A few weeks ago, someone on Twitter asked to be told about Dwayne Ullmann. Legitimate request on topical timing: The founding father of the Ullmann brothers, and one of the great guitarists, was killed at the age of 24 in a motorcycle accident 50 years ago. Since retiring from Twitter I only see the tweets my name mentions. Some of the members of the feed recommended asking to contact me, in their opinion I brought Ullman and his brother to a discussion in the Hebrew press. The bonus of the short dialogue that caught my eye is that, contrary to what is customary in Israel, this is a case that indicates that 40 years of sympathetic and subjective writing pays off. But this is not an article about Dwayne Ullmann.
It reminded me of the seasonal question that comes up at times, in which we are asked to name the three greatest American rock bands of all time. What I consider to be a non-brainer or a non-starter are terms in English that are part of the American jargon in question that has become nationalized in Hebrew and seems to me to be a rather unnecessary and creepy cultural turnaround and also arousing caring.
The question itself has only one answer: the Ullman brothers, the Grateful Dead and the Band. All the other answers are a kind of retroactive sophistication that has no grip on reality and is detached from an American rock hit. What the big three have in common is that they do not exist; That they have a sea of ardent fans who do not let their special sound die; That their safes (mostly Hadad and the Ullmans) explode from tapes that have not yet been released in orderly distribution; And the main thing: the number of casualties among their talented and one-time friends is phenomenal and distressing and uncomfortable from the high price they paid in human lives that was related to the temperature of their talent, their internal combustion and their contribution to the unique synthesis of American rock; The ability to weave country, folk, blues, bluegrass, jazz and other musical fibers for a spectacular quilt.
None of the big three (I will not exclude “in my opinion” because there is no and cannot be an argument) was original, groundbreaking, formative and one-time as a band. Her entry into our lives with her first “Music From Big Pink” (1968) caused the young Eric Clapton at the end of his career at Cream to leave the British trio and move to Woodstock, New York, where the band lived in the pink house after which the album was named, wanting to join it.
In pimp boots, pink pants and a Jimmy Hendrix-style afro hairstyle, he befriended the quintet but was not accepted; In New Jersey, the young Bruce Springsteen realized that the band’s first two albums (“The Band” released in 1969) had forever changed the musical landscape in their rare and original ability to produce a new, exciting and moving soundtrack to the American being with a new genre called Americana; Van Morrison, not one of the greatest thinkers of rock who signed on to some great albums of those days, had no doubt heard a new sound in songs that told about America as they had not sung about it before.
The three are the main witnesses and talking heads in “Once Were Brothers”, the documentary about the band from 2019, whose subtitle is Robbie Robertson and the band. Except for Gareth Hudson, a musical genius, a multi-instrumental virtuoso whose main presence is behind various organs, whose big head moves in an epileptic frenzy and his prominence is fluttering and hiding his face like Beethoven on amphetamines when he does not blow the teary solo with a small saxophone
In “It Makes No Difference,” Robertson is the last survivor. Hudson still lives in Woodstock, and since he has always been known for his silence, he lets Robertson rewrite history.
Robbie Robertson (Photo: Capitol Records)I feel like I sneaked into the subject itself but not really. In a world where you are supposed to lovingly embrace a crazy reality where John Mayer replaces Jerry Garcia with modular ensembles in which the word Dead always appears; Like the fact that the rights holders of the Ullmann brothers continue to release live-performance albums, some of which are excellent
And The Allman Betts Band is a band formed by the sons of Greg Ullman and Dickie Betts and continues the southern fusion rock tradition in a good sense – it is only natural that someone should have been built from the band’s repertoire and reputation as a founding element and especially delightful in its successful pretense America in songs.
To remind you that these are four Canadians and one American from Arkansas, who were Ronny Hawkins’ backing band when they were called The Hawks and helped Bob Dylan cross a raging river from acoustic music to a tram accompanied by shouts of contempt and dumping. Johnny Mitchell is also Canadian, but she is from a genre of personal, revealing and autobiographical writing that has not defined America. Neil Young, too, who has become skinny and has a firm opinion, sometimes dumb, in politics and culture in America.
Mitchell wrote “Woodstock” in which the band appeared on one of her first appearances. Young wrote “Ohio,” certainly one of the great protest songs. To entice the five talented youngsters to be his backing band, Ronnie Hawkins – a mediocre but energetic, hillbilly singer whose career has moved in a monotonous path – promised Robertson that he would make some money but have more wives than Frank Sinatra. Hawkins did not say women, and the promise as word is documented in Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Waltz.”
