May 25, 2002

'The Last Waltz': Rock's finest five hours

By John Myers, Internet Photojournalist. See all Through A Glass Darkly columns

It's been called the greatest rock 'n' roll movie ever filmed and the greatest all-star rock concert ever held. And now it's back.

It's "The Last Waltz," the movie filmed by Martin Scorsese of the 1976 farewell concert of what was arguably the most talented rock band to ever break up -- including The Beatles.

Robbie Robertson, songwriter, lead guitarist

They called themselves simply The Band, and 26 years later, they're all but forgotten except for a few diehard rock fans.

But the rerelease of their final concert and movie might win The Band some new fans.

Robbie Robertson, the lead guitarist and songwriter and the catalyst that led to The Band's breakup, has reissued the movie on DVD and a four-CD set of the five-hour final all-star concert.

The newly restored movie includes surround sound for the DVD and DVD-Audio releases. The CDs come bound with a 75-page book that gives new insight into the concert and The Band.

The new release of the music includes 16 new tracks from the concert, five from rehearsal and some variations of "The Last Waltz Suite" performed by Robertson as he wrote it.

The concert performers' list reads like a Who's Who of '60s and '70s rock 'n' roll, blues, pop, folk and gospel: Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, Muddy Waters, The Staples, Ringo Starr, Ron Wood, Dr. John, Paul Butterfield and Ronnie Hawkins were the "big" names with several lesser lights also included.

It seems an odd mix, but they all had one thing in common, they were friends of The Band and they all came to say a sad farewell to a group that was known in the industry as one of the most talented groups ever -- far greater than the sum of its parts.

Emmylou Harris spoke for many fellow artists when she said "The Band had always been my idea of a perfect band."

The Band got its start as the backup musicians for Hawkins, who hired its five members for his touring band, Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, in the late '50s and early '60s.

Levon Helm, an Arkansas drummer, strings player and vocalist, was first, hired by Hawkins when he was 17 in 1957.

Then came four Canadians, hired by Hawkins as he toured the bars and honky tonks of Canada. Robertson was only 16 in 1960 when he joined as a lead guitarist.

Levon Helm, drummer, vocalist, strings player

Rick Danko, 17, was a bass player and vocalist hired away from another band in early 1961. The final two joined by the end of '61.

Richard Manuel, 18, was a piano player and vocalist with a famous "tear in his voice."

And Garth Hudson was 24 when he joined. He was a classically trained keyboard and horns player, who made the other members pay him for music lessons so he could tell his parents he was working as a teacher, and not a rock musician.

The three top-notch vocalists and five incredibly talented musicians honed their talents under Hawkins until 1963 and melded into an incredibly tight musical unit that "rocked."

In '63 they left Hawkins and worked as backups for Dylan, including the infamous Albert Hall concert in England where Dylan was booed for playing rock 'n' roll instead of folk ballads.

Then when Dylan nearly killed himself on a motorcycle and was forced to take a year off to recuperate, The Band released its first album in 1968, "Music From Big Pink," named for a big pink house where they lived in Woodstock, N.Y.

In the basement of that house in 1967 is where the famous "Basement Tapes" of Dylan jamming with The Band were recorded and bootlegged.

Robertson was the best song writer and penned most of their hits, "The Weight," "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," and "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" just to name a few big ones.

Then in 1976, after 16 years of touring and producing some of the highest acclaimed rock 'n' roll ever recorded, it was over.

Richard Manuel, vocalist, pianist

The break up was at heart a power struggle between Helm and Robertson. Hawkins recalled that "When they left me, Levon was in full command, like a five-star general." But by the end, Robertson had assumed the reins.

In the movie, Robertson is the group's spokesman, introducing all the guests in the concert. The decision to break up was, Robertson admits, "more my thing than anybody else's."

Robertson orchestrated the final concert with promoter Bill Graham, and he also talked his friend Scorsese into filming it.

They returned to Graham's Winterland dance palace in San Francisco for the farewell concert, where they had played their U.S. debut in 1969. The all-star guest performers happened almost by accident.

