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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

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Speaker 2: that brings you the secret histories and little known fascinating

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Speaker 2: facts and figures behind your favorite TV shows, movies, music,

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Speaker 2: and more. We're your two Woodstock weirdos of wonderful facts.

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Speaker 2: I'm Crazy Chester. No, that's not right. We're all the

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Speaker 2: other dumb names that he uses on there.

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Speaker 1: I'm the Miss Moses of my Nusia, the bearded brethren

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Speaker 1: of banality. There you go, the fannies of facts, and

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Speaker 1: I will fix your rack if you'll take old Jake

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Speaker 1: my dog anyway.

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Speaker 2: For those of you not steeped in the bizarre minutia

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Speaker 2: of the band, we are here to talk about the

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Speaker 2: band and their debut music from Big Pink. With the

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Speaker 2: passing of iconic guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson, we thought

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Speaker 2: this would be a great time to go ahead and

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Speaker 2: take a look back at the debut album that shook

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Speaker 2: the world. Maybe one of the most influential LPs of

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Speaker 2: all time if you consider it's influence on Clapton and Harrison,

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Speaker 2: and also the fact that, along with Like the Birds,

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Speaker 2: it launched folk rock as a as a thing. It's

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Speaker 2: like the template for folk rock and then onto that

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Speaker 2: Americana as a genre.

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Speaker 1: You know. So here's a question for you. No, who

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Speaker 1: do you request to know? I think that obviously Dylan

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Speaker 1: influenced the band. Do you think the band influenced Dylan Moore? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a great question.

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Speaker 2: That's a great question. You know.

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Speaker 1: I'm not enough of a Dylan.

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Speaker 2: Scholar to know what he was putting into his stew

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Speaker 2: around the same time, but I do know, at least

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Speaker 2: according to Robbie Robertson, who God Rest his soul, everything

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Speaker 2: he says must be taken with a carton of Malton's.

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Speaker 1: Salt because he's so early in this shoh, it's lp.

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Speaker 1: I'm not I'm gonna bring it.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to keep back some of my Robbie bile

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Speaker 2: out of respect for the dead. But he is inarguably

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Speaker 2: one of rock's greatest hagiographers, that he and Jimmy Pek. Yes,

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Speaker 2: he loves talking about himself and how much of a

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Speaker 2: genius he is, and that is anathema to me.

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Speaker 1: So, but if you were as much of a genius

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Speaker 1: as Robbie Robertson, wouldn't you not if.

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Speaker 2: I spent my entire life having Levon drama. I you know,

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Speaker 2: I feel like there's with the other people in the band.

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Speaker 2: I feel like that would keep you in check if

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Speaker 2: you weren't Robbie Robertson. That's the level of self regarden

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Speaker 2: ego you need to have to not be humbled by

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Speaker 2: the rest of your band. Anyway, what was I talking about?

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so okay in either cause I just brushed

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Speaker 2: up on Wheels on Fire and the Hoskins biography, which

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Speaker 2: the barn Across the Great Deal, Arnie Hoskins biography, which

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Speaker 2: we're gonna cite both of them in this. But I

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Speaker 2: was just brushing up on it. And I can't remember

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Speaker 2: if it's Robbie or Levon talking about, but like when

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Speaker 2: they were hanging out with Bob Dylan, they were like

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Speaker 2: trying to get him away from the speed ad old

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Speaker 2: like beat poetry, you know, rock, electrified blue stuff, and

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Speaker 2: they were like, no, listen to Percy Sledge, like listen

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Speaker 2: to the impressions, Like so yeah, I do think there

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Speaker 2: was some cross pollination happening there, But you know, I

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Speaker 2: think it might have been inevitable because didn't he cut

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Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff in Nashville, so he was probably

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Speaker 2: getting for blonde blanc yeah at that Yeah, so around

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Speaker 2: the same time he was pretty steeped in country music

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Speaker 2: culture at least. So yeah, anyway, God, we're gonna there's

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Speaker 2: so many I am even hesitant to wade into I

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Speaker 2: was hesitant to even get into this because it's brushing

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Speaker 2: up against Dylan and like Dylan fans or nuts, I

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Speaker 2: say with.

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Speaker 1: Love black hole.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you better say well here, yeah, so I will

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Speaker 3: hear yeah, by which I mean like there are there

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Speaker 3: are people who are as steeped in that as like

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Speaker 3: biblical scholars, and I'm not.

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Speaker 2: So that's all conjecture on my point. On my end,

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Speaker 2: I'm Jordan.

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Speaker 1: By the way, we didn't actually introduce ourselves. I'm Alex

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Speaker 1: Higas Jordan run Talk. I keep forgetting to do this.

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Speaker 1: I am at Alex underscore Higel on the sinking ship

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Speaker 1: of Twitter. You are I am just my name, Jordan

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Speaker 1: run Talk all one word? Are you in t A

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Speaker 1: G H. Yeah, we've said that's really lovely comments on

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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts whatever that app is called, saying we've

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Speaker 1: been we haven't been able to find you on social media.

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Speaker 1: I'm so sorry about that I know that we don't

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Speaker 1: have a Twitter page for the show, which I've gotten

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Speaker 1: a lot of flak for and I'm sorry about that.

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Speaker 1: That's too late now, But we are there and and

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Speaker 1: are are always down to to be chatty and always

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Speaker 1: down for for show request ideas and all that kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff. We love talking you. Thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for reaching out. But yeah, this album, the band in general,

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Speaker 1: I kind of came to relatively late. I mean, obviously

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Speaker 1: I knew The Weight and some of their other big hits,

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Speaker 1: notably this Wheel's on Fire thanks to its inclusion as

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Speaker 1: the theme to my beloved brickcom Absolutely fat.

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Speaker 2: Yes, this is a great show. Such a weird song.

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Speaker 2: How did that come to happen?

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Speaker 1: I have no clue because it's it's so it's the

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Speaker 1: cover by Julie Driscoll. Okay, it's funny. Get a British psychrol.

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Speaker 2: It's funny because when, like in his later era, Rick

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Speaker 2: Danko has talked about like, yeah, it's great to get

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Speaker 2: a check for this Wheels on Fire every year from

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Speaker 2: ab fab or from like the BBC or whoever it is.

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Speaker 1: Wait. I love the thought of Rick Danko watching ab

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Speaker 1: Fab makes me so happy. Oh wow. But yeah, I band,

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Speaker 1: I just I didn't connect with really until about five

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Speaker 1: years ago when I was working on a fiftieth anniversary

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Speaker 1: piece for this album for Rolling Stone, which I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: be borrowing liberally from.

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Speaker 2: So I say, don't bother to call him out for

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Speaker 2: self plagiarism. He's aware of it.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I don't know, probably because I mean You've said

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Speaker 1: this about me a number of times. Is that I'm

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Speaker 1: so steeped in the hole like Brian Wilson, Phil Specter

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Speaker 1: broke pop world. So the whole down home basement approach

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Speaker 1: is really anethetical to Stop, I Love at Sounds, Revolver, Odyssey,

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Speaker 1: an Oracle. So it took me a little bit to

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Speaker 1: warm to this. But in a way the band that

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Speaker 1: was kind of the point. They were a reaction against

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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Robbie Robertson would later say, we

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Speaker 1: were rebelling against the rebellion. This is a great quote.

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Speaker 1: If everybody was going east, then we were going west.

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Speaker 1: And we never once discussed it. There was this kind

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Speaker 1: of ingrained thing from all of us all along. We

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Speaker 1: were kind of the rebels with an absolute cause, an

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Speaker 1: instinct to separate ourselves from the Pack again, world class hagiographer,

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Speaker 1: but hell of a quote machine. Yeah, and you know

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Speaker 1: it's true. I mean, if you hold Big Pink up

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Speaker 1: against everything else that came out around the same period

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Speaker 1: in the summer of sixty eight, it's really stunning how

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Speaker 1: separate it is. You've got the over driven amps of

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Speaker 1: Cream and The Who and Jimmy Hendrix. The bands focused

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Speaker 1: on clean acoustic instruments with very quiet arrangements that revealed

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Speaker 1: musical intricacies and all the complexities of the lyrics. And

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Speaker 1: then you've got bands like you know, the Beatles and

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Speaker 1: the Stones doing their satanic Magici's Requests and Sergeant Pepper

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Speaker 1: and the Kinks, and they're all doing this very English

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Speaker 1: tinge psychedelic whimsy. The first Pink Floyd album, the band

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Speaker 1: was so resolutely American, which is hilarious because three fifths

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Speaker 1: were Canadian, just so steeped in country, blues, gospel and

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Speaker 1: Western classical music. And you know, this is the eron.

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Speaker 1: Brian Wilson and Pete Towns and the Beatles are doing

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Speaker 1: the whole studio as an instrument thing. And the band

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Speaker 1: were doing their demos in a basement in upstate New York,

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Speaker 1: I mean, drawing on their years on the road to

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Speaker 1: create musical telepathy of the highest order. And that's not

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Speaker 1: even getting into the songs. And I think my favorite

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Speaker 1: quote about the music on Big Pink comes from its

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Speaker 1: producer John Simon, who described the songs in a nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety three interview as quote more like buried treasure from

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Speaker 1: American lore than new songs by contemporary artists. And I

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Speaker 1: just think that's amazing. I like, it's perfect.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean I also came to them relatively late.

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Speaker 2: I like you, I grew up reading Rolling Stone and

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Speaker 2: I would always just see their name and and then

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Speaker 2: like the last Waltz and I was just like, no,

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Speaker 2: I have Dead Kennedy's to listen to. Like, I'm not

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Speaker 2: listening to a band. Honestly, the name did half of it.

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Speaker 2: I was like, what the is this? And it was

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Speaker 2: like that and the the Yeah. I was like, I

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Speaker 2: don't need your gimme, I don't, Yeah, come on, yeah,

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Speaker 2: this is obnoxious. But then I would go and listen

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Speaker 2: to a band called the Crucifix.

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Speaker 1: Uh yeah.

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Speaker 2: And then this is so funny because like that, you know,

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Speaker 2: eighteen months or whatever I spent working at a Blockbuster

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Speaker 2: in Fairfax, Virginia when I was at college. Were so

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Speaker 2: formative to me because I saw so many great movies.

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Speaker 2: And that's where I saw The Last Waltz. I finally

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Speaker 2: pulled it off the shelf and brought it home and

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Speaker 2: was blown away. It is one of the greatest. I

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Speaker 2: think it's better than Stop Making Sense.

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Speaker 4: I wow, Yeah, I mean Stop Making Sense is maybe

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Speaker 4: better as like a piece of art, but Last Waltz

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Speaker 4: is a better band portrait and a better film.

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Speaker 2: Like you get so much of their personality, and you

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Speaker 2: get so much of like it's just like a world

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Speaker 2: that you're immediately like, I want to live there. I

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Speaker 2: want to crawl into that and live there. And they

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Speaker 2: rotoscoped a coke booger out of Neil Young's nose. You

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Speaker 2: just don't get that with Stop Making Sense anyway. So

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Speaker 2: I finally watched that. We got that in every contractually

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Speaker 2: obligated to do it every episode. Yeah, And so I

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Speaker 2: went backwards from there. So I didn't even get to

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Speaker 2: Big Pink until like much later with that, and you know,

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Speaker 2: having started with the live stuff and then some of

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Speaker 2: the seventies stuff like Cahoots and Islands and Stage Fright,

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Speaker 2: it sounds like primitive to me, we were talking about

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Speaker 2: this before we started recording, but like the Brown Album,

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Speaker 2: to me, the self titled on the second album is

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Speaker 2: one of my favorite records of all time, and it

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Speaker 2: just has it. I think really marries the kind of

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Speaker 2: basement clubhouse literal clubhouse, poolhouse ambiance that they were shooting

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Speaker 2: for with Big Pink, with just a much clearer vision

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Speaker 2: of their musicality. You can just hear everything better. There's

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Speaker 2: kind of this like miasma swirliness to Big Pink, but

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Speaker 2: it's so God. It's that basement tapes are like the

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Speaker 2: shots heard around the world, is like launching, like low

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Speaker 2: fi recordings and like Murky Americana. As genres, you know

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Speaker 2: that they are just like I don't know, dude, are

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Speaker 2: they more influent? I think they're more influential than some

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Speaker 2: of the Beatles records because like, I don't think you

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Speaker 2: can the Beatles records are like part of the monoculture.

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Speaker 2: But I don't know how many bands you can directly

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Speaker 2: point to and be like, or genres that you can

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Speaker 2: directly point to and be like they are doing Abbey Road,

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Speaker 2: they are doing the White Album, they are doing I

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Speaker 2: mean you can you can say, oh, big star power

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Speaker 2: pop like you can say that, but like you get

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Speaker 2: modern folk rock and Americana and so many branches of

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Speaker 2: what is considered modern country. You get that from basement

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Speaker 2: tapes and big Pink. I agree with you to a point.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if i'd go that far.

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Speaker 1: I would say that it's probably as influential as some

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Speaker 1: of the Beatles records because it was a reaction to

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Speaker 1: what the Beatles would do in terms of using all

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Speaker 1: the technology that the studio offered to make these new

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Speaker 1: sounds that couldn't be played live. I think maybe that's

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Speaker 1: the point.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, sure, but I mean then you've got a

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Speaker 2: factor in the fact that Harrison and Clapton's next influential

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Speaker 2: records were directly as a result of their love of

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Speaker 2: the band, So that might edge them over to me. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: That's neither here nor there. This episode is going to

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Speaker 2: be like five hours long, and you have to edit

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Speaker 2: it on a plane ride. From the album's roots in

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Speaker 2: Bob Dylan's motorcycle Crash, to the bitter rivalry at the

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Speaker 2: heart of the strongest creative voices in the band, to

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Speaker 2: the extreme fandom that they picked up from two of

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Speaker 2: the biggest British rock stars at the time. Here's everything

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Speaker 2: you didn't know about Music from Big Pink.

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Speaker 1: The story of Music from Big Pink really begins the

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Speaker 1: moment that Bob Dylan lost control of his Triumph Tiger

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Speaker 1: one hundred motorcycle while riding through the outskirts of Woodstock,

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Speaker 1: New York, on July twenty ninth, nineteen sixty six. All

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Speaker 1: upcoming concert dates were canceled as he recovered from his injuries.

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Speaker 1: That was nearby home. At least that's the official version.

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Speaker 1: That's what they want you to think. They don't want

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Speaker 1: you to know. There are some who believe that this

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Speaker 1: crash was just a cover story put around to do

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Speaker 1: one of the follow Either allow Dylan to detox from

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Speaker 1: pills or heroin, or he just simply needed a break

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Speaker 1: after years of exhaustive toying around the world, and a

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Speaker 1: crash was a good cover story to take some time off.

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Speaker 1: Whatever the case, Dylan's professional pause put his backing band

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Speaker 1: into a state of limbo. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I mean, this whole timeline is well trodden and originally

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Speaker 2: we didn't have this in here, but it's something to

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Speaker 2: bear in mind. The short story of The band's bio

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Speaker 2: is that they were put together in Canada by an

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Speaker 2: Arkansas singer and hell raiser by the name of Ronnie Hawkins,

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Speaker 2: who miraculously died last year, just last year. I mean,

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Speaker 2: like outlived many of the band and most of his peers.