In the face of a reality where incandescent shock, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel – the band’s three wonderful singers and its backbone – are still dead, no one will sit on the lid of the box from which Robertson’s ego overflows and his madness grows. Re-inventing the band as “Robbie Robertson and the Band” is similar to a vague idea in which Paul McCartney, after the deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison, would make films or put out collections under the name Paul McCartney and the Beatles. The kind of decisions that could bring down a government in the UK. Aside from a few purists combing their hair with a toothpick, Robertson’s prank has not met with much-needed resentment. Maybe they talked about it for a few days in Woodstock.
The immediate cause of my cultural nervous breakdown is a gala reissue of “Stage Fright”, the band’s third album released in August 1970. With the first two it is one of Brock’s immortal trilogies. In the first, the band invented an original way to isolate scenes and stories about a fading and belligerent America. From the first album Robertson was the lead songwriter. There was also joint songwriting, mostly with Manuel and Shock, but it dwindled. America was introduced to Robertson Shock, his closest friend and one who was considered a leader until he was fed up or ousted. It’s a shock that drew the scenes from the Civil War for his Canadian friend.
In the mythical “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and other songs. As usual, there is a reissue at Maglomani with a $ 150, and $ 19 folk label, with the original album songs, intimate version songs recorded in a hotel room and a great live performance at the Royal Albert Hall.
One of the most important decisions in any album is the order of the songs that are responsible for its flow. Robertson, who did not like the order of the songs as set with his friends, changed it in the reissue. One can argue whether the new order is better (it is), but it has a blatant betrayal of the values of friendship and collegiality. It’s a little wisdom to be a hero of the dead. Mostly there is no evidence and no one claims Robertson was in contact with relatives of his dead friends to consult with them. Shock’s daughter, for example, is a singer married to a singer and guitarist. They could express an opinion.
It probably testifies to me and my non-elitist taste in music. Unlike important critics and fans who are hostages of the first two albums, “Stage Fright” captured me on first hearing. I share the view that “The WS Walcott Medicine Show,” based on the Woodville and Minstrel shows he saw as a shock as a child, is the band’s best American song. There have not been as many encounters as between Robertson’s guitar and his so special and recognizable voice of the drummer’s shock.
“Daniel and The Sacred Harp” is full of religious motifs, reminiscent of the Sea of Galilee and is a paraphrase of the deal that Robert Johnson made with the devil. The dialogue between Shock and Manuel is as heartbreaking in his humanity as the line in which Daniel recognizes that the price he paid is that he no longer casts a shadow. “The Shape I’m In” was written about Manuel’s plight following the success, and “Stage Fright” depicts Robertson’s stage fright during the band’s first appearance, when he fell ill and managed to recover with the help of a hypnotist who sat in the front row and uttered encrypted words of encouragement. “The Rumor” is a bitter and angry song about the reaction of the original Woodstock residents, a particularly phlegmatic and opinionated bunch, to the fact that all the musicians who settled among them became addicted to one drug or another and to alcohol. The same people who opposed Robertson’s idea to record the album live on the local theater stage.
Robertson’s contemporary megalomania disguised as retroactive empathy for his dead friends and especially shock, while happily cutting out all the coupons, does not overshadow the talent of a songwriter and great guitar player. He had a rare ability to sing lyrics to a tune and he signed some of the more iconic songs that came out of America. He is unable to sing, and usually joined as a fourth voice when his microphone was not closed, and his solo albums are particularly disappointing. Evidence that talented creators cannot work in a vacuum but need energy, even negative, and synergy between musicians at their peak.
Stage Fright album cover (Photo: No Credit)To a large extent, “Stage Fright” was the band’s last worthy album. Aside from the gem that was “Northern Lights – Southern Cross” (1975), the albums after “Stage Fright” including in variable ensembles without Robertson, were negligible. The case on which Robertson formulates his sweeping complaint in docu, refers to the fact that during the recording of the third album there were shock, Manuel and Danko heavy addicts addicted to heroin and alcohol. As he got up to work every morning and write the songs for the album, they tried to sober up from the nightly bacchanalia.
Robertson lays the evidentiary foundation; His faithful and loving wife Dominic transcribed it. They drove stoned, wrecked cars, were in near-fatal road accidents. Danko broke his neck. Manuel drove Dominic’s new Mustang and she got inside and smashed it. Shock destroyed his Corvette. The field behind the pink house looks like a cemetery for crushed cars. It is true that Robertson also took hard drugs, but he was not an addictive personality, his wife claims. His creative impulse overcame his weakness. Narcotics damage the voice, making it duller and hoarser and lower in some registers. This is evident in the songs on the album although it does not detract from the experience. One of the first things said to quit, how younger he sounds.