"The show was originally just us," Robertson said. "Then we said, 'Maybe we'll invite Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan to join us.' Then it became, 'Well, if you're going to invite them, then you need Eric Clapton. He was one of our biggest supporters.'"

Clapton called "Music From Big Pink" one of the most important influences on his own musical career. He came to Woodstock to visit The Band in 1968 while touring the U.S. with Cream, which he said were turning into "psychedelic loonies."

By the end of '68, Clapton left Cream and started writing and playing in the country-blues style he so admired in The Band.

And they had to invite former Woodstock neighbors such as blues harpist Paul Butterfield and Belfast soul man Van Morrison. Mac Rebenack, who toured as Dr. John, was a fellow survivor of the Southern juke-joint circuit in the early '60s.

And Neil Young and Joni Mitchell were fellow Canadians, as well as peers and superstars. Neil Diamond was invited by Robertson, who met him with Hawkins in New York and had recently produced Diamond's album, "Beautiful Noise."

Garth Hudson, organist, horns player

H elm invited Muddy Waters, who he met in 1975 when he played bass and drums for "The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album," and drove Waters around Woodstock. Helm said, "I felt like I'd finally hit the big time."

The movie had its happenstance moments also. Scorsese wrote a 200-page script, but it didn't always get followed, like Young's set where he sang and acted "Helpless," stumbling around stoned on the stage, tripping over the other guys' mikes.

Eric Clapton's guitar strap broke in the middle of his opening guitar break in "Further On Up The Road." But he turned to Robertson, who stepped in without missing a lick. That sparked an exchange of electric solos that is one of the film's thrills.

Scorsese's incessant instructions to the cameramen sparked another of the film's most memorable scenes, a dramatic one-camera sequence of Muddy Waters doing "Mannish Boy."

It happened entirely by accident. Scorsese told his cameramen to take a break and reload, but Laszlo Kovacs, the legendary cinematographer who shot "Easy Rider," had taken off his headphones because Scorsese's instructions drove him crazy.

Waters didn't hear the word from Scorsese to take a break -- or didn't care -- and walked out on stage and started singing. Helm and The Band immediately joined him as Scorsese went crazy, screaming for all the cameramen to start shooting again.

But only Laszlo was ready and shot the whole song of Waters with Helm behind, grinning like a 'possum, playing his drums.

Rick Danko, bass player, vocalist

Dylan was always good for some extra drama. He first said he couldn't be filmed while on stage because he was working on a movie of his own, "Renaldo And Clara."

So Robertson and Scorsese agreed to hold the release of "The Last Waltz" until after Dylan's movie was out, which delayed its debut until 1978.

But some of Dylan's people still objected to his being filmed in the concert until promoter Graham stepped in and fixed that.

Robertson recalls, "Somebody working with Bob said, 'We're not filming this.' And Bill just said, 'Get out of here, or I'll kill you.'" Robertson added with a smile, "It all worked out."

The Band was one of those rare groups that sounded as good or better live as in the studio, and their performances in their final show were tighter, hotter and sweeter than ever before.

After the concert, The Band came together one last time on an MGM studio stage, where Scorsese filmed them performing with The Staples and Emmylou Harris, both of whom they wanted to acknowledge but had not been available for the final concert.

And Scorsese also conducted some final interviews of the five members, which is included in the film as they tell war stories about their 16-year climb from bars and honky tonks to the top.

And then it was over. Without Robertson, the four other members reunited for a tour in 1983, but that ended tragically with Manuel's suicide after a concert. Robertson recorded some alone, but has never played with his mates again.

As one critic put it, without Robertson, the four were a band without a songwriter, and Robertson was a songwriter without a band.

Danko died in 1999, Hudson recently declared bankruptcy and Helm is reportedly in poor health. Only the music from 1968 through 1976 survives, and the film of their final concert.

Maybe that's enough to ease the sting of the loss of such a great group. As John Coltrane said, "It's all in the music."