The Band

Across The Great Divide

review by David Levine

Okay, I don't think my Madam Editor will like this, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm only going to review one band this month. I'm going to do my part to rehabilitate and revive the reputation of The Band.

There are many reasons why a band may be great; great arrangements, great soloist, great melodies, great lyrics etc. Sometimes a band has an indescribable feel, a cosmic meshing of craft, creativity, and chemical inspiration that conspires at a concise moment to conquer the musical condition and change it forever. This is the case with The Band and if there was any doubt, let it exist no longer.

With the release of The Band's new box set, Across The Great Divide, their place as rock and roll innovators and influencers is cemented. The Band represents the history of rock and roll in microcosm. They started out with Ronnie "The Hawk" Hawkins, an original rocker from the fifties. They cut their teeth on R&B classics like "Who Do You Love" and "You Put A Spell On Me." They actually learned to play guitar when they were kids, instead of dropping out of art school and saying they were musicians. They played in bars and roadhouses, not college auditoriums. They didn't get big record advances because they had cool haircuts...hey, I sound like the curmudgeon of rock. Fuck it! I don't care. I'm fucking sick of loser bands that can't play, write, or arrange, not to mention any names (Veruca Salt). I mean what the fuck does "Can't Fight the Seether" mean anyway?

But, I digress.

The bottom line for me is can they rock and can they groove? Do your toes tap? Do you want to yell out "ROCK" ? Do you get a moist throbbing feeling between your legs? Well, The Band covers all those bases. There is an extra notch of tightness that certain bands have, that intangible alchemy between players. Certain bands like James Brown's or Bob Marley's, Crazy Horse, and The Stones. Their talent and skill on their instruments is an art in itself. More than just a good idea or "concept" for a song, The Band had the craft to make their music fly. Not only could The Band play, but they had three, count 'em, three great lead singers. As far as writing goes, let's see...who did they co-write with? Oh, maybe...Bob Dylan.

So why, oh why have they been so forgotten? Ask a twenty-five-year old who The Doors are, they know. Ask who The Band is, they don't. I'm not sure why the group hasn't survived more in the American consciousness; I mean, they wrote classic hits like "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "Up on Cripple Creek" and "The Weight." They appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1970 and starred in a movie directed by Martin Scorsese, The Last Waltz. They influenced everyone from Eric Clapton to Tom Petty and Bob Dylan. Well, maybe it's because they never had one charismatic frontman. Their best singer, Levon Helm, was also their drummer, i.e., in the back. Another reason was that they didn't fit into the rock categories of the time. They weren't psychedelic, they weren't just blues-based like The Stones (although they did play the blues extremely well (115k .au) and they weren't mod-pop like The Beatles.

The critics didn't know what to think of them because country rock wasn't invented yet; they invented it. There was no Allman Brothers, no Lynyrd Skynyrd, no Marshall Tucker. They were just four guys from Canada and a guy from Arkansas blazing trails and playing American root music to the tee. Musicians knew though, and they were highly respected and emulated by their peers. Just look at the lineup in The Last Waltz: Eric Clapton, Ronnie Wood, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Neil Diamond...Neil Diamond? Well, you see my point.