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Speaker 1: But he didn't get to experience Barbenheimer. I wonder what

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Speaker 1: he would have said. Do you think he would have

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Speaker 1: seen Loppenheimer or Barbie first? Oh? Great question. Do you

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Speaker 1: think the man who did Hoodie love with? I?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Ronnie Hawkins is so fascinating anyway, So

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Speaker 2: he was playing. He was sort of a rockabilly singer, right,

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Speaker 2: and he put them together from their assorted other bands

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Speaker 2: in Toronto somewhere in Canada, and their home base was

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Speaker 2: kind of Toronto. And it's really funny because in this

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Speaker 2: Wheels on Fire, Levon talks about like, oh yeah, by

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Speaker 2: like the the you know, the sixties. The kind of

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Speaker 2: like rockabilly stuff that we were playing was almost out

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Speaker 2: of fashion in the States, but in Canada, where they're

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Speaker 2: five years behind, we were hot. So but they ground

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Speaker 2: it out. They were not only in the US Chitlin circuit,

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Speaker 2: like the kind of South pre Highway roadhouse bar scene,

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Speaker 2: but they were also in the Canadian equivalent of that,

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Speaker 2: which is, you know, the same environs, but populated by

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Speaker 2: more wild people and also cold, the Tim Horton circuit,

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Speaker 2: and Dylan came across them via Blue singer John Hammond Junior,

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Speaker 2: who recorded with drummer vocalist Icon Levon, Helm, keyboardist Wizard

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Speaker 2: Garth Hudson and Robbie Robertson on his vanguard album So

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Speaker 2: Many Roads, and then Bob Bob Dylan invited Helm and

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Speaker 2: Robertson to join his backing band, and then after on

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Speaker 2: the sixty six tour, right, I think it.

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Speaker 1: Was sixty six tour. Oh, we're going to get some

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Speaker 1: notes for this. I'm pretty sure they came on on

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Speaker 1: the UK tour, Yeah, I think so. It was the

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Speaker 1: Judas to.

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Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, the tour when he went electric and people

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Speaker 2: the British didn't appreciate that, but only after two shows

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Speaker 2: they told him we'll only keep doing the if you

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Speaker 2: bring on the other guys in the band pianist singer

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Speaker 2: Richard Manuel and bassist vocalist Rick Danko.

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Speaker 1: I love both Levon and Robbie would say that each

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Speaker 1: was the one who told Dylan, you either take all

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Speaker 1: of us or none of us.

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Speaker 2: It was definitely Levon. Robbie would have said, Okay, you

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Speaker 2: can take me, that's fine.

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Speaker 1: How much in this episode are we going to get

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Speaker 1: into the Robbie's thorny legacy and the Robbie versus Levon?

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Speaker 1: Uh oh, we'll get into it. Okay, all right, good.

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Speaker 2: I mean, look, I'm not gonna shot on him too much.

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Speaker 2: But like I am a firm believer in the notion

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Speaker 2: that loving something means seeing it warts and all, especially

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Speaker 2: when it comes to art and artists, and you absolutely

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Speaker 2: cannot talk about the band without talking about their dissolution

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Speaker 2: and without talking about Levon versus Robbie so.

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Speaker 1: And which basically boils down to what it means to

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Speaker 1: write a song.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, which is why it's so endlessly fast

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Speaker 2: to me in a way that like a lot of

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Speaker 2: band rivalries aren't, because it comes a lot of band

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Speaker 2: rivalries come down to like hey you slept with my

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Speaker 2: wife or I just don't like your face, But this

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Speaker 2: one truly gets at the heart of what it means

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Speaker 2: to be in a collective, creative unit, and that is

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Speaker 2: just endlessly fascinating to me.

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Speaker 1: I've heard a bit about music rivalries. Well, by the

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Speaker 1: time a Dylan's motorcycle accident, Levon had left the band.

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Speaker 1: He preferred to go work on an oil rig in

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Speaker 1: the Gulf of Mexico rather than endure the booze that

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Speaker 1: Dylan and the Hawks were getting from people who didn't

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Speaker 1: appreciate Dylan's move into the electric realm.

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Speaker 2: He saw a dude get hit in the face by

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Speaker 2: a crane hook on that oil on that oil rig

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Speaker 2: because the winds were choppy that day, and he talks

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Speaker 2: about he was like, and after they, you know, airlifted

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Speaker 2: that guy off, I looked over and saw the body

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Speaker 2: bags hanging on the wall. It's like, holy shit, that

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Speaker 2: is so metal that he went and did that. That's like,

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Speaker 2: that's like a Bruce Springsteen song. Irl. You know, it's

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Speaker 2: even funnier how he got there, because I was just

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Speaker 2: I don't know, those wheels on fire. Well, so he

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Speaker 2: basically went and spent all of his money from that

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Speaker 2: tour in Florida, ran out of money. And did you

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Speaker 2: know about like this thing. I didn't know that. In

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Speaker 2: the middle of the century, they had what was called

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Speaker 2: driveaway cars, where basically a car needed to get to

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Speaker 2: another city, so you could go to the dealership and

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Speaker 2: be like or whoever and be like, oh, I'll drive

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Speaker 2: it there, and they'd be like, Okay, here's the car.

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Speaker 2: And so he was flat broke in Florida and got

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Speaker 2: a drive away car and drove it to New Orleans

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Speaker 2: and then from there went into the Gulf of Mexico

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Speaker 2: where he almost watched a man die and then proceeded

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Speaker 2: to create some of the most immortal music of all time.

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Speaker 1: For years, when you were unhappy at your job, he

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Speaker 1: used to always tell me that you were going to

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Speaker 1: go work on an oil rig. And it's a long

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Speaker 1: time until I realized what the reference was. By the way,

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Speaker 1: this was in August of nineteen sixty five that Levon

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Speaker 1: went off, So this was in They started with him

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Speaker 1: in the summer of sixty five tour right after he

349
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Speaker 1: went electric at the Newport Folk Festival in sixty five,

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Speaker 1: So just want to get the timeline right on that.

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Speaker 1: And he was way from the bands for two years.

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Speaker 1: He worked on an oil rig for two years. Almost

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Speaker 1: that's insane.

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Speaker 2: God love him, but.

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Speaker 1: Honestly, Levon going to work in the oil rigs started

356
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Speaker 1: to kind of look like a good career move after

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Speaker 1: Dylan's accident. As far as the rest of the bands

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Speaker 1: were concerned, Rick Danko said in Levan's memoir This Wheel's

359
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Speaker 1: on Fire, we didn't know what to do. We were

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Speaker 1: road musicians without a road to go on. We still

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Speaker 1: wanted to record, so we started looking for a place

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Speaker 1: to rehearse some music. And this brings us to one

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Speaker 1: of the most common enemies of musicians, aside from David

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Speaker 1: Geffen and Mike Love and who else? Who else is

365
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Speaker 1: an enemy of musicians? Katzenberg doesn't count copyright law.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the Marvin Gaye State drink tickets sweetwater.

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Speaker 1: Tell us which enemy of musicians we're talking about, Heigel,

368
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Speaker 1: we were talking about New York real estate. Baby take

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Speaker 1: us there.

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Speaker 2: Well, this must have been outrageously affordable by New York standards.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think in the Velvet Stock that came

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Speaker 2: out two years ago, leu Read and John Kell's New

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Speaker 2: York City apartment was like sixty dollars a month. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: it was too expensive for the band to hang out

375
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Speaker 2: in New York City. I think they were staying in

376
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Speaker 2: the Chelsea actually time, but they were on retainer from

377
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Speaker 2: Albert Grossman and Dylan, so they decided to move to

378
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Speaker 2: Woodstock in the rural cat Skills in upstate New York,

379
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Speaker 2: and Dylan and his manager Albert Grossman lived there in

380
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Speaker 2: addition to a couple of other members of the New

381
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Speaker 2: York City music steam. Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and

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Speaker 2: Mary was their connection to the place. He had a

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Speaker 2: family cottage there. I think it was his aunts that

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Speaker 2: he used to go and visit growing up. And he

385
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Speaker 2: was the first person who brought Rick Danko and Richard

386
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Speaker 2: Manuel upstate in February of nineteen sixty seven to work

387
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Speaker 2: on this film document. There's all of these there's these

388
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Speaker 2: cizar counterculture films. Tarantulo was one of them, right, Tarantula,

389
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Speaker 2: eat this document, Eat the document. There's another one you

390
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Speaker 2: are which you eat?

391
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Speaker 1: I think?

392
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Speaker 2: And yeah, it's all this thing of like I blame

393
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Speaker 2: Andy Warhol that all these musicians like saw all these

394
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Speaker 2: experimental Warhol films in the mid sixties and be like,

395
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Speaker 2: I can do that. That's how you get the Monkeys

396
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Speaker 2: film among the Rules.

397
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Speaker 1: Have you ever seen head? I haven't.

398
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Speaker 2: But Robbie Robertson had also gone up there to help

399
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Speaker 2: Dylan and a filmmaker named Howard Ulk assemble eat the document,

400
00:21:34,480 --> 00:21:37,840
Speaker 2: which was about the sixty six tour. The band, who

401
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Speaker 2: had been on the road for most of the decade,

402
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Speaker 2: fell in love with the slower pace and the unspoiled forests,

403
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Speaker 2: the beautiful scenic mountain view. Garth Hudson, who I don't

404
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Speaker 2: think ever left after the last Waltz and a couple

405
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Speaker 2: of doors. I think he's just been esconced in his

406
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Speaker 2: Woodstock mansion for like two to three decades now.

407
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Speaker 1: I think his beard attached to the moss and so

408
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Speaker 1: he's just part of the mountain.

409
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Speaker 2: He told Barney Hoskins in the band Bio Across the

410
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Speaker 2: Great Divide. It couldn't have been a better place. There

411
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Speaker 2: was a lot of magic in Woodstock. Everywhere you went.

412
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Speaker 2: The legends were reflected in the names of the places

413
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Speaker 2: and the streets. War Worsting, Ohio, Bearsville Flats.

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Speaker 1: God Blessed Garth Huts and a beautiful grandfather. Twilight of

415
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Speaker 1: a man, a gentle soul. I love him. Rick Danko

416
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Speaker 1: was enlisted to find a suitable clubhouse for the bands

417
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Speaker 1: when they decided to make the move up the Woodstock

418
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Speaker 1: and he found the perfect place at twenty one eighty

419
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Speaker 1: eight Stole Road in Sogerty's. It was a boxy, split

420
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Speaker 1: level home that looked like it had been trucked in

421
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Speaker 1: from the suburbs. The bright salmon colored paint jobs supposedly

422
00:22:47,119 --> 00:22:50,879
Speaker 1: earned the drisive nickname from locals Big Pink, which is

423
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Speaker 1: funny to me because it's not that big, and it's

424
00:22:53,359 --> 00:22:55,679
Speaker 1: also not something that can really be seen from the roads,

425
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Speaker 1: so I think that's all apocryphal.

426
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Speaker 2: It's funny how how out of place it looks, because

427
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Speaker 2: you hear you hear the songs and you see sech

428
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:07,640
Speaker 2: stuff happened. Yeah, you hear some of the stuff about

429
00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:09,359
Speaker 2: woodstock and you're like, oh, this looks like a big

430
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Speaker 2: slate a slate fronted mansion or something. And it's like

431
00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:16,760
Speaker 2: got gross siding, it's got like a drive in garage.

432
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:21,080
Speaker 1: It's just an ugly house. Yes, and it can be

433
00:23:21,119 --> 00:23:24,080
Speaker 1: yours for like seven hundred dollars a night on Verbo.

434
00:23:24,119 --> 00:23:26,760
Speaker 1: I believe, I can't believe we didn't do that. I

435
00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:29,880
Speaker 1: was Higo and I for for new listeners who don't

436
00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:31,359
Speaker 1: know we're in a we're in a band for a

437
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:34,200
Speaker 1: number of years together. I was in Heigel's band, and

438
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 1: I was trying to get a stick a band trip

439
00:23:36,119 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 1: up there and rent it all together, but we probably

440
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:39,719
Speaker 1: couldn't afford it.

441
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:41,399
Speaker 2: I was going to say, was not in the budget

442
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:44,320
Speaker 2: for forty dollars a night in Brooklyn's finest dive bars.

443
00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:47,280
Speaker 1: No, and you couldn't. You can't go into the basement there, which,

444
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 1: as we'll talk about in a moment, is one of the

445
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:52,159
Speaker 1: most of the point. I know. Yeah, they don't let

446
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:53,000
Speaker 1: you go in the basement.

447
00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 2: It's like not being able to go into the basement

448
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 2: of the Buffalo bill House, which we've also talked about.

449
00:23:57,400 --> 00:23:59,719
Speaker 2: We should be getting kickbacks from these sons of bitches.

450
00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:02,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he should be. Absolutely should, or at least

451
00:24:02,600 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 1: a free stay, which I would happily take from the

452
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:08,680
Speaker 1: guy who runs the Airbnb of the Buffalo bill House

453
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:11,480
Speaker 1: from Sounds of the Lambs or whoever has Big Pink

454
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:15,920
Speaker 1: on Verbo. Yeah. But, as you probably have guessed given

455
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:20,400
Speaker 1: our not so flattering description, Big Pink was not especially luxurious.

456
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:24,720
Speaker 1: But despite its aesthetic shortcomings, the property boasted hundreds of

457
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:29,000
Speaker 1: acres of woods and fields, views of overlook Mountain, a pond,

458
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:32,920
Speaker 1: four bedrooms, a simple kitchen, dining room, and a living

459
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:35,440
Speaker 1: room furnished with nick knacks and what else.

460
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:41,879
Speaker 2: Heigel Well, apparently a Neon beer sign of an unspecified brand,

461
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:46,120
Speaker 2: which Levon said Richard Manuel quote liberated from a local tavern.

462
00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:50,160
Speaker 1: All this was theirs for just one hundred and twenty

463
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:54,000
Speaker 1: five dollars a month. So Garth, Richard, and Rick Danko

464
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:56,879
Speaker 1: moved into Big Pink in the spring of nineteen sixty seven,

465
00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:00,920
Speaker 1: while Robbie Robertson found his own home bedrooms there, right,

466
00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 1: I don't know, I find that strange that already then

467
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:04,760
Speaker 1: he was found in his own place.

468
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 2: Well, he moved in with his girlfriend at the time,

469
00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:11,719
Speaker 2: so understanding, Well the other ones, I don't think we're

470
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:14,640
Speaker 2: shacked up at that time. I think they met girlfriends

471
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 2: or developed relationships in in Big Pink. Leave them with

472
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:20,639
Speaker 2: Libby Titus and.

473
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 1: Richard was married with like a model. I think, hell

474
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:27,359
Speaker 1: yeah he was. Danko was the cutest though. Danko was

475
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:28,359
Speaker 1: the heart throb in the band.

476
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, especially in this era when he had the

477
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:31,840
Speaker 2: little mustache and.

478
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, he looks just like what the hell's

479
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 1: his name? Mandalorian?

480
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Pedro Pascal.

481
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, just like them. Yeah right, yeah, and so their

482
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:48,440
Speaker 1: homie routine at Big Pink, it's like something that Again,

483
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 1: not to keep harping on the monkeys, but it seems

484
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:53,479
Speaker 1: like something of a monkey's episode. Rick Danko described it

485
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:57,399
Speaker 1: thus in this Wheels on Fire, Richard did all the cooking, garth,

486
00:25:57,520 --> 00:25:59,679
Speaker 1: washed all the clothes. He didn't trust anyone else to

487
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:01,920
Speaker 1: do them because he wanted them clean. And I took

488
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:04,919
Speaker 1: the garbage to the dump personally and kept the fireplace

489
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 1: going with split logs.

490
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 2: It's like cute, yeah, I and we're gonna do little

491
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:12,040
Speaker 2: sidebars on the different members of the band because we

492
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 2: just because why not?

493
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:13,639
Speaker 1: I have to.

494
00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 2: Rick Danko is incredible. I was thinking about how to

495
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 2: articulate this earlier. The band as a musical unit is

496
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 2: so fascinating to me because they're like a collage or

497
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 2: like a Sarah painting. Like the closer you get and

498
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:31,879
Speaker 2: start zooming in on what each one of them is doing,

499
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 2: it's harder to identify what makes it so cool. And

500
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:38,679
Speaker 2: I say this as someone who is googled Rick Danko

501
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:43,199
Speaker 2: bass and Levon Helm drums like way too much. I

502
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 2: mean with Robbie, there's different things you can point to.

