz'' that directly led to his critically successful film career, including acclaimed roles in ``The Right Stuff'' and ``Coal Miner's Daughter.'' Previous to the ``The Last Waltz,'' it can be argued, no one outside of The Band's cult following knew Levon Helm from Helmut Schmidt.)
This could all be excused, or even believed, except that Helm lets his own vitriol cloud his vision in one crucial and tragic way. In a particularly telling passage, Helm quotes Robertson in the film explaining his reasoning for not wanting to tour anymore. (At the time it was Robertson's stated intention to take The Band off the road only, but to continue as a recording group. This was, apparently, an unworkable situation.) ``The road has taken many of the great ones: Hank Williams, Otis, Jimi, Janis, Elvis. It's a goddamn impossible way of life,'' said Robertson. Helm mocks this statement as just more evidence of Robertson's self-inflating, self-serving posturing. Helm is so full of venom that he is incapable of seeing the tragic irony that now defines The Band's post-Last Waltz career. For as things turned out, Robertson's warning wasn't mere posturing -- it was downright prophecy.
It is fascinating that two books with totally different perspectives on The Band both begin their narratives in the same place, with the pathetic, 1986 suicide of Richard Manuel after a show by the re-formed Band at the Cheek to Cheek Lounge in Winter Park, Florida.
By beginning with Manuel's suicide, the authors each imply that it is the key to understanding The Band in all its triumph and tragedy. To Hoskyns, it is indicative of the long arc of The Band's career, from the bottom of the heap to the top and back to the bottom. Helm's view is far different, however. He tells of hearing Manuel's voice, ``as clear as a good radio signal,'' speaking to him during his funeral, explaining that he hung himself because it ``was the one action I could take that was gonna really shake things up.'' In other words, from beyond the grave Manuel absolves his Band-mates from any sense of guilt for defying Robertson's warning about the perils of the road. His self- sacrifice, he reassures Helm, was merely a career move on behalf of his fellow musicians.
No one can say for sure if Richard Manuel would be alive today if Helm, Hudson, Danko and Manuel had not gone back out on the road as The Band in 1983. One could argue that touring kept Manuel alive longer, although both books indicate that Manuel had quit using drugs and alcohol only to relapse when The Band re-grouped and hit the road anew.
Perhaps the indignity of The Band headlining at the Cheek to Cheek Lounge drove Manuel to his last desperate act. Helm concedes the possibility when he writes, ``I know Richard felt we weren't getting the kind of respect we were used to.'' One could blame American culture for the way it treats its artists like disposable commodities: while in fashion to be lauded, while out of fashion to be consigned to the dung heap, or the Cheek to Cheek Lounge.
The whole notion of pinning blame for someone's suicide is unseemly, of course. But one cannot help but wonder if Helm has ever gone back over what Robertson said at ``The Last Waltz,'' and realized that maybe, just maybe, he saw something coming that Helm did not, something that he was trying to prevent by taking the band off the road before it met its tragic fate at the Cheek to Cheek Lounge.
Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1995. All rights reserved.
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