The Band's "Rock Of Ages" - a conceit!
Robbie Robertson looked at history and winked
When Robbie Robertson and The Band decided to title the double live album from their Academy of Music gig over New Year’s in 1971-72, “Rock Of Ages,” it was a conceit, wasn’t it?
At that point, The Band had only released four albums — “Music From Big Pink” and “The Band” and “Stage Fright” and “Cahoots” — only the first two garnering the “classic” tag, though there were some good songs on the latter two.
To call their fifth album, “Rock Of Ages” as though it would prove to be some sort of musical monument, a paragon of excellence, an everlasting canon of superb rock and roll that would endure, well, proclaiming such a thing with just took some brass, some nerve. Roughly 45 songs into a career, to stake such a claim was almost crazy. But, you know what? He was right!
I remember walking into RockBottom records in Nashua, both excited to see a new album by The Band, but at the same time wondering why, after just four albums, they were doing a live record? Usually that doesn’t happen until much later in a career, after a band maybe had run out of steam.
Maybe, I thought at the time, Robbie somehow understood that they were not going to surpass what they’d already done. By inviting some of “the best horn men in New York” to liven up some of their arrangements, they were making a record for history. And in fact, that’s what “Rock Of Ages” truly was. A phenomenal record of The Band at their very best, before the drugs and the car accidents and the recording sessions when half of them didn’t show.
The record was flat-out brilliant. It didn’t follow the actual setlist of the Academy of Music shows on New Year’s Eve so it wasn’t like you were at the show, they made it better, sharper, more exciting. And by starting with “Don’t Do It,” their ass-kicking cover of a Motown classic in inimitable Band style, the song that actually concluded their career as THE BAND at The Last Waltz (it opens the film), Robbie and the boys were showing what their brand of music was really like.
Here’s “Don’t Do It” at The Academy Of Music, 1971
In the actual show, the Marvin Gaye cover was the 19th song of the night so they were really warmed up. What a great way to open the record! You hear Robbie explain the addition of the horn section, directed by Allen Toussaint and they’re off.
Then the magnificent “King Harvest Will Surely Come” some of Robbie’s most descriptive writing. A lovely “Caledonia Mission” and then a previously unheard song, “Get Up, Jake” just a wonderful surprise with a great sing-a-long chorus, and then the side closer, the spectacular “W.S. Walcott Medicine Show,” easily one of the best songs on the record and a song that, perhaps, captures The Band at their best, evocative writing, a great Dixieland-flavored arrangement, an irresistible song to close Side One.
On Side Two, more great stuff: Great Rick Danko vocal on “Stage Fright,” a powerful reading of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” by Arkansan Levon Helm, who sings this as if he was wearing Confederate gray, a great version of “Across The Great Divide” by Richard Manuel — notice the three superb singers in the group, Danko, Helm and Manuel, no group could match that vocal power — then Danko’s plaintive cover of Bob Dylan’s “This Wheel’s On Fire” from the then-unreleased Basement Tapes and a wild, absolutely epic version of The Band playing more Americana Dixieland, Levon’s great “Rag Mama Rag” a song that some thought should have been the single. Garth Hudson’s playing on this is incredible and we’re only halfway through.
Side Three begins as it should with their signature song “The Weight” — a sparkling rendition and one that, to me, is definitive. I loved The Staples singing it at “The Last Waltz” and all, but nobody does it better than The Band. There’s something so definitive about that particular song, a cut that The Band weren’t even sure they’d include on the record. Then they sat and listened to it. That’s all it took.
After the great romp, “The Shape I’m In,” we get a Danko weeper “The Unfaithful Servant” before another Dixieland romp and stomp “Life Is A Carnival,” a song that truly comes alive on stage backed with a great horn arrangement and ensemble singing. And then it hits you, this is a great record!
Side Four opens with Garth Hudson’s showcase “The Genetic Method” an eight-minute collage of American musical numbers magically that pour out of the ends of Hudson’s fingers, just to give the audience a rough idea of The Band’s source material, then a sizzling “Chest Fever” before the fabulous, perfectly chosen encore, “I Don’t Wanna Hang Up My Rock And Roll Shoes” with Levon’s great ad lib — “That’s a bunch of shit” — which makes you smile, laugh and celebrate how free and open The Band felt that night. They gave us the kind of high-class, fun, thoughtful, well-written, superbly played rock and roll that will last — and has.
In 2000, they released some additional music from those dates, including “Up On Cripple Creek” (a surprising omission from “Rock Of Ages”) including four somewhat loosely rendered performances with old friend Bob Dylan (“Down In The Flood” “When I Paint My Masterpiece” “Don’t Ya Tell Henry” and a shambling, but fun “Like A Rolling Stone.”
In September of 2013, they released a five CD set that included the “Rock Of Ages” material, two CD’s of mostly previously unreleased tracks from the Academy of Music shows (“Rockin’ Chair” and “Smoke Signal” and “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever”) and includes the archival film clips of “King Harvest” and “W.S. Walcott’s Medicine Show.”
With the possible exception of “The Last Waltz,” I don’t know that The Band ever surpassed what they achieved that night. Which is not necessarily a disappointment, there may not BE better rock and roll than what we were lucky enough to hear from this multi-talented, ground-breaking group on those magical nights at the Academy of Music all those years ago.
I got to see The Band three times; first, with Bob Dylan on the 1974 tour, in Lenox, Mass. (they were late, Rick Danko had visa problems) and at the Centrum in Philadelphia on “The Last Waltz” tour. They were terrific, yet, I can’t help but think of what they might have been able to do had three of them, Helm, Manuel and Danko had not had serious drug problems and that they’d all been able and willing to contribute to all the albums. It was a Robbie Robertson show, pretty much from “Stage Fright” on and I think he did a remarkable job holding things together, coming up with some first-rate material. And I’m not buying the Levon Helm whining about royalties and how he got a raw deal. The only song he wrote was “Strawberry Wine” which is not exactly “King Harvest” if you know what I mean.
I might be in the minority here but had The Band not had Robbie Robertson, I’m not sure what we would have heard from these talented but apparently easily misdirected guys. Just like with Creedence and a lot of bands, there’s always jealousy when there’s money involved.
When The Band stopped being the one-for-all, all-for-one nearly intentionally anonymous group that sat in a circle and played quietly enough that all could hear and sing and produce a music that was warm and funny and real, their music changed. And not for the better, as good as it was.
Once their Woodstock neighbor Bob Dylan heard their first album, he was blown away and surprised. So was the rest of the world. Nowadays, “Rock Of Ages” does seem like the high water mark for The Band, who went on to tour and did three more studio records, one a bunch of well-performed oldies, then The Last Waltz. And the few records post-Robbie didn’t particularly interest me. That wasn’t The Band, despite what it said on the record album.
It’s selfish to say it, I suppose, but I wanted more. I bet you did, too.
THE BAND PERFORMING “W.S. WALCOTT’S MEDICINE SHOW” IN 1971
The actual concert setlist - What a night!
The Band setlist at Academy of Music,
(Encore) Rag Mama Rag
Encore 2:
(with Bob Dylan)
(with Bob Dylan)
(with Bob Dylan)
(with Bob Dylan)
Great album, and for me better than the Last Waltz soundtrack.
https://open.substack.com/pub/justlikeapassingtrain/p/if-you-pour-some-music-on-whatevers?r=m5151&utm_medium=ios