503
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 2: You can be like, oh, well, you know, he's got

504
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:50,879
Speaker 2: the pinch harmonics, he's got the you know, the the

505
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 2: tremolo picking, like he's got these different guitar licks and everything.

506
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 2: But like the way that the rhythm section works and

507
00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 2: the way that Richard plays rhythm piano and all of

508
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:03,840
Speaker 2: garth additional textures is all so unique and so fascinating.

509
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 2: But it's hard to point to their different things that

510
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 2: they're doing specifically, So I've endeavored to do exactly that.

511
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:14,040
Speaker 2: Rick Danko is one of the first people to actually

512
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:17,719
Speaker 2: play fretless in a rock band context, and he played

513
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 2: an Ampeg fretless bass. Ampeg was one of the first

514
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 2: commercial makers of fretless basses, and I think they send

515
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:27,439
Speaker 2: him some stuff because you can see him first. You

516
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 2: can see pictures of him playing a baby bass, which

517
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:34,120
Speaker 2: is a weird hybrid upright electric model that they produced,

518
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:38,359
Speaker 2: and an electric fretless and this is years before fretless

519
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 2: broke through with Jocko Pastoriusho's probably the most famous bass

520
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 2: player of the twentieth century. He's a guy who brought

521
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 2: legitimized the electric bass as a jazz instrument. Essentially but

522
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 2: you can hear Rick playing fretless, and because he started

523
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:55,639
Speaker 2: on upright, he has this fantastic sense of pitch. But

524
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 2: what he does is he does a lot of glissandos

525
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 2: or slides into a note, by which I mean he

526
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 2: if he's going to land on a D, he will

527
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 2: slide into it from a C or a C sharp

528
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 2: from a half or a whole step below. But the

529
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:13,439
Speaker 2: thing that's great about what he does is that he

530
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 2: never not never, but he rarely lands on that target

531
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 2: note on the beat. He starts his slide on the

532
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 2: beat that he's supposed to land on, so that the

533
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 2: actual target note is delayed ever so slightly, and it

534
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 2: contributes to this really like loose but tight sense of

535
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 2: their groove. And especially in these live records like the

536
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:36,919
Speaker 2: Academy of Music shows, they sound like a.

537
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:37,880
Speaker 1: Freight train man.

538
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 2: It is so out of control but still so zoned

539
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 2: in because they're like gacked up. Wake of the Flood

540
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 2: is another great one that has like just some of

541
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 2: the best live rock band interplay, and he is such

542
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 2: a great part of it, especially while singing too, and

543
00:28:56,320 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 2: he's great at varying the length of his note to

544
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 2: get different feels and work with with Levon for the

545
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 2: rhythmic feel of the song, and also doing all of

546
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 2: this while singing, and also doing all of this while

547
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 2: switching back and forth between pick and fingerstyle. I mean,

548
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 2: he's just I don't think he gets really mentioned enough

549
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 2: as some.

550
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: Of the flashier guys of the period.

551
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 2: But he's absolutely one of the greatest bassists of the era,

552
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 2: and again the fact that he was also a singer,

553
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 2: a great singer. He's it's really funny because he has

554
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,480
Speaker 2: he often sings close to the same register that Richard does,

555
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 2: and the identifying how you can tell one of them

556
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 2: apart is that Rick Danko had asthma when he was

557
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 2: a kid, so he always has this wheeze in his vocals,

558
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 2: so even when they're singing in the same register, you

559
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:49,600
Speaker 2: can kind of hear this like gasping for air, which

560
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 2: is why he sound it's so endearing and why he

561
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 2: has this fantastically sincere quality of his voice. You know,

562
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:59,480
Speaker 2: when you think crazy chest Or followed me like, it's

563
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 2: because he literally can't get enough air in his lungs

564
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 2: and it's just uugh love him.

565
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 1: So little Blink Win eighty two right there, though, Spiders

566
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 1: I think we've had, I think before we started rolling

567
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 1: tape long passionate discussions about King Harvest. And I think

568
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: that's a great example of his bass playing where he

569
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:22,320
Speaker 1: slides into it on all those Yeah, it's just so

570
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 1: swampy and.

571
00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 2: He's fast too, man Like there's live there's live stuff

572
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 2: where he's playing some fills that are just like what

573
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 2: the is this? Like just again, dude, like sixteen years

574
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 2: on the road, And I think the thing when people

575
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 2: hear that they were on the road for sixteen years,

576
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 2: do you think of like modern bands where you're.

577
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: Like, okay, forty nights a set, no false.

578
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 2: From like the fifties to the mid sixties, if you

579
00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 2: were banned, that was three hours a night was your

580
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 2: set and you would place two sets. So that's like

581
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 2: chops and material and just like like ten thousand hours.

582
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 2: He probably had ten hours before he could drink anyway.

583
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 2: And also we have to mention Hamlet, Hamlet the Dog.

584
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 2: If you're a nerd like we are, you've definitely seen

585
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:13,480
Speaker 2: a big old cute dog in basement tapes and band

586
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 2: photos and that is Hamlet, who is gifted to Rick

587
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:22,520
Speaker 2: Danko because Bob Dylan couldn't handle him in this Wheels

588
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 2: on Fire. Danko explains, Albert Grossman and Bob Dylan had

589
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:29,960
Speaker 2: paid about a grand apiece or ten thousand dollars in

590
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 2: today money for these pedigree German dogs that had come

591
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 2: from the most illustrious bloodlines in the world. But something

592
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 2: went wrong. Hamlet was more like a standard poodle mix

593
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 2: than Hamlet was more like a standard poodle mix with

594
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 2: a German shepherd and giant short haired terrier. Bob is

595
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 2: having a.

596
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 1: Hard time in history. Heard that in the context of

597
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: something went wrong. Yeah, Hamlet was a poodle mix.

598
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 2: Bob was having a hard time with the dog. One

599
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 2: day when I was over at his house. The dog

600
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 2: was bigger than Bob, and Bob I've already had a

601
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 2: Saint Bernard pulling him around. I stayed out of that one,

602
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 2: but Hamlet and Bob were having some trouble. Bob said, please, Rick,

603
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:09,880
Speaker 2: take this dog back to the house with you. I insist.

604
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:12,479
Speaker 2: I didn't want anything bad to happen, and Bob had

605
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 2: kicked Hamlet out of the house so he was living outside.

606
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:18,440
Speaker 2: So I took him back to Big Pink. He slept

607
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 2: on the carpet by the stove through most of the

608
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:22,680
Speaker 2: basement tapes music and most of the Big Pink rehearsals

609
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 2: as well. That dog heard a lot of music.

610
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 1: This brings us to Big Pink's most famous feature, It's basement.

611
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 1: Robbie Robertson wrote in his twenty sixteen memoir testimony, that

612
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 1: was my focus turning that subterranean space into what we'd

613
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: needed all along. The goal was to use whatever gear

614
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: we could from our live show to create a setup

615
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:45,120
Speaker 1: that would let us discover our own musical path. So

616
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:47,720
Speaker 1: they began to gather equipment for a home studio facility,

617
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 1: but the response from a technologically savvy friend royally bummed

618
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 1: them out. According to Robbie, this unnamed friend surveyed the

619
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 1: scene and said, well, this is a disaster. This is

620
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: the worst situation. You have a cement floor, you have

621
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 1: cinderblock walls, you have a big metal furnace in here.

622
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: There are all these things that you can't have if

623
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:10,560
Speaker 1: you're trying to record something, even if you're just recording

624
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 1: it for your own information, you can't do this. It

625
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 1: won't work. You'll listen to it and you'll be depressed.

626
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:19,200
Speaker 1: Your music will sound so bad that you'll never want

627
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 1: to record again. But by this point they had already

628
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 1: signed the lease on Big Pink, so they were sort

629
00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 1: of stuck with it. So they threw up some Mourlko microphones,

630
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 1: two l Tech mixers, and a quarter inch AMPEC four

631
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 1: hundred tape recorder and more or less cross their fingers.

632
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan, who was still sort of obstensibly their boss,

633
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: would sometimes stop by and together they workshop new music,

634
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 1: and within a year they would demo. The number I've

635
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: seen quoted is over one hundred songs which would endlessly

636
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 1: be bootlegged as the basement tapes, and these demos would

637
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: prove to be the seas of music from Big Pink.

638
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did this by playing super quietly. The whole

639
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 2: thing about them and their studio sound at this time

640
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 2: was like the guitar solo in King Harvest is recorded

641
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:11,400
Speaker 2: with the amp set on one, which is insane because

642
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:14,360
Speaker 2: he does these pinch harmonics on it, which are traditionally

643
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:17,319
Speaker 2: something that you really only like you get speaking with

644
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 2: a lot of volume and distortion. But he got those

645
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:23,800
Speaker 2: from Roy Buchanan. I think I remember him saying in

646
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 2: an interview it was a fantastic blues guitarist yet another

647
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:34,160
Speaker 2: tragic figure as well. But yeah, they played everything really

648
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:37,400
Speaker 2: really quietly, and a lot of that was because they

649
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 2: didn't have a pa down there, and they were doing

650
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 2: all these harmonies and vocal parts, so it was all

651
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 2: volume and dynamics, you know, that's what carries into the studio.

652
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 1: Yes, and contrary to its name and it's sort of

653
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:52,919
Speaker 1: romantic reputation, music from Big Pink wasn't actually recorded at

654
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: Big Pink, which I was kind of depressed to learn that.

655
00:34:56,239 --> 00:34:59,720
Speaker 1: I admit it's a rock myth that I very desperately

656
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:03,040
Speaker 1: want to believe. Neither were a lot of the basement

657
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 1: tapes either, they weren't recorded in the Big Pink basement.

658
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:09,319
Speaker 1: The timeline for these sort of ad hoc sessions are

659
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:11,800
Speaker 1: a little hazy, but it's generally agreed that they began

660
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:15,719
Speaker 1: at Dylan's house in nearby Birdcliff before shifting to the

661
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 1: basement of Big Pink in the summer of sixty seven,

662
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:21,239
Speaker 1: and then when Levon Helm returned to the bands after

663
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 1: his two year oil rig hiatus in October of sixty seven,

664
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:27,840
Speaker 1: Big Pink began to feel a little cramped and to

665
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:30,760
Speaker 1: remedy this, Levon and Rick Danko moved into a nearby

666
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:33,759
Speaker 1: home on Wittenberg Road, which became the new center of

667
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:37,319
Speaker 1: recording operations. Well, Garth Hutsuit and Richard Manuel shacked up

668
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 1: at a place on Ohio Mountain Road, and Robbie stayed

669
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:43,799
Speaker 1: at his own place with his girlfriend soon to be wife, Dominique.

670
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 1: I think this means that they moved out of Big

671
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 1: Pink at the fall of sixty seven, if I'm understanding

672
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:50,760
Speaker 1: that correctly.

673
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, the official Basement Tapes release I think was pretty

674
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 2: controversial because it's a lot of post studio overdubs and stuff.

675
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:02,440
Speaker 2: The basement tape it's the raw.

676
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, But these basement tapes, these were just the demos.

677
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 1: The tracks themselves for music from Big Pink were recorded

678
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:12,440
Speaker 1: in extremely professional studios in New York and Los Angeles,

679
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 1: which again I find very disappointing. This was largely thanks

680
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: to manager Albert Grossman, who was Bob Dylan's manager who

681
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 1: then became the band's manager, and he got them a

682
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:23,440
Speaker 1: deal with Capitol Records.

683
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 2: One of the worst bastards in rock music is here.

684
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 1: I guess. I've been reading a lot about Alan Klin

685
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 1: this afternoon, so.

686
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:32,640
Speaker 2: Well, grading on a Curve. But yeah, I've heard I've

687
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 2: heard not good things about him. I mean a lot

688
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:41,439
Speaker 2: of people basically peg Robbie's sort of dissolution into egomania

689
00:36:41,560 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 2: on hanging out with Dylan and specifically Grossman, there was

690
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 2: I forget it was maybe their first manager. I forget

691
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:52,160
Speaker 2: the guy's name, but he's talking in across the Great

692
00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 2: Divide where he was like, Yeah, Robbie got a lot

693
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:58,560
Speaker 2: more standoffish once he started really growing out with Albert

694
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 2: and Dylan, And at one point he turned to me

695
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 2: unprompted and was like, you never liked me as much

696
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 2: as you liked Levon, didn't you. It's just like, okay, Robbie.

697
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:12,560
Speaker 1: It seemed like he had a very good gift for

698
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 1: convincing very cool people that he was also cool, from

699
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:20,560
Speaker 1: Ronnie Hawkins to Bob Dylan, the Martin Scorsese. Yeah, very

700
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:24,880
Speaker 1: very good at that, just saying, just saying. But anyway,

701
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:28,359
Speaker 1: this bastard, Albert Grossman got the band the deal with

702
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 1: cal and I say that with love, got the band

703
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: the deal with Capitol Records, and he teamed them up

704
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,279
Speaker 1: with producer John Simon, who is best known to me

705
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 1: for recording cheap tricks with Big Brother and the Holding

706
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: Company featuring Janis Joplin doing that amazing version a Piece

707
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:46,200
Speaker 1: of My Heart around the same time that he was

708
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:47,799
Speaker 1: recording music from Big Pink. Yeah.

709
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 2: Simon's really cool. He grew up playing fiddle in piano

710
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,880
Speaker 2: from the age of four in Connecticut, was writing his

711
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 2: own songs before he was ten. He wrote a couple

712
00:37:57,000 --> 00:37:59,479
Speaker 2: of musicals in high school and then three more while

713
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 2: at Prince. He joined Columbia as a trainee producer. After

714
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 2: he graduated, assisted on a bunch of stuff and then

715
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 2: got his first pop success with the Red Rubber Ball

716
00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:14,600
Speaker 2: by Circle in nineteen sixty six, written by.

717
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:18,239
Speaker 1: A young Paul Simon and the band Circle spelled cyr

718
00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:24,240
Speaker 1: kl E was named by John Lemon Awful.

719
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 2: And John Simon was also involved with the U Are

720
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 2: You Eat project, which is Peter Yarrow and the aforementioned

721
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 2: Peter Yarrow of Peter Paul Mari and Barry Feinstein, and

722
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 2: that was how he was introduced to the band. He

723
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:39,839
Speaker 2: was a super talented piano player. I think he tried

724
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:41,480
Speaker 2: to join the band at one point and they were like,

725
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:45,719
Speaker 2: keyboards are the thing we have enough of. But he

726
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 2: also played horn. He plays baritone sacks in that breakdown

727
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:53,319
Speaker 2: and chest Fever. But he also had never played the

728
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 2: tuba before, and when they did rag MoMA Rag, because

729
00:38:57,080 --> 00:39:00,640
Speaker 2: Danko's playing fiddle and not bass, he picked up a

730
00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 2: tuba and did the bassline for Ragmama Rag, which is

731
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:08,200
Speaker 2: wild to me. Can you imagine looking at a tuba

732
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:10,799
Speaker 2: and being like, I can play that. It's probably a

733
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:13,719
Speaker 2: marching tuba or a susophone, but yet just looking at

734
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:15,400
Speaker 2: it and being like, yeah, yeah, I got that, and

735
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:18,960
Speaker 2: then playing like a competent bassline on it.

736
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 1: Insane.

737
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:21,919
Speaker 2: John Simon actually met Robbie Robertson when he was working

738
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:26,479
Speaker 2: on an album by iconic jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd. Charles

739
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:29,600
Speaker 2: Lloyd started in Cannonball Aderley's band. Keith Jarrett got his

740
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 2: start playing with Charles Lloyd. Charles Lloyd was one of

741
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 2: the jazzers who was really beloved by the hippies. I

742
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:39,319
Speaker 2: think he played at Monterey and some stuff, and yeah,

743
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:40,799
Speaker 2: they were he was working on a session with them

744
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:42,879
Speaker 2: and they were like, yeah, this guy, Robbie Robertson's gonna

745
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 2: come by and hang out. That was how he met him,

746
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 2: and the rest is history. And then another great quote

747
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 2: from Across the Great Divide. When they were making the

748
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 2: second album, Robbie Robertson was like, I'm gonna watch you

749
00:39:55,040 --> 00:40:00,040
Speaker 2: do this so that we don't have to hire you again. No,

750
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:03,279
Speaker 2: he didn't, because Garth is the one who engineered the

751
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 2: basement tapes, recorded all the basement tapes. Garth was the

752
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 2: gearhead in the band, and uh yeah, and so Robbie

753
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:11,240
Speaker 2: wanted to start doing it himself. So he just learned

754
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:13,759
Speaker 2: everything he could from John Simon and then summarily never

755
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:17,080
Speaker 2: called him again, which, as we will see, is a theme.

756
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:23,439
Speaker 1: I wrote a musical in high school. Oh yeah, I did. Yeah,

757
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 1: it's called Happy ever After. It was about a good,

758
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 1: honest man who gets sent to hell and a wacky

759
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 1: afterlife mix up and he falls in love with a

760
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: demonus whose only sin was she never loved You know.

761
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 2: That would probably get greenlit. That sounds like a Pixar

762
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 2: movie at this point.

763
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:40,480
Speaker 1: That's good. Yeah, yeah, I can't write music, so I

764
00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:43,800
Speaker 1: borrowed melodies from other songs and wrote my own lyrics

765
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:44,040
Speaker 1: to it.

766
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:46,400
Speaker 2: Hey, if you want to scab right now, there's a strike,

767
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 2: we'll do it. I don't give a fuck. I have

768
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:50,600
Speaker 2: nothing left, I have no morals left.

769
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:55,960
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right

770
00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:58,600
Speaker 1: back with more too much information in just a moment.

771
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 1: So sessions for music from Big Pink began at the

772
00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 1: very famous and our Studio A in New York City,

773
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 1: which is this born shaped ten thousand square foot facility

774
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:23,920
Speaker 1: on the seventh floor of a building on Seventh Avenue.

775
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 1: For some reason, it being I can't imagine, just like

776
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: making all that soulful music in was essentially a skyscraper.

777
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:32,840
Speaker 2: It's part of the reason it doesn't. I don't like

778
00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 2: the sound of it.

779
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:38,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, no fair. The session started in January nineteen sixty eight,

780
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:41,359
Speaker 1: and John Simon, the producer, asked the band how they

781
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:44,400
Speaker 1: wanted the music to sound, and Robbie Robertson told them

782
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:47,239
Speaker 1: just like it did in the basement. And this sent

783
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:50,920
Speaker 1: the engineers into something of a tizzy because it quickly

784
00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:55,720
Speaker 1: became apparent that traditional studio configurations with each member cordoned

785
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:58,480
Speaker 1: off with sound baffles to prevent leakage, which is how

786
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 1: you make records, wasn't going to work. After months of

787
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 1: these guys playing eye to eye in a cinder block

788
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 1: basement and Robbie recalled telling the engineers, we can't do this.

789
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:10,120
Speaker 1: We got to get into a circle like the basin.

790
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:13,320
Speaker 1: We have to play to one another. We're speaking the language.

791
00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 1: This doesn't work. And the technicians were really skeptical, but

792
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:19,840
Speaker 1: the bands were thrilled by the fruits of these early

793
00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 1: sessions in New York, which yielded tears of rage, We

794
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:26,520
Speaker 1: Can Talk, chest Fever, and the Weight. I remember there

795
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:29,759
Speaker 1: was a great description of the way the vocals in

796
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:32,720
Speaker 1: We Can Talk were done was like a really great

797
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:35,920
Speaker 1: pickup basketball team passed the ball to one another. They

798
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:41,040
Speaker 1: all just trade lines seamlessly, like there's nothing phone. Because

799
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:42,759
Speaker 1: you know, that could sound really phony when like each

800
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:45,160
Speaker 1: member of man sings a line or something and just

801
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 1: really grating and cute. But there's something so cool about

802
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:50,319
Speaker 1: how they do that in that track. I love that song.

803
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:54,279
Speaker 2: I think that's the one that has uh yeah, one

804
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:56,319
Speaker 2: voice for all echoing along the hall.

805
00:42:56,920 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, it's so good. Yeah.

806
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 2: Robbie's lyrics are not like tremendous, but he'll knock him

807
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:06,439
Speaker 2: out of the park sometimes.

808
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:09,319
Speaker 1: I get the job done. Yeah, we'll talk more about that.

809
00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 1: Executives a Capital who signed the band in early February

810
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:18,000
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, were so pleased that they actually sent

811
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:20,680
Speaker 1: the band to Los Angeles to take full advantage of

812
00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:24,560
Speaker 1: the state of the art eight tracks studio. That's hilarious

813
00:43:24,600 --> 00:43:27,359
Speaker 1: that that was state of the art located at the

814
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 1: famous Capitol Tower headquarters on Vine Street. I imagine was

815
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:34,239
Speaker 1: that the same studio that Like Sinatra and that King

816
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,000
Speaker 1: cole A those guys were recorded. Wow, that's nuts to

817
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:40,840
Speaker 1: think that that music was made, more like Stardust was recorded.

818
00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:46,120
Speaker 1: That's crazy. And yeah, the album was mostly completed in

819
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:49,279
Speaker 1: La at Capitol Studios, though the group would make a

820
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:53,239
Speaker 1: short excursion to gold Star Studios, where I'm legally obligated

821
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: to mention. Phil Spector pioneered his Wall of Sound with

822
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 1: the Ronets and the Crystals and all of those great groups,

823
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 1: and Brian Wilson recorded a lot of his best Beach

824
00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:05,360
Speaker 1: Boys tracks. You a Beach Boys fan A little bit, Okay,

825
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 1: I didn't know that about you.

826
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 2: I really I.

827
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 1: Would love the tally of like your Beach Boys mentions

828
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:16,280
Speaker 1: the seven things I'm interested in and how many times

829
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: I mentioned them in each of the one hundred and

830
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 1: twenty something episodes. Yea, and while we're talking about the

831
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:26,680
Speaker 1: band's deal with Capital, we have to talk about the

832
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:30,520
Speaker 1: name of the band. The band, Higel, do you want

833
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:32,279
Speaker 1: to talk about the band's name.

834
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:36,320
Speaker 2: I would just paraphrase the entirety of Richard Manuel's speech

835
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 2: in Last Waltz and he's like, well, first, we want

836
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:45,800
Speaker 2: to call ourselves the Crackers. They performed as the Hawks

837
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 2: since nineteen sixty because Ronnie Hawkins' name, but eight years

838
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:54,319
Speaker 2: later it was a little dated, primarily because they were

839
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 2: no longer backing Ronnie Hawkins, but also by nineteen sixty eight,

840
00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 2: hawk had come into vogue as a term for the

841
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:05,320
Speaker 2: pro war contingent of the US. You know, hawks and doves, doves,

842
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:08,520
Speaker 2: one piece, blah blah blah uh. Bad way to market

843
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:11,919
Speaker 2: a rock band in the sixties, as it turns out,

844
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 2: so they needed a new name, and while up in

845
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:18,879
Speaker 2: Woodstock that was not really an issue because they were

846
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:21,839
Speaker 2: the only band that was there, literally, and they all

847
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:24,360
Speaker 2: kind of talk about in Last Waltz and in the

848
00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:27,239
Speaker 2: different books. They just talk about everybody being like, oh,

849
00:45:27,280 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 2: that's Dylan's band. They're with the band, they're the band,

850
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:32,279
Speaker 2: even to the point where they would be like, I'm

851
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:37,040
Speaker 2: short on I'm short on cash for this grocery store transaction.

852
00:45:37,080 --> 00:45:38,759
Speaker 2: And they'd be like yes, and they're they're, they're they're

853
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:41,400
Speaker 2: in the band, send the build a Dylan or whatever.

854
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:45,279
Speaker 2: But when they were getting signed, they needed a name

855
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 2: because you'd need one to put out a record, or

856
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 2: maybe you don't, as it turns out, and in the

857
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:57,960
Speaker 2: last Walt Richard Manuel talks about he's like the marshmallow

858
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:00,319
Speaker 2: overcoats the chocolates way.

859
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:04,480
Speaker 1: I love your Richard Manuel impression he has.

860
00:46:04,520 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 2: He is the best in that movie. It's so sad

861
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:09,880
Speaker 2: because he was. I think it's I think at that

862
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:12,359
Speaker 2: point he was drinking like a bottle of Grand Marnier a.

863
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 1: Day, uh, and also more than that and also like

864
00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: ghacked up.

865
00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 2: I think it's in Across the Great Divide where they

866
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:21,120
Speaker 2: talk about like during the when they were making the

867
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 2: second album, the like Absolute Squalor, he was living in

868
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:25,560
Speaker 2: where they like went to go pick him up into

869
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 2: the apartment or whatever, and it was like it was

870
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 2: littered with Grand Marnier bottles and the only food he

871
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 2: was eating were steaks that he cooked with an iron,

872
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:40,520
Speaker 2: clothes iron, and his radiator. A hell of a hell

873
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:41,440
Speaker 2: of a voice, though.

874
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:44,720
Speaker 1: I have I have a when the they were living

875
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:50,080
Speaker 1: out in California at Shangri Law, the famous Ballibuu studio

876
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 1: that Rick Rubin no owns. I think Richard Manuel was

877
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:58,600
Speaker 1: living in like a bungalow down the hill that had

878
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:02,320
Speaker 1: formerly been the stables for the horse that played Mister

879
00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 1: Ed and I guess they converted it into some kind

880
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 1: of like small shack and he lived there. And supposedly

881
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: when they were cleaning out the place after he moved out,

882
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:16,279
Speaker 1: in like seventy six seventy seven, they found I have

883
00:47:16,360 --> 00:47:19,360
Speaker 1: a quote for this from I can cite this somewhere

884
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:24,200
Speaker 1: two thousand empty bottles of Grand Marnier. That's a lot

885
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:26,840
Speaker 1: of Grand Marnier. Good lord.

886
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:32,240
Speaker 2: Anyway, Robbie Robertson counted with the jokey suggestion the royal

887
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:33,920
Speaker 2: Canadians except for Levon.

888
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:37,680
Speaker 1: That's good. I like that. Everybody loves a Guy Lombardo joke,

889
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:41,719
Speaker 1: do they I do, okay, almost as much as I

890
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 1: love a joke.

891
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 2: Levon himself offered the Crackers, which was a name that

892
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 2: they joked about when they were backing Bob for his

893
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:52,480
Speaker 2: comeback concert at Carnegie Hall in January of sixty eight,

894
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:57,759
Speaker 2: but Levon tried to justify it to Capitol Records by

895
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:00,359
Speaker 2: saying Crackers were poor Southern white folks, and far as

896
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:02,239
Speaker 2: I was concerned that was the music we were doing,

897
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 2: I voted to call the band the Crackers and never

898
00:48:05,200 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 2: regretted it. That's in this Wheels on Fire, and they,

899
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:14,120
Speaker 2: the Capitol Records was getting ready to go with it.

900
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:17,239
Speaker 2: They thought it was a like Ritz Crackers reference or

901
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:23,719
Speaker 2: like Saltines. They were like, that's cute, Robbie wrote in

902
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:28,200
Speaker 2: his memoir Testimony. They didn't realize we meant uneducated country, bigoted,

903
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 2: southern white trash. And so the name on the Capitol

904
00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 2: Artist Declaration contract form reads group performing as the Crackers.

905
00:48:37,160 --> 00:48:37,359
Speaker 1: Ah.

906
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 2: According to Levon, someone at Capitol eventually wised up to

907
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 2: the real meaning, writing in his book, when the album

908
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:48,000
Speaker 2: was eventually released on July first, nineteen sixty eight, we

909
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:50,160
Speaker 2: were shocked to find it credited not to the Crackers,

910
00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:53,839
Speaker 2: but to a group called it the band. Well, it

911
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 2: was us, That's what Woodstock people called us locally, and

912
00:48:57,280 --> 00:48:58,719
Speaker 2: the people on the other side of the desk at

913
00:48:58,719 --> 00:49:00,799
Speaker 2: Capitol didn't want to release an now called music from

914
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:03,440
Speaker 2: Big Pink by the Crackers. They just went and changed

915
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 2: our name. But Robbie, as is his wont, has reverse

916
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:11,359
Speaker 2: engineered the explanation in various accounts and various tellings over

917
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:15,400
Speaker 2: the years. He told Rollingstone the band story about Woodstock,

918
00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:17,319
Speaker 2: everyone just called them the band. But earlier than this,

919
00:49:17,400 --> 00:49:19,920
Speaker 2: in September sixty eight interview with an outlet called The I,

920
00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:23,000
Speaker 2: he insisted that the band didn't have a name. He said,

921
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:24,600
Speaker 2: one thing I'd like to clear up. We have no

922
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:27,360
Speaker 2: name for the group. We're not interested in doing record

923
00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:30,040
Speaker 2: promotion or going on Johnny Carson to plug the LP.

924
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 2: The name of the group is just how Christian names.

925
00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:35,920
Speaker 2: The only reason the LP is by the band is

926
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:38,759
Speaker 2: so they can file it in the record stores. And

927
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 2: also that's the way we're known to our friends and

928
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:46,080
Speaker 2: neighbors in across the Great Divide. Barney Hoskins right. Indeed,

929
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:48,440
Speaker 2: when The Weight was released as a single in September,

930
00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:51,400
Speaker 2: many reviewers listed the five names as the name of

931
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 2: the band. One British writer complained, this is even worse

932
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:58,759
Speaker 2: than Dave, d Dozy, Beekey, Mick and Titch. I don't

933
00:49:58,800 --> 00:49:59,560
Speaker 2: know what that means.

934
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:02,799
Speaker 1: They were a pop group and instead of having a name,

935
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:06,399
Speaker 1: they just add everybody's name in the band, and they

936
00:50:06,440 --> 00:50:09,440
Speaker 1: recorded in Studio two at Abby Road, where the Beatles recorded.

937
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:11,040
Speaker 1: I just read a reference to that today.

938
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:16,359
Speaker 2: Well, Promo pictures did in fact have the all five

939
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:21,760
Speaker 2: members named out, Yes, Jamie, Robert Robertson, Rick Danka Richard, Manuel,

940
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:24,960
Speaker 2: Garth Hudson leave On Helm in larger letters than it reads,

941
00:50:25,040 --> 00:50:26,240
Speaker 2: better known as the band.

942
00:50:26,680 --> 00:50:29,080
Speaker 1: So that's fun. What do you think was the real explanation.

943
00:50:29,120 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 1: Did you think that they really wanted to be known

944
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:33,040
Speaker 1: as the Crackers and the record company changed it, or

945
00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:34,640
Speaker 1: do you think that they just went with the band

946
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:35,240
Speaker 1: on purpose?

947
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:37,239
Speaker 3: Yeah?

948
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:40,080
Speaker 2: I do think that that was probably someone at Capital

949
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:42,480
Speaker 2: caught up to them, But I think it probably the

950
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:45,440
Speaker 2: paperwork came through to Albert Grossman and Robbie Robertson and

951
00:50:45,480 --> 00:50:47,600
Speaker 2: he was like, okay.

952
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 1: And now we got to talk about the standout track

953
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:53,960
Speaker 1: on the album, The Wait, the standout track of the

954
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 1: band's entire cannon really, and as with many classic things

955
00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 1: we discussed on the show, nobody recognized it for what

956
00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 1: it was and it was very nearly given the acts.

957
00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:07,160
Speaker 1: Robbie Robinson wrote the song soon after Levon Helm rejoined

958
00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 1: the band in October of nineteen sixty seven, supposedly as

959
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 1: a way to give him something that suited his distinctive

960
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:18,239
Speaker 1: vocal style. Robbie told Uncut every time I read Robbie's quotes,

961
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:20,440
Speaker 1: I want to do his like his voice, a very

962
00:51:20,480 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 1: distinctive way of telling stories.

963
00:51:22,040 --> 00:51:26,120
Speaker 2: We didn't know what we were doing, but from the

964
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 2: classic albums thing here.

965
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 1: Please please read this quote, read the rest of them. No,

966
00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 1: don't put his words in my mouth. I thought, geez,

967
00:51:35,840 --> 00:51:38,000
Speaker 1: I want to write a song that Levon can sing

968
00:51:38,040 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 1: better than anybody, because I know his abilities. He was

969
00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 1: my closest friend, and I wanted to do something really

970
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 1: special for him.

971
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:49,239
Speaker 2: Oh, cutting him into the publishing rights probably would have

972
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:49,800
Speaker 2: been nicer.

973
00:51:53,560 --> 00:51:56,480
Speaker 1: Here you highlighted this, You read the rest of this well.

974
00:51:56,520 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 2: According to Laura, Robbie was in his music workshop when

975
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:01,520
Speaker 2: he noticed a late inside the soundhole of his Martin

976
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:04,840
Speaker 2: D twenty eight guitar, reading Nazareth, Pennsylvania, the location of

977
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:07,799
Speaker 2: the guitar factory. He was intrigued by the juxtaposition of

978
00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:11,440
Speaker 2: his biblical name and Heartland Americana, which is more or

979
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:13,000
Speaker 2: less the band's whole.

980
00:52:12,760 --> 00:52:13,960
Speaker 1: Bit kind of the bit.

981
00:52:14,239 --> 00:52:16,680
Speaker 2: Robbie has said that the song borrowed less from the

982
00:52:16,719 --> 00:52:22,920
Speaker 2: Bible and more from the films of Spanish director Lewis Bunell. Intriguingly,

983
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:25,920
Speaker 2: one of my favorite bits in Across the Great Divide

984
00:52:26,040 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 2: is when Robbie and Martin Scorsese are both extremely divorced

985
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:34,279
Speaker 2: and extremely doing a lot of cocaine and living in

986
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:39,759
Speaker 2: a mansion together watching nineteen twenties and thirties Spanish surrealism

987
00:52:39,760 --> 00:52:43,920
Speaker 2: films until like six am with blackout, curtains drawn. And

988
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:47,600
Speaker 2: that's the reason why Robbie is so heavily focused, and that,

989
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:49,680
Speaker 2: you know, and why has he's gone on to work

990
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:53,480
Speaker 2: on all these Scorsese music, not I might add, composing

991
00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:57,279
Speaker 2: that much like Randy Newman, but just supervising, which is

992
00:52:57,320 --> 00:53:00,040
Speaker 2: basically playlist selecting.

993
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:02,759
Speaker 1: Anyway.

994
00:53:03,000 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's really funny to me because there's no

995
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:10,000
Speaker 2: way he would have name checked that without someone like

996
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:16,399
Speaker 2: Dylan guiding him to new heights of pretentiousness. Anyway, he said,

997
00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:19,280
Speaker 2: the people in the song were trying to be good,

998
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:24,400
Speaker 2: and it's impossible to be good. Bunelle used surreal imagery

999
00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:27,000
Speaker 2: in his films to offer critiques of organized religion. In

1000
00:53:27,040 --> 00:53:31,680
Speaker 2: movies like Verded Diana and Nazaren. Neither of us have

1001
00:53:31,719 --> 00:53:34,839
Speaker 2: seen these movies. No, absolutely not No. So Robbie began

1002
00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:37,120
Speaker 2: writing a song about a man who becomes bogged down

1003
00:53:37,239 --> 00:53:42,960
Speaker 2: with favors for other people, most of whom were actual

1004
00:53:43,040 --> 00:53:46,680
Speaker 2: figures from the band's past. Anna Lee was Helm's friend.

1005
00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:49,960
Speaker 2: Annalie Amsden Carmen was another person he knew from his

1006
00:53:50,520 --> 00:53:53,320
Speaker 2: hometown of Turkey Scratch, Arkansas.

1007
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:56,719
Speaker 1: Is that correctly? If so? Yeah, that's so good as

1008
00:53:57,360 --> 00:54:00,160
Speaker 1: nut Bush, Arkansas or Nutbush, Tennessee.

1009
00:54:00,320 --> 00:54:04,080
Speaker 2: My favorite is Bill Withers slab Fork, West Virginia.

1010
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:07,200
Speaker 1: Oh, that's incredible. That's incredible.

1011
00:54:07,640 --> 00:54:09,879
Speaker 2: Helm would later say that Crazy Chester was a guy

1012
00:54:09,920 --> 00:54:12,000
Speaker 2: we all knew from Fayetteville who came into town on

1013
00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 2: Saturdays wearing a full set of cap guns on his hips,

1014
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:17,480
Speaker 2: kind of walked around town to help keep the peace.

1015
00:54:17,760 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 1: If you follow me. I did until he said if

1016
00:54:22,600 --> 00:54:24,520
Speaker 1: you follow me, And now I think there's some meaning

1017
00:54:24,560 --> 00:54:26,560
Speaker 1: that I don't know for keeping the peace.

1018
00:54:27,400 --> 00:54:30,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. Man, all of Levone's quotes are so good. You've

1019
00:54:30,480 --> 00:54:32,160
Speaker 2: seen am in it for my health. When he talks

1020
00:54:32,200 --> 00:54:34,840
Speaker 2: about he's talking about he's like super high and talking

1021
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:38,040
Speaker 2: about how tripped out platypuses are. He's like they got

1022
00:54:38,040 --> 00:54:40,160
Speaker 2: a vamous spur on there.

1023
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:44,879
Speaker 1: Those some bitches will stick you. Yeah.

1024
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:47,600
Speaker 2: So all of these characters got mixed into Robertson's story,

1025
00:54:47,600 --> 00:54:50,319
Speaker 2: which he wrote in a single city. He wrote his

1026
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 2: memoir testimony the following day. I played the tune for

1027
00:54:53,120 --> 00:54:54,800
Speaker 2: the guys to see if it might be a contender.

1028
00:54:55,200 --> 00:54:59,200
Speaker 2: They reacted very strongly to the song's possibilities, but I

1029
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:01,239
Speaker 2: mostly thought of it as a fallback tune in case

1030
00:55:01,280 --> 00:55:03,440
Speaker 2: one of the other songs didn't work out. They only

1031
00:55:03,520 --> 00:55:05,200
Speaker 2: attempted it in the studio at the end of a

1032
00:55:05,280 --> 00:55:08,280
Speaker 2: session for something else. They attempted a bunch of different

1033
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:10,719
Speaker 2: arrangements of the past, and it didn't really stick out

1034
00:55:10,800 --> 00:55:14,520
Speaker 2: until Garth actually switched over from organ to piano and

1035
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:18,960
Speaker 2: plays those that amazing octave octave line, sort of barrelhouse

1036
00:55:19,000 --> 00:55:21,320
Speaker 2: piano style that he would. Another great part from the

1037
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:24,960
Speaker 2: classic album's documentaries when Levon pulls up his soloed Garth's

1038
00:55:24,960 --> 00:55:28,600
Speaker 2: solo piano track from I Think It's Rag Mahma Rag

1039
00:55:29,160 --> 00:55:31,320
Speaker 2: and just pulls the faders all the way up in

1040
00:55:31,360 --> 00:55:34,120
Speaker 2: the end and he his brother Garth, Ain't it easy

1041
00:55:34,160 --> 00:55:39,640
Speaker 2: when you know how the man was a Southern aphorism machine.

1042
00:55:42,400 --> 00:55:44,480
Speaker 2: Robbie later said, we recorded it and it wasn't until

1043
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:46,839
Speaker 2: we listened back to it that we realized, holy shit,

1044
00:55:47,120 --> 00:55:50,600
Speaker 2: this song's really got something. I think the best explanation

1045
00:55:50,640 --> 00:55:52,160
Speaker 2: that I've heard for this song is actually in this

1046
00:55:52,160 --> 00:55:54,759
Speaker 2: Wheel's on Fire, where Levon quotes Robbie is saying, it's

1047
00:55:54,800 --> 00:55:59,399
Speaker 2: a song about the impossibility of sainthood, which is such

1048
00:55:59,440 --> 00:56:03,720
Speaker 2: a better, shorter way of saying all that I just said. Anyway,

1049
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 2: the song's famous stacked call and response vocals and the

1050
00:56:07,239 --> 00:56:11,319
Speaker 2: chorus where deliberate nod to the staple singers and this reference. Yeah,

1051
00:56:11,360 --> 00:56:13,240
Speaker 2: and this would be made literal in the last Waltz

1052
00:56:13,239 --> 00:56:16,480
Speaker 2: when they performed the song with the staple singers. One

1053
00:56:16,520 --> 00:56:20,040
Speaker 2: of the best musical performances ever committed to film. So

1054
00:56:20,200 --> 00:56:23,040
Speaker 2: much to love there, my person. My favorite part is

1055
00:56:23,080 --> 00:56:26,279
Speaker 2: at the end when Mavis does this incredible I'm getting

1056
00:56:26,320 --> 00:56:30,040
Speaker 2: goosebumps just thinking about it. She does this incredible like run.

1057
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:32,279
Speaker 2: At the end, they land on this harmony and just

1058
00:56:32,320 --> 00:56:35,280
Speaker 2: before it fades to black, you just hear her go beautiful.

1059
00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:39,440
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, it was. Do you think she was

1060
00:56:39,480 --> 00:56:41,880
Speaker 1: nervous because then she had a big crush on Bob Dylan.

1061
00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:44,799
Speaker 2: That I don't not I think by that time. You know,

1062
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:46,600
Speaker 2: she told me when I interviewed her that that their

1063
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:50,600
Speaker 2: whole Dylan thing was like mid sixties when the story

1064
00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:54,319
Speaker 2: that she gave me was when they were performing at

1065
00:56:54,360 --> 00:56:57,560
Speaker 2: some NBC folk thing because the staple singers were Staple

1066
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:00,800
Speaker 2: singers are amazing. They and they're really interesting history of

1067
00:57:00,840 --> 00:57:03,960
Speaker 2: how gospel music became really popular in mid century America

1068
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:07,719
Speaker 2: because they grew up on Pop Staples. The patriarch grew

1069
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:11,640
Speaker 2: up on Dockery Farm, which is the plantation in Mississippi

1070
00:57:12,120 --> 00:57:16,480
Speaker 2: work farm camp, whatever Southern euphimistic term they called for

1071
00:57:16,640 --> 00:57:21,200
Speaker 2: paid slavery at the time following reconstruction. But this is

1072
00:57:21,240 --> 00:57:24,320
Speaker 2: like the well spring of where American blues music basically

1073
00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:28,640
Speaker 2: comes from because Charlie Patton was there. I think it's

1074
00:57:28,720 --> 00:57:32,320
Speaker 2: also Holland Wolf, Robert Johnson, like all of these guys

1075
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:37,480
Speaker 2: orbited Dockery and Parchment Parchman. No, Parchman was the penitentiary,

1076
00:57:38,400 --> 00:57:42,480
Speaker 2: Dockery was the was the work farm. So Pop Staples

1077
00:57:42,520 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 2: was from there and he's so he's a direct link

1078
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:48,960
Speaker 2: to the first generation of American bluesmen. But when the

1079
00:57:49,040 --> 00:57:51,720
Speaker 2: Great Migration occurred, he moved his family up to Chicago.

1080
00:57:52,200 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 2: Chicago is such a huge obviously blues hotbed, you know,

1081
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:58,960
Speaker 2: John Lee Hooker lived there for a while, the Chicago

1082
00:57:59,320 --> 00:58:02,520
Speaker 2: Chess Records, Muddy Waters, the Chicago Blues is a sound

1083
00:58:03,200 --> 00:58:06,160
Speaker 2: little Walter Howland Wolf. But it's also a huge gospel

1084
00:58:06,200 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 2: hot you know. Sam Cook started with the Soulsterers in

1085
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:12,520
Speaker 2: Chicago and the Staple singer started singing Chicago, and their

1086
00:58:12,520 --> 00:58:16,840
Speaker 2: early stuff is basically just like him on electric guitar,

1087
00:58:16,960 --> 00:58:21,160
Speaker 2: playing this beautiful tremlo leaden guitar. The tremlo is such

1088
00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:25,360
Speaker 2: a great part of their sound. And his kids, Mavis

1089
00:58:26,000 --> 00:58:31,280
Speaker 2: Cleora Purvis, I think is I'm just I'm really fishing

1090
00:58:31,400 --> 00:58:35,840
Speaker 2: for him, but singing these beautiful family harmonies. And they

1091
00:58:35,960 --> 00:58:39,360
Speaker 2: cut records down at stacks I'll Take You There and

1092
00:58:39,560 --> 00:58:42,360
Speaker 2: sort of crossed over onto the pop charts with stuff

1093
00:58:42,440 --> 00:58:45,560
Speaker 2: like heavy makes You Happy and I'll Take You There.

1094
00:58:46,520 --> 00:58:48,920
Speaker 2: And they actually got a lot of backlash from this

1095
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:51,640
Speaker 2: from the gospel community, Like the gospel community kind of

1096
00:58:51,640 --> 00:58:54,200
Speaker 2: closed ranks around them because you weren't really supposed to

1097
00:58:54,200 --> 00:58:55,720
Speaker 2: play electric music in church.

1098
00:58:56,120 --> 00:58:57,320
Speaker 1: Sam with Sam Cook too.

1099
00:58:57,400 --> 00:59:00,480
Speaker 2: Then they get like, yeah, they they would try and

1100
00:59:00,520 --> 00:59:02,440
Speaker 2: go back and play church services, and people woul kind

1101
00:59:02,440 --> 00:59:06,040
Speaker 2: of turn their noses up at them anyway. They are

1102
00:59:06,560 --> 00:59:11,320
Speaker 2: so exemplary of the gospel vocal kind of tradition when

1103
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:15,320
Speaker 2: when you think of harmony singing, there's broadly divided into

1104
00:59:15,320 --> 00:59:20,240
Speaker 2: two things. There's a really precise, close voiced harmony stuff

1105
00:59:20,240 --> 00:59:24,919
Speaker 2: that you get in Beach Boys recordings, more white gospel,

1106
00:59:25,600 --> 00:59:28,440
Speaker 2: true like what they call Southern gospel, like quartet singing.

1107
00:59:28,920 --> 00:59:31,560
Speaker 2: That's the kind of stuff that filters down from Appalachia

1108
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:35,720
Speaker 2: into modern rockabilly, and that's where kind of the Beatles

1109
00:59:35,760 --> 00:59:39,040
Speaker 2: picked up on it. And then you get the sort

1110
00:59:39,040 --> 00:59:43,000
Speaker 2: of almost choral vocal blend that filters into folk music

1111
00:59:43,040 --> 00:59:46,160
Speaker 2: with guys like Simon and Garfunkle. Gospel singing is a

1112
00:59:46,200 --> 00:59:49,520
Speaker 2: little more ragged, a little more that the phrasing is

1113
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:53,480
Speaker 2: kind of overlapping, rather than everyone singing syllables precisely the

1114
00:59:53,520 --> 00:59:56,720
Speaker 2: same way. And a great example of that is not

1115
00:59:56,760 --> 00:59:58,720
Speaker 2: just the staple singers, but a lot of people obviously

1116
00:59:58,760 --> 01:00:01,040
Speaker 2: a lot of stupid stuf. A lot of people have

1117
01:00:01,080 --> 01:00:02,600
Speaker 2: seen Oh brother, where aren't that good?

1118
01:00:02,600 --> 01:00:02,760
Speaker 1: One?

1119
01:00:02,800 --> 01:00:07,080
Speaker 2: Alex the Fairfield Four, who are the Gospel Quartet who

1120
01:00:07,200 --> 01:00:09,160
Speaker 2: sing uh They're the Grave Diggers at the end of

1121
01:00:09,160 --> 01:00:12,600
Speaker 2: that movie and they sing Lonesome Valley is such an

1122
01:00:12,640 --> 01:00:15,800
Speaker 2: incredible example of the style of singing because their vibratos

1123
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:17,000
Speaker 2: are not even syncd up.

1124
01:00:17,040 --> 01:00:19,080
Speaker 1: Some of them have incredibly.

1125
01:00:18,520 --> 01:00:22,280
Speaker 2: Wide vibratos, and their their phrasings kind of slipping the

1126
01:00:22,320 --> 01:00:24,480
Speaker 2: slide and all over the place. They're they're bending in

1127
01:00:24,520 --> 01:00:28,280
Speaker 2: and out of pitches, but it still hangs together so beautifully,

1128
01:00:28,520 --> 01:00:31,280
Speaker 2: and that's how the band did it, you know, they

1129
01:00:32,320 --> 01:00:37,720
Speaker 2: frequently they Richard Manuel has an incredible voice. He has

1130
01:00:38,680 --> 01:00:41,840
Speaker 2: really low baritone, but he also has this beautiful falsetto

1131
01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:44,360
Speaker 2: that you famously hear on I shall be released, So

1132
01:00:44,440 --> 01:00:47,320
Speaker 2: that frequently meant that he would be taking the top part,

1133
01:00:47,720 --> 01:00:51,000
Speaker 2: Levon would be singing the bottom, and Rick would be

1134
01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:53,400
Speaker 2: bounced around in the middle. But it was a lot

1135
01:00:53,480 --> 01:00:58,120
Speaker 2: of space between the three voices, more just like like

1136
01:00:58,400 --> 01:01:01,400
Speaker 2: spread spread out chords on a piano, rather than these tight,

1137
01:01:01,480 --> 01:01:05,520
Speaker 2: kind of locked voices that you hear in other harmony

1138
01:01:05,560 --> 01:01:07,880
Speaker 2: bands around the top harmony singing bands around the time,

1139
01:01:08,120 --> 01:01:11,200
Speaker 2: and that was directly from bands like the Staple Singers

1140
01:01:12,480 --> 01:01:15,440
Speaker 2: and gospel music influence I.

1141
01:01:15,480 --> 01:01:18,080
Speaker 1: Always think of just the sound that I always hear

1142
01:01:18,120 --> 01:01:21,760
Speaker 1: when I think about Southern black gospel, which is embarrassing

1143
01:01:21,760 --> 01:01:25,560
Speaker 1: because this is such a poppy not to mention white example,

1144
01:01:25,640 --> 01:01:28,240
Speaker 1: but is Paul Simon Loves Me Like a Rock with

1145
01:01:28,280 --> 01:01:33,280
Speaker 1: the Dixie Hummingbirds, incredible black gospel vocal group, and just

1146
01:01:33,320 --> 01:01:36,960
Speaker 1: that opening the um. They're all just doing these hummed notes,

1147
01:01:38,320 --> 01:01:40,640
Speaker 1: but as you say, their vibratos are all out of whack,

1148
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:44,400
Speaker 1: but it just it sounds so good. The blend Dixie

1149
01:01:44,480 --> 01:01:48,320
Speaker 1: Hummingbirds are interesting because they actually start in the twenties

1150
01:01:48,520 --> 01:01:51,520
Speaker 1: with what you call Jubilee quartets, which is like the

1151
01:01:51,560 --> 01:01:55,200
Speaker 1: real clean Polish college guys who were tore in like

1152
01:01:55,640 --> 01:02:00,640
Speaker 1: the Fisk College and Jubilee singers. And then as sort

1153
01:02:00,640 --> 01:02:03,480
Speaker 1: of soul music picks up, the other more like raw

1154
01:02:03,640 --> 01:02:05,840
Speaker 1: edged kind of stuff comes in. This is all I'm

1155
01:02:05,880 --> 01:02:08,280
Speaker 1: getting all this from a great book by Anthony Hellibut

1156
01:02:08,280 --> 01:02:11,439
Speaker 1: called The Gospel Sound, which is pretty much required reading

1157
01:02:11,480 --> 01:02:15,080
Speaker 1: for anyone who's interested in gospel music throughout the twentieth century.

1158
01:02:15,920 --> 01:02:19,200
Speaker 1: This has been your gospel corner of this episode. Yeah, sorry,

1159
01:02:19,480 --> 01:02:22,200
Speaker 1: so all those No, that was incredible. All this to

1160
01:02:22,240 --> 01:02:25,560
Speaker 1: say that the weight is awesome, but the waight is

1161
01:02:25,600 --> 01:02:29,480
Speaker 1: also a prime example of the troubling dynamic between Robbie

1162
01:02:29,520 --> 01:02:33,920
Speaker 1: Robinson and Levon Helm I'll read this part and then

1163
01:02:33,960 --> 01:02:39,600
Speaker 1: you hop in whenever. It's frequently pointed out that the

1164
01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:43,640
Speaker 1: Canadian born Robbie Robinson discovered the American South through Levon

1165
01:02:44,160 --> 01:02:47,080
Speaker 1: and turned it into hit songs that he was frequently

1166
01:02:47,120 --> 01:02:51,560
Speaker 1: the only songwriter listed on. Thus he exploited Levon's own

1167
01:02:51,600 --> 01:02:53,320
Speaker 1: heritage and made a buck off of it.

1168
01:02:54,800 --> 01:02:58,200
Speaker 2: And this, oh no, read that next line, Jordan.

1169
01:02:58,960 --> 01:03:02,280
Speaker 1: But yeah, but uh, Robbie's part Cherokee, so maybe he

1170
01:03:02,320 --> 01:03:05,240
Speaker 1: has a comment. But yeah. When Robbie first joined up

1171
01:03:05,240 --> 01:03:07,600
Speaker 1: with Ronnie Hawkins back in the early sixties, it was

1172
01:03:07,720 --> 01:03:10,360
Speaker 1: Levon who was there first and showed him the ropes.

1173
01:03:10,440 --> 01:03:12,680
Speaker 1: Levon was the first guy to join up with Ronnie,

1174
01:03:13,000 --> 01:03:14,840
Speaker 1: and then the group that we know as the Band

1175
01:03:15,040 --> 01:03:18,840
Speaker 1: joined one by one. And then after Levon quit after

1176
01:03:18,880 --> 01:03:20,760
Speaker 1: they went on tour with Bob Dylan and he just

1177
01:03:20,880 --> 01:03:22,720
Speaker 1: didn't like that life and went to work in the

1178
01:03:22,720 --> 01:03:27,120
Speaker 1: oil rig. Robbie took over. Basically, he took the lead

1179
01:03:27,160 --> 01:03:29,480
Speaker 1: on writing the songs and they landed the record deal

1180
01:03:29,520 --> 01:03:32,479
Speaker 1: based on those songs, And my point being that when

1181
01:03:32,600 --> 01:03:36,240
Speaker 1: Levon rejoined the band after they got signed to Capitol Records,

1182
01:03:36,280 --> 01:03:38,360
Speaker 1: he was no longer it was no longer. Yes, it

1183
01:03:38,440 --> 01:03:43,160
Speaker 1: was now slight edge to Robbie as being the leader.

1184
01:03:43,160 --> 01:03:46,520
Speaker 1: I know it was an egalitarian enterprise, but Robbie was

1185
01:03:46,520 --> 01:03:48,360
Speaker 1: probably the one that was more in control.

1186
01:03:48,600 --> 01:03:52,800
Speaker 2: Robbie's narrative has always been that as the everyone got

1187
01:03:53,520 --> 01:03:57,440
Speaker 2: more and more drugged out, they stopped wanting to contribute.

1188
01:03:57,600 --> 01:03:59,840
Speaker 2: And it is sort of born out in the records.

1189
01:04:00,080 --> 01:04:03,480
Speaker 2: You know, like you, I mean sorry, I'd cut you

1190
01:04:03,520 --> 01:04:05,800
Speaker 2: off like the right. Talk about the writing credits right

1191
01:04:05,880 --> 01:04:08,760
Speaker 2: on the on the on per per record basis.

1192
01:04:08,760 --> 01:04:11,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, Big Pink. Robbie's credited on writing less than half

1193
01:04:11,640 --> 01:04:14,200
Speaker 1: the songs, and on the group's second album was so

1194
01:04:14,280 --> 01:04:17,240
Speaker 1: called Brown Album, a self titled album, he wrote two

1195
01:04:17,240 --> 01:04:19,800
Speaker 1: thirds of the songs, and on the group's third album,

1196
01:04:19,840 --> 01:04:22,800
Speaker 1: Stage Fright, he wrote all of them. And you could

1197
01:04:22,840 --> 01:04:24,840
Speaker 1: say this was because the other members of the band

1198
01:04:24,880 --> 01:04:28,840
Speaker 1: were too strung out to work, or they were too

1199
01:04:28,880 --> 01:04:31,080
Speaker 1: strong out to notice that their names weren't showing up

1200
01:04:31,080 --> 01:04:34,040
Speaker 1: on credits. And Levon has a great line in his memory.

1201
01:04:34,080 --> 01:04:37,240
Speaker 1: He says that he was quote pencil whipped and didn't

1202
01:04:37,280 --> 01:04:40,840
Speaker 1: realize that he wasn't credited on the Brown album until

1203
01:04:40,840 --> 01:04:42,760
Speaker 1: he had the final record in his hands and looked

1204
01:04:42,800 --> 01:04:46,120
Speaker 1: at the label. But even Ronnie Hawkins, who again was

1205
01:04:46,120 --> 01:04:48,680
Speaker 1: sort of the band's mentor and wasn't afraid the bust

1206
01:04:48,800 --> 01:04:51,840
Speaker 1: Robbi's chops or anybody's chops in the band, said in

1207
01:04:51,880 --> 01:04:56,320
Speaker 1: the very Robertson centric documentary Once We're Brothers from twenty twenty,

1208
01:04:56,400 --> 01:04:59,280
Speaker 1: Levon was great at arranging, but Robbie was the one

1209
01:04:59,280 --> 01:05:03,640
Speaker 1: who wrote all the songs. Robbie himself talks about Levon

1210
01:05:03,800 --> 01:05:07,000
Speaker 1: nodding out during sessions for Stage Fright and Richard Manuel

1211
01:05:07,160 --> 01:05:09,640
Speaker 1: refusing to do a show after he lost his hero

1212
01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:13,520
Speaker 1: and stash. But in Levon's autobiography, he suggests that Robbie

1213
01:05:13,640 --> 01:05:17,000
Speaker 1: joined with the band's management to persuade the other members

1214
01:05:17,000 --> 01:05:19,680
Speaker 1: of the band to sign away their individual publishing rights,

1215
01:05:19,680 --> 01:05:21,640
Speaker 1: which is, you know where the real money is in

1216
01:05:21,680 --> 01:05:27,600
Speaker 1: the music industry. But this really just brings us into

1217
01:05:27,600 --> 01:05:31,840
Speaker 1: the whole forty matter of what what does it take

1218
01:05:31,880 --> 01:05:34,680
Speaker 1: to write a song? Like what? Like you? Later on

1219
01:05:34,720 --> 01:05:37,720
Speaker 1: you use the example of chest Fever on this record,

1220
01:05:37,800 --> 01:05:40,240
Speaker 1: which I mean the thing that you remember about it

1221
01:05:40,280 --> 01:05:43,680
Speaker 1: is that organ part, and I don't believe Garth is

1222
01:05:43,760 --> 01:05:45,120
Speaker 1: credited on that song.

1223
01:05:45,520 --> 01:05:48,000
Speaker 2: Well, so the you know, quick primer for anyone who

1224
01:05:48,040 --> 01:05:52,680
Speaker 2: isn't familiar with the sewage of the record industry. Songs

1225
01:05:52,680 --> 01:05:55,800
Speaker 2: are credited for music and lyrics, not arrangements, which is

1226
01:05:55,840 --> 01:05:57,960
Speaker 2: why you get a lot of people nowadays have been

1227
01:05:58,000 --> 01:06:00,320
Speaker 2: airing their grievances over co writing with a lot of

1228
01:06:00,840 --> 01:06:05,320
Speaker 2: famous songwriters. Father John Misty has this famous quote where

1229
01:06:05,320 --> 01:06:08,080
Speaker 2: I think he was talking about He didn't name anyone,

1230
01:06:08,120 --> 01:06:10,200
Speaker 2: he said he'd been offered the opportunity to co write

1231
01:06:10,200 --> 01:06:12,560
Speaker 2: with a lot of prominent female pop stars, so I

1232
01:06:12,600 --> 01:06:16,440
Speaker 2: think triangulating the sort of people who he might have

1233
01:06:16,520 --> 01:06:19,800
Speaker 2: been talking about, My bet would be Adele or Lady Gaga.

1234
01:06:19,840 --> 01:06:23,640
Speaker 2: But he basically said, you dash off, You dash off

1235
01:06:23,640 --> 01:06:27,160
Speaker 2: a tune and send it over to them and they

1236
01:06:27,200 --> 01:06:31,240
Speaker 2: make changes to it. And if your part original composition

1237
01:06:31,360 --> 01:06:34,480
Speaker 2: is your words are highlighted in blue and theirs are

1238
01:06:34,520 --> 01:06:36,920
Speaker 2: in red, you get a piece of paperback with an

1239
01:06:36,920 --> 01:06:39,920
Speaker 2: ocean of blue and two dots of red, and that

1240
01:06:40,080 --> 01:06:42,920
Speaker 2: entitles them to fifty percent of the lyrics, and that

1241
01:06:43,160 --> 01:06:46,400
Speaker 2: are in fifty percent of the publishing and that the

1242
01:06:46,720 --> 01:06:48,760
Speaker 2: more the shorter way of explaining that. As a music

1243
01:06:48,800 --> 01:06:53,320
Speaker 2: industry aphorism called change a word, get a third. And

1244
01:06:54,800 --> 01:06:57,680
Speaker 2: you know, this is a big thing as rap and

1245
01:06:57,760 --> 01:07:00,920
Speaker 2: hip hop became a sendant because you would get people

1246
01:07:01,960 --> 01:07:04,440
Speaker 2: once you get like a bunch of different rappers on

1247
01:07:04,480 --> 01:07:07,640
Speaker 2: a song, that counts as writing. So you get someone

1248
01:07:07,720 --> 01:07:10,680
Speaker 2: phoning like Lil Wayne, who famously would just record a

1249
01:07:10,800 --> 01:07:13,600
Speaker 2: feature on anything you asked him to do from his

1250
01:07:13,680 --> 01:07:17,800
Speaker 2: tour bus on cough Syrup, suddenly getting publishing rights to

1251
01:07:17,840 --> 01:07:20,120
Speaker 2: something that he was not even in the same state

1252
01:07:20,280 --> 01:07:23,440
Speaker 2: or country for when it was being created, which is

1253
01:07:23,480 --> 01:07:27,880
Speaker 2: obviously issues of race and all of these other issues

1254
01:07:27,880 --> 01:07:31,960
Speaker 2: aside understandably rankles the people who do the bulk of

1255
01:07:32,000 --> 01:07:35,520
Speaker 2: creating these songs. And this is when I say bulk,

1256
01:07:35,680 --> 01:07:39,280
Speaker 2: especially back in this day, that meant being and making

1257
01:07:39,320 --> 01:07:41,760
Speaker 2: the music, being in the room writing the music, you know,

1258
01:07:42,120 --> 01:07:47,600
Speaker 2: and and you know Robertson has talked about he said

1259
01:07:47,640 --> 01:07:50,040
Speaker 2: when they were doing the basement tape sessions, he learned,

1260
01:07:50,080 --> 01:07:52,280
Speaker 2: he said, he learned how to write songs a different

1261
01:07:52,280 --> 01:07:56,000
Speaker 2: way from Bob Dylan, which was at the typewriter. And

1262
01:07:56,000 --> 01:07:59,640
Speaker 2: it is very instructive because he talks about Dylan would

1263
01:07:59,680 --> 01:08:02,720
Speaker 2: come over to the house, amble down the stairs, listen

1264
01:08:02,760 --> 01:08:05,640
Speaker 2: to what everyone was doing, go up to the ground floor,

1265
01:08:05,920 --> 01:08:08,640
Speaker 2: write a bunch of lyrics out, and then come downstairs

1266
01:08:08,680 --> 01:08:10,920
Speaker 2: and kind of free associate them until they had a song.

1267
01:08:11,680 --> 01:08:16,040
Speaker 2: So that's a very literal, you know, way of thinking

1268
01:08:16,200 --> 01:08:20,240
Speaker 2: music plus lyrics equal song. But that doesn't really hash

1269
01:08:20,320 --> 01:08:23,000
Speaker 2: when you are working out group arrangements, man, And it

1270
01:08:23,040 --> 01:08:28,200
Speaker 2: doesn't hash when you are relying so heavily on other

1271
01:08:28,280 --> 01:08:31,559
Speaker 2: people to execute your vision. I especially take issue with

1272
01:08:31,640 --> 01:08:34,400
Speaker 2: it with Robbie because if he was such a fucking genius,

1273
01:08:34,600 --> 01:08:38,760
Speaker 2: where's the rest of his damn career. Name me a

1274
01:08:38,960 --> 01:08:43,919
Speaker 2: single Robbie Robertson song, do it now? He probably couldn't.

1275
01:08:44,320 --> 01:08:46,799
Speaker 2: I mean you can't now, But name me a single

1276
01:08:46,880 --> 01:08:49,880
Speaker 2: Robbie Robertson song, Like you can't do it? Man. It's

1277
01:08:49,880 --> 01:08:52,839
Speaker 2: not like John Fogerty where like you know, John Fogerty

1278
01:08:52,920 --> 01:08:56,000
Speaker 2: and credence, Like the whole big thing was how John

1279
01:08:56,120 --> 01:08:59,559
Speaker 2: was a dictatorial controller who even told the drummer what

1280
01:08:59,640 --> 01:09:02,240
Speaker 2: drum beat to play for songs, right like told everybody

1281
01:09:02,240 --> 01:09:04,479
Speaker 2: what to play. And that to me bears fruit because

1282
01:09:04,560 --> 01:09:08,479
Speaker 2: John Fogerty had a career after CCR. The did Robbie

1283
01:09:08,520 --> 01:09:11,840
Speaker 2: do other than pick the playlist for Scorsese movies after Well,

1284
01:09:11,880 --> 01:09:13,719
Speaker 2: he did write The Way That You Use It, which

1285
01:09:13,760 --> 01:09:17,679
Speaker 2: is a song that whips from Color of Wedding Yeah

1286
01:09:17,720 --> 01:09:21,680
Speaker 2: with Clapton. But also that song sucks, like it's some

1287
01:09:21,720 --> 01:09:24,240
Speaker 2: of the dumbest lyrics possible.

1288
01:09:24,920 --> 01:09:26,559
Speaker 1: I mean, is it about what I think it's about

1289
01:09:27,040 --> 01:09:31,599
Speaker 1: his dick? Probably okay, but no, it sounds like as

1290
01:09:31,600 --> 01:09:33,439
Speaker 1: long as like a defense of a size you know.

1291
01:09:33,520 --> 01:09:37,160
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm being Higel, the character Higel right now.

1292
01:09:37,160 --> 01:09:38,719
Speaker 2: But does this what I'm saying makes sense?

1293
01:09:38,760 --> 01:09:39,680
Speaker 1: Does this wash? Like?

1294
01:09:40,280 --> 01:09:42,760
Speaker 2: I feel like it's not like the Beatles, where it's like,

1295
01:09:42,880 --> 01:09:46,280
Speaker 2: oh yeah, all of these guys have, with the exception

1296
01:09:46,320 --> 01:09:50,799
Speaker 2: of Ringo, have these incredible careers afterwards, demonstrating the fullness

1297
01:09:50,840 --> 01:09:51,840
Speaker 2: of their original talent.

1298
01:09:52,280 --> 01:09:53,040
Speaker 1: With the band.

1299
01:09:53,320 --> 01:09:56,559
Speaker 2: You have Robbie who's spent his entire career since they

1300
01:09:56,600 --> 01:09:59,200
Speaker 2: broke up going well, no, I actually wrote all these

1301
01:09:59,200 --> 01:10:01,320
Speaker 2: songs and then people are like, cool, do you have

1302
01:10:01,360 --> 01:10:06,639
Speaker 2: any other ones? And he's like no, And especially because

1303
01:10:06,640 --> 01:10:09,679
Speaker 2: he wasn't a singer, man, they never let him sing

1304
01:10:09,720 --> 01:10:13,400
Speaker 2: on this stuff and the whole thing that's the one,

1305
01:10:13,640 --> 01:10:18,040
Speaker 2: the only song, and on those Kingdom and on last Waltz,

1306
01:10:18,439 --> 01:10:21,679
Speaker 2: he's singing into a turned off mike, which is another

1307
01:10:21,720 --> 01:10:23,800
Speaker 2: big thing that pissed leave on off because he's like,

1308
01:10:24,360 --> 01:10:28,559
Speaker 2: seventy percent of that movie is in Robbie's face, loving

1309
01:10:28,600 --> 01:10:34,479
Speaker 2: close ups, opera scarf, bidecked pancake makeup, caked face is

1310
01:10:34,640 --> 01:10:38,080
Speaker 2: stupid bronzed stratocaster.

1311
01:10:37,920 --> 01:10:39,120
Speaker 1: And he wasn't singing.

1312
01:10:40,560 --> 01:10:44,120
Speaker 5: You have three incredibly talented people who you had sing

1313
01:10:44,160 --> 01:10:48,320
Speaker 5: all of these songs, including one guy whose identity you

1314
01:10:48,560 --> 01:10:52,840
Speaker 5: hijacked wholesale, and you're like.

1315
01:10:53,000 --> 01:10:55,280
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, but I you know, but it's still all me.

1316
01:10:56,240 --> 01:10:59,599
Speaker 2: Like what the fuck does that make any I broke

1317
01:10:59,640 --> 01:11:03,120
Speaker 2: a pan on my desk just getting so worked up

1318
01:11:03,160 --> 01:11:05,080
Speaker 2: about this because it makes me so angry.

1319
01:11:06,520 --> 01:11:07,559
Speaker 1: I don't know what do you think.

1320
01:11:10,000 --> 01:11:10,320
Speaker 5: I mean?

1321
01:11:11,640 --> 01:11:14,240
Speaker 1: As somebody who spent much of his high school career

1322
01:11:14,280 --> 01:11:16,479
Speaker 1: being the good lab partner with a bunch of not

1323
01:11:16,600 --> 01:11:21,920
Speaker 1: good lab partners, I have tremendous sympathy for Robbie for

1324
01:11:22,560 --> 01:11:25,200
Speaker 1: being stuck with people who are in the throes of

1325
01:11:25,280 --> 01:11:29,360
Speaker 1: addiction and really unable to keep the momentum going on

1326
01:11:29,400 --> 01:11:33,720
Speaker 1: this incredible thing that they'd built. Yeah, I don't know

1327
01:11:35,920 --> 01:11:39,000
Speaker 1: how much of it was his place to advocate for

1328
01:11:39,120 --> 01:11:42,240
Speaker 1: other people. Sure, I mean it's it's honestly, at the

1329
01:11:42,320 --> 01:11:44,559
Speaker 1: end of the day, it's it's the big Lebowski law.

1330
01:11:45,240 --> 01:11:51,599
Speaker 1: You're not wrong, Robbie, Yeah, just as Yes, it's especially

1331
01:11:51,640 --> 01:11:54,720
Speaker 1: galling to me too, because it's like, I don't know, man.

1332
01:11:55,000 --> 01:11:58,040
Speaker 2: Bring him in on a fucking soundtrack like he like

1333
01:11:58,280 --> 01:11:59,880
Speaker 2: when you look at it, and I was just looking

1334
01:11:59,880 --> 01:12:02,519
Speaker 2: at this when you look at their wiki pages, they

1335
01:12:02,560 --> 01:12:04,639
Speaker 2: did not The other guys did not work a lot.

1336
01:12:04,800 --> 01:12:07,600
Speaker 2: Levon was in the Ringo All Star Band and you

1337
01:12:07,680 --> 01:12:10,960
Speaker 2: see like they're like, oh yeah, Richard played on a

1338
01:12:11,000 --> 01:12:13,599
Speaker 2: song on the King of Comedy, which Robbie was music

1339
01:12:13,680 --> 01:12:18,360
Speaker 2: supervisor on, but he sure wasn't the music supervisor. Like

1340
01:12:18,760 --> 01:12:21,120
Speaker 2: it's just like if you guys were you named the

1341
01:12:21,600 --> 01:12:25,439
Speaker 2: documentary once we're brothers, and like every single one of them,

1342
01:12:26,360 --> 01:12:32,080
Speaker 2: Levon almost lost his house, you know, really, like it's

1343
01:12:32,240 --> 01:12:37,439
Speaker 2: just it really rankles me. And I know, you know,

1344
01:12:37,640 --> 01:12:39,400
Speaker 2: you don't speak ill of the dead or whatever, but

1345
01:12:39,720 --> 01:12:43,200
Speaker 2: I think more people, I don't know, man, people should

1346
01:12:43,200 --> 01:12:45,800
Speaker 2: know about it. It's it bothers me because it gets

1347
01:12:45,840 --> 01:12:46,960
Speaker 2: to the heart of what it means to be a

1348
01:12:46,960 --> 01:12:49,960
Speaker 2: creative person versus what it means to be like a manager,

1349
01:12:51,200 --> 01:12:55,879
Speaker 2: you know, and I don't respect managers.

1350
01:12:59,800 --> 01:13:02,040
Speaker 1: No, I mean, that's why I found this discussion so interesting.

1351
01:13:02,080 --> 01:13:05,680
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I know it may seem tasteless or

1352
01:13:05,720 --> 01:13:11,360
Speaker 1: attacky or cruel to go in on a recently departed

1353
01:13:11,520 --> 01:13:16,600
Speaker 1: millionaire musical legends and millionaire, but it is. It's a

1354
01:13:16,640 --> 01:13:20,519
Speaker 1: fascinating debate about what it means to be a creative

1355
01:13:20,560 --> 01:13:23,479
Speaker 1: person and just mean and how to move through the world. Man.

1356
01:13:23,560 --> 01:13:26,880
Speaker 2: I mean, like, you know when Pink Floyd can't sid

1357
01:13:27,000 --> 01:13:31,479
Speaker 2: they paid for his life afterwards, you know, Robbie moved

1358
01:13:31,520 --> 01:13:36,519
Speaker 2: to Hollywood, didn't talk to anyone catching my big fat

1359
01:13:36,640 --> 01:13:37,439
Speaker 2: Marty checks.

1360
01:13:38,640 --> 01:13:43,120
Speaker 1: Also, never forget, never forget.

1361
01:13:42,680 --> 01:13:45,320
Speaker 2: That the whole reason Neil Diamond is in the Last

1362
01:13:45,360 --> 01:13:48,880
Speaker 2: VAULTZ is because Robbie produced his record and they were

1363
01:13:49,080 --> 01:13:54,799
Speaker 2: gonna cut muddy damn Waters for time until Levon threatened

1364
01:13:54,800 --> 01:13:57,920
Speaker 2: to walk from the entire thing. If you need a

1365
01:13:58,200 --> 01:14:02,360
Speaker 2: starker illustration of the dynamic between those two men, Levon

1366
01:14:02,560 --> 01:14:06,559
Speaker 2: advocating for one of the biggest influences on their music

1367
01:14:06,600 --> 01:14:11,000
Speaker 2: and a person who they in theory owed, versus Robbie

1368
01:14:11,120 --> 01:14:15,320
Speaker 2: advocating for his sleazy leisure suited in coke Buddy and

1369
01:14:15,400 --> 01:14:17,120
Speaker 2: his damn.

1370
01:14:16,880 --> 01:14:19,240
Speaker 1: Song Dryer Ries.

1371
01:14:21,200 --> 01:14:26,719
Speaker 2: We're in aviators on stage. Ah, alright, I'm.

1372
01:14:26,640 --> 01:14:33,240
Speaker 1: Done, move on well, Dryeres.

1373
01:14:35,560 --> 01:14:41,240
Speaker 2: Has anyone ever looked more like a Quelude in Personified

1374
01:14:41,320 --> 01:14:43,880
Speaker 2: than than Neil Diamond and Last Waltz?

1375
01:14:43,880 --> 01:14:46,160
Speaker 1: I mean I would argue Van Morrison on Last Waltz?

1376
01:14:47,280 --> 01:14:51,639
Speaker 2: Oh no, sweet little Van. Actually I was gonna talk.

1377
01:14:51,760 --> 01:14:53,439
Speaker 2: Did I talk about this later when I talk about

1378
01:14:53,479 --> 01:14:56,559
Speaker 2: Richard Manuel. One of my favorite outtakes from Last Waltz

1379
01:14:56,680 --> 01:15:01,640
Speaker 2: is Richard Manuel and Van doing turolu Laura. Oh have

1380
01:15:01,720 --> 01:15:02,200
Speaker 2: you heard that?

1381
01:15:02,520 --> 01:15:02,960
Speaker 1: Yeah?

1382
01:15:02,960 --> 01:15:09,000
Speaker 2: It's beautiful man, sweet sweet Van Morrison as they as

1383
01:15:09,439 --> 01:15:15,960
Speaker 2: someone once referred to him, the band's drunken mascot because

1384
01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:19,040
Speaker 2: he could just bum around Woodstock with them, just waste him.

1385
01:15:19,400 --> 01:15:22,200
Speaker 2: And then he comes on, comes on Last Waltz and

1386
01:15:22,240 --> 01:15:24,240
Speaker 2: gets his little moment in the sun with his kicking

1387
01:15:24,280 --> 01:15:28,519
Speaker 2: his little feet up. That's one of the best. Oh

1388
01:15:28,600 --> 01:15:33,920
Speaker 2: my god, I love that scene so much. As you

1389
01:15:34,000 --> 01:15:36,439
Speaker 2: meditate on that, We'll be right back with more too

1390
01:15:36,479 --> 01:15:38,560
Speaker 2: much information after these messages.

1391
01:15:47,920 --> 01:15:51,360
Speaker 1: Well, the Weight is a stellar instance of Robbie Robertson's

1392
01:15:51,400 --> 01:15:53,559
Speaker 1: musical brilliance. But now we're gonna look at the other

1393
01:15:53,640 --> 01:15:55,840
Speaker 1: extreme chest fear.

1394
01:15:58,840 --> 01:16:04,439
Speaker 2: Dun dunk, Oh, great hell of riff, great record, glat

1395
01:16:04,520 --> 01:16:06,120
Speaker 2: lack of not great song.

1396
01:16:06,400 --> 01:16:10,560
Speaker 1: No, it's a weird one. Yeah, it's somewhere between Inegata

1397
01:16:10,600 --> 01:16:14,880
Speaker 1: Da Vida and drunk Salvation army brass bands, which are

1398
01:16:14,960 --> 01:16:16,920
Speaker 1: kind of two of my interests, I have to say.

1399
01:16:17,000 --> 01:16:20,200
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's kind of an outlier on the album.

1400
01:16:20,600 --> 01:16:24,000
Speaker 1: Came out of a jam session, and everybody generally agreed

1401
01:16:24,000 --> 01:16:27,559
Speaker 1: that it was recorded in a semi complete state. Levon

1402
01:16:27,680 --> 01:16:31,000
Speaker 1: later said in his memoir chess Fever had improvised lyrics

1403
01:16:31,000 --> 01:16:33,920
Speaker 1: that Robbie put together for the rehearsals and never got

1404
01:16:33,960 --> 01:16:36,880
Speaker 1: around to rewriting. The song came kind of late in

1405
01:16:36,920 --> 01:16:40,599
Speaker 1: the process and got recorded before it was finished. And

1406
01:16:40,680 --> 01:16:42,720
Speaker 1: Robbie pretty much said the same thing when talking to

1407
01:16:42,760 --> 01:16:46,240
Speaker 1: Barney Hoskins for his book Across the Great Divide. I'm

1408
01:16:46,240 --> 01:16:48,799
Speaker 1: not sure I know the words to chess Fever, he said,

1409
01:16:49,160 --> 01:16:51,880
Speaker 1: I'm not even so sure there are words to chess Fever.

1410
01:16:52,720 --> 01:16:54,800
Speaker 1: He would later elaborate in a way that kind of

1411
01:16:54,800 --> 01:16:56,559
Speaker 1: makes it seem like he doesn't really like the song.

1412
01:16:57,000 --> 01:16:59,599
Speaker 1: If you like chess Fever for god knows what reason,

1413
01:17:00,280 --> 01:17:03,120
Speaker 1: it's just this quirky thing, but it doesn't particularly make

1414
01:17:03,160 --> 01:17:05,479
Speaker 1: any kind of sense in the lyrics, in the music,

1415
01:17:05,680 --> 01:17:09,680
Speaker 1: in the arrangement, in anything, but apparently Bill Murray is

1416
01:17:09,720 --> 01:17:13,080
Speaker 1: a fan. Paul Schaeffer played it as his walkout music

1417
01:17:13,160 --> 01:17:15,400
Speaker 1: during his final appearance on The Late Show with David

1418
01:17:15,479 --> 01:17:18,519
Speaker 1: Letterman in twenty fifteen. Yeah, and once again, what do

1419
01:17:18,520 --> 01:17:21,760
Speaker 1: you remember about that song? That insane orgon intro? Talk

1420
01:17:21,760 --> 01:17:25,160
Speaker 1: to us about the orgon intro and just our beautiful honeyboy.

1421
01:17:25,240 --> 01:17:29,479
Speaker 2: Garth Hudson, Oh, sweet Garth, the professor. Professor Hudson I

1422
01:17:29,479 --> 01:17:34,519
Speaker 2: think leveland calls him Professor Garth. Yeah, Garth. His dad

1423
01:17:34,600 --> 01:17:37,439
Speaker 2: was a musician. Garth started playing at a real early age.

1424
01:17:37,479 --> 01:17:40,799
Speaker 2: He was the house organist at his uncle's funeral parlor,

1425
01:17:41,560 --> 01:17:46,200
Speaker 2: which is incredible. He was in a bach nerd when

1426
01:17:46,240 --> 01:17:50,040
Speaker 2: he studied at the University of Western Ontario. In the

1427
01:17:50,160 --> 01:17:52,960
Speaker 2: Classic albums for the Brown Album, there's some great moments

1428
01:17:53,000 --> 01:17:55,320
Speaker 2: of him just sitting and improvising at a keyboard and

1429
01:17:55,360 --> 01:17:56,080
Speaker 2: like talking it.

1430
01:17:56,080 --> 01:17:57,519
Speaker 1: He's like, how am I going to get out of

1431
01:17:57,520 --> 01:17:57,840
Speaker 1: this one?

1432
01:17:57,880 --> 01:18:01,439
Speaker 2: And like modulates to a different key and like SOLOI

1433
01:18:01,479 --> 01:18:05,160
Speaker 2: You're doing all this really ridiculous. But they need an intro,

1434
01:18:05,320 --> 01:18:07,919
Speaker 2: so he just he does the butanah, He quotes Takata

1435
01:18:07,920 --> 01:18:11,080
Speaker 2: and Fugue in D minor, the famous Phantom of the

1436
01:18:11,120 --> 01:18:15,280
Speaker 2: Opera bach piece, and then just goes nuts and then

1437
01:18:15,360 --> 01:18:17,879
Speaker 2: just riffs on it. And that eventually became a separate

1438
01:18:18,000 --> 01:18:22,960
Speaker 2: keyboard show piece called the Genetic Method that he would

1439
01:18:23,240 --> 01:18:26,000
Speaker 2: go up to like twenty minutes in concert on Rock

1440
01:18:26,040 --> 01:18:28,920
Speaker 2: of Ages. I think it's like fifteen minutes. They only

1441
01:18:28,920 --> 01:18:33,200
Speaker 2: show a snippet of it in Last Waltz. But yeah,

1442
01:18:33,240 --> 01:18:38,000
Speaker 2: and just such an incredible probably the best pure musician

1443
01:18:38,280 --> 01:18:39,400
Speaker 2: in the Yeah.

1444
01:18:40,000 --> 01:18:46,320
Speaker 1: By a mile. You know. I said I was done bashion, Robbie.

1445
01:18:46,360 --> 01:18:47,759
Speaker 1: I'm not done passion, Robbie.

1446
01:18:48,680 --> 01:18:50,639
Speaker 2: They all talked about how they would be sitting around

1447
01:18:50,640 --> 01:18:51,599
Speaker 2: and Robbie would be like.

1448
01:18:51,520 --> 01:18:53,280
Speaker 1: Oh, you know, what should we do there?

1449
01:18:53,280 --> 01:18:54,960
Speaker 2: What should I do? You know, what should I do here?

1450
01:18:55,000 --> 01:18:56,519
Speaker 2: What should I do there? And Garth would be like

1451
01:18:56,760 --> 01:18:59,839
Speaker 2: try this. Try that doesn't come across in the credits,

1452
01:19:00,080 --> 01:19:04,920
Speaker 2: you know, or voicing chords different ways, so you know,

1453
01:19:05,240 --> 01:19:06,880
Speaker 2: just a real and he played sacks too.

1454
01:19:07,160 --> 01:19:08,960
Speaker 1: I love his gotty plait secks.

1455
01:19:09,720 --> 01:19:14,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's the what's the Uh? It makes no difference.

1456
01:19:14,360 --> 01:19:16,720
Speaker 2: And it makes no difference that he takes a little soul.

1457
01:19:16,880 --> 01:19:21,600
Speaker 2: It's really really pretty stuff. I'm last waltz, makes no difference.

1458
01:19:25,800 --> 01:19:28,760
Speaker 2: Got that song so good? Sorry what were you talking about?

1459
01:19:29,200 --> 01:19:29,320
Speaker 1: Uh?

1460
01:19:29,320 --> 01:19:31,240
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you go go ahead.

1461
01:19:31,520 --> 01:19:33,320
Speaker 1: So he was a few years older than the other

1462
01:19:33,360 --> 01:19:35,679
Speaker 1: guys in the band, and he had a classical background,

1463
01:19:36,040 --> 01:19:38,640
Speaker 1: and he supposedly would only join the Hawks in the

1464
01:19:38,640 --> 01:19:40,640
Speaker 1: early days and they were backing Ronnie Hopkins in the

1465
01:19:40,680 --> 01:19:43,439
Speaker 1: early sixties if they agreed to pay him a ten

1466
01:19:43,520 --> 01:19:47,400
Speaker 1: dollars a week retainer as the music tutor for the group.

1467
01:19:47,840 --> 01:19:50,839
Speaker 1: And this was apparently in an effort to satisfy his parents,

1468
01:19:50,880 --> 01:19:53,479
Speaker 1: who were annoyed that he'd thrown away his music education

1469
01:19:53,560 --> 01:19:56,439
Speaker 1: to runoff of the rock bands, which I love.

1470
01:19:57,560 --> 01:20:00,800
Speaker 2: He also another great He was a apparently a head

1471
01:20:00,840 --> 01:20:03,000
Speaker 2: of a negotiator because when he joined the Hawks, he

1472
01:20:03,120 --> 01:20:04,920
Speaker 2: was like, I'll do it if you buy me an organ,

1473
01:20:07,160 --> 01:20:09,360
Speaker 2: and he's in. He's notable if you're a nerd like

1474
01:20:09,400 --> 01:20:12,040
Speaker 2: we are, because he was one of the few keyboards

1475
01:20:12,080 --> 01:20:14,400
Speaker 2: in the mid sixties to not use the Hammond organ.

1476
01:20:14,479 --> 01:20:18,680
Speaker 2: He used the Lowry and you know, one of the

1477
01:20:18,720 --> 01:20:20,760
Speaker 2: craziest things that that had at the point was a

1478
01:20:20,760 --> 01:20:25,160
Speaker 2: pitch wheel which lets you microtonally bend notes. The Hammond

1479
01:20:25,160 --> 01:20:27,439
Speaker 2: didn't let you do that. So some of the weird

1480
01:20:28,400 --> 01:20:30,960
Speaker 2: synthy sounds on the band records are him with the

1481
01:20:31,000 --> 01:20:32,559
Speaker 2: Lowry organ's pitch wheel.

1482
01:20:33,640 --> 01:20:35,839
Speaker 1: And yeah, like you mentioned, he was the band's resident

1483
01:20:35,920 --> 01:20:38,479
Speaker 1: gear head, and he tricked out this Lowry organ with

1484
01:20:38,520 --> 01:20:42,000
Speaker 1: a whole variety of custom effects, including a wah wah

1485
01:20:42,120 --> 01:20:46,519
Speaker 1: pedal and an early two speed rotating Leslie speaker cabinet,

1486
01:20:46,760 --> 01:20:49,600
Speaker 1: which could you describe that just gives it kind of

1487
01:20:49,600 --> 01:20:52,160
Speaker 1: a washy wooshy sound, very sound.

1488
01:20:53,280 --> 01:20:57,080
Speaker 2: The Leslie is is it's two speakers that are mounted

1489
01:20:57,439 --> 01:21:00,479
Speaker 2: sort of back to back and they it's spin on

1490
01:21:00,560 --> 01:21:08,479
Speaker 2: an axis in a giant cabinet signs to piece of equipment. Yeah,

1491
01:21:08,479 --> 01:21:15,200
Speaker 2: and it gives that washy, kind of washy, washy wushy yeah.

1492
01:21:15,200 --> 01:21:17,320
Speaker 2: And so much of the of the organ sound is

1493
01:21:17,439 --> 01:21:19,960
Speaker 2: you can change the speed of it to change that

1494
01:21:20,880 --> 01:21:24,040
Speaker 2: spinning quality. But that's not even I mean just the ridiculous.

1495
01:21:24,320 --> 01:21:26,080
Speaker 2: He would also put on the songs.

1496
01:21:26,960 --> 01:21:28,360
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean he was the one who was really

1497
01:21:28,400 --> 01:21:31,439
Speaker 1: responsible for cobbling together a home studio in the basement,

1498
01:21:31,479 --> 01:21:34,360
Speaker 1: a Big Pink out of basically electronic odds and ends.

1499
01:21:34,880 --> 01:21:37,559
Speaker 1: And he was the one who after everybody went home

1500
01:21:37,600 --> 01:21:39,960
Speaker 1: after a session, would stay behind in the studio and

1501
01:21:40,240 --> 01:21:43,160
Speaker 1: try to sweeten the tracks, which led to the band

1502
01:21:43,400 --> 01:21:47,639
Speaker 1: referring to him privately as hb or honey boy because

1503
01:21:47,680 --> 01:21:51,439
Speaker 1: he was standing behind sweetening the tracks, which I love

1504
01:21:51,880 --> 01:21:55,360
Speaker 1: is stacking up chords, putting on brass, woodwinds, whatever was

1505
01:21:55,439 --> 01:21:59,519
Speaker 1: needed to make the music sing, as Levan said, and

1506
01:22:00,000 --> 01:22:02,519
Speaker 1: one of the most unique experiments that he undertook during

1507
01:22:02,560 --> 01:22:04,879
Speaker 1: sessions for Big Pink can be heard on this Wheels

1508
01:22:04,920 --> 01:22:07,599
Speaker 1: on Fire, one of my favorite tracks of the album

1509
01:22:07,640 --> 01:22:11,120
Speaker 1: of Rick dank Otoon put to Bob Dylan's lyrics. Garth

1510
01:22:11,200 --> 01:22:15,880
Speaker 1: created that really weird staccato keyboard effect by hooking up

1511
01:22:15,920 --> 01:22:19,439
Speaker 1: his electric piano to an old telegraph key that he

1512
01:22:19,520 --> 01:22:22,720
Speaker 1: purchased from an Army Navy surplus store, and he by

1513
01:22:22,800 --> 01:22:25,519
Speaker 1: manipulating the on off signal on this he was able

1514
01:22:25,560 --> 01:22:31,240
Speaker 1: to create this very percussive morse code like sound. Yeah.

1515
01:22:31,280 --> 01:22:32,840
Speaker 2: I mean the other big thing for him is the

1516
01:22:33,320 --> 01:22:41,120
Speaker 2: in Cripple Creek that in the post chorus. Thing is

1517
01:22:41,800 --> 01:22:43,759
Speaker 2: that's a clavinet ah.

1518
01:22:44,680 --> 01:22:47,240
Speaker 1: Years before Stevie wonder Wow exactly.

1519
01:22:47,439 --> 01:22:51,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's it's supposed to sound like a jawhart

1520
01:22:51,760 --> 01:22:56,280
Speaker 2: the I always assumed it was. Yeah, Yeah, And I

1521
01:22:56,320 --> 01:22:59,360
Speaker 2: think that was something that he kind of put together himself.

1522
01:23:00,080 --> 01:23:03,679
Speaker 2: He had two wah pedals that he had on the

1523
01:23:03,720 --> 01:23:06,160
Speaker 2: console of the keyboard so he could manipulate it with

1524
01:23:06,160 --> 01:23:08,120
Speaker 2: his hand rather than his feet, and so he would

1525
01:23:08,160 --> 01:23:11,200
Speaker 2: just play it with one hand and use the pedals

1526
01:23:11,280 --> 01:23:15,360
Speaker 2: with his other hand. Just a genius, you know, one

1527
01:23:15,400 --> 01:23:16,280
Speaker 2: hell of a beard.

1528
01:23:16,800 --> 01:23:20,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. And he apparently also built a guitar amp.

1529
01:23:21,280 --> 01:23:25,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, they talk about the guitar tone

1530
01:23:25,040 --> 01:23:29,360
Speaker 2: on the on some of the pink stuff. The only

1531
01:23:29,400 --> 01:23:31,760
Speaker 2: thing that I've been able to ask that I keep reading.

1532
01:23:31,880 --> 01:23:34,880
Speaker 2: They call it the black box that Garth built. So

1533
01:23:34,960 --> 01:23:36,719
Speaker 2: my bed is that it's some kind of a speaker

1534
01:23:36,760 --> 01:23:40,559
Speaker 2: cabinet that was supposed to be a kind of Leslie ripoff,

1535
01:23:40,680 --> 01:23:42,519
Speaker 2: and maybe a pre amp in there of some kind,

1536
01:23:42,560 --> 01:23:45,439
Speaker 2