In addition to heroin and wrecked cars, Manuel, the sensitive, diverse and vulnerable of the five, developed a nasty addiction to Gran Marnier liqueur. The orange-flavored drink is attributed with protective coating properties to the throat and vocal cords. Bo Diddley testified that it was effective in “protecting the throat from drying out in smoke-filled halls.” Manuel was told that in 1970 his capacity reached eight bottles of Gran Marnier a day. A little exaggerated in my opinion, but he stopped writing songs, and Robertson claims he failed to bring him back to the discipline of creation. When he left the house where he lived in 1976, 2,000 empty bottles of his favorite liqueur were found in the house.
The good friends became rivals. According to Robertson’s version, he wrote all the songs himself, set recording dates and was responsible for arranging performances. According to a shock in his autobiography “This Wheel’s On Fire”, Robertson ruined something wonderful when he decided on his own, strong on addicts, to produce a farewell performance her called “The Last Waltz” and invited Scorsese to commemorate her in the film. You know the mythical sequel. What kills bands is a reality where the songwriters are the richest people. They get big money from royalties. As the biological son of a Jewish gangster named Kegelman who died before he was born and learned his legacy with the help of his uncles, criminals who also understood a thing or two about show business, Robertson planned his life as a kinetic work in motion. His mother was a young girl of Native American descent, and her husband disguised as his father beat her until he disappeared. No one is proud of Robertson for his pedigree: an Indian Jew.
He presents “The Last Waltz” as an obvious break from the demanding lifestyle of a rock band. According to him, he wanted to produce a necessary sabbatical during which everyone would recover and return to writing, recording and performing. This is a lie that is difficult to pass on to the agenda. He is not compatible with his friends. Shock opposed the idea very much, and a cold and hostile chill wafted from it in the film. The big interview clips and the presentation of the chronicle were kept by Robertson for himself with the help of Scorsese, with whom he connected and since then he has been the musical editor of his films. Shock criticized the film during and after it and called it “the most fucking theft that happened to the band.” He remained loyal to this criticism until his death from throat cancer in 2012. Robertson’s acting ability has realized itself in several films in which he has appeared, but for describing his parting from the dying shock he deserves an Oscar. The shock was unconscious when his daughter let Robertson say goodbye to him at the hospital. He said Robertson was sitting at his best friend’s bed, holding his hand and talking to him.
He admits it was impossible to pick up friends after “The Last Waltz.” This is what happens when bruises disperse. The band continued without him and recruited a replacement guitarist who did not reach his ankles. They have all had solo careers with varying degrees of success. Richard Manuel, the man destined to die young, committed suicide after performing in Florida in his motel room in 1986. He was 42. Rick Danko died in his sleep after various addictions in 1999. He was 55. Hudson faded into the thick forest around Woodstock, and Robertson continued to cheer and bubble and moved to live in Malibu with his family. Dominic is a psychiatrist who specializes in rehab.
Blues singer Taj Mahal, one of the few witnesses in the film, says the band was in his opinion the American Beatles. This is not a false statement. It has a solid core of truth. There is no resemblance in style, songs and popularity, but there is a similarity in how the two bands helped define British and American rock, songs cut from a collective nervous system and national ethos, which were musical virtuosos, genius songwriters, with limited life expectancy and frontal confrontation between the band’s two great creators. For years Robertson carried the title of the great villain who took from us what could have gone on to be wonderful music, but it’s more complex than that.
One has to listen to “Stage Fright” to understand how great and unique Robertson’s talent was and what a wonderful use his friends made of the platform he wrote for them. The band’s repertoire is not as popular as that of the Beatles, but at their best the harmony of their voices was extraordinary and moving, and the lyrics were arrows smeared with various preparations made of stalagmites from the rainforests. It is doubtful that Brock had three such special and distinct voices as that of Shock, Manuel and Danko.
Before leaving Drive-By Truckers for a successful solo career in 2004, Jason Isabel, probably one of the band’s clear heirs, wrote the song
“Danko / Manuel” which appears on the album “The Dirty South”.
Can you hear that singing? Sounds like Gold
Maybe I can only hear it in my head
Fifteen years ago we owned that road
Now it’s rolling over us instead
Richard Manuel is dead.
Listen to Manuel sing Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released”. The tears on me. And ask yourself if it’s a coincidence that when it’s his turn to sing a house song in a song that locks in “The Last Waltz,” Scorsese’s cameras fail to find it. He was not a puppet sitting on Robbie Robertson’s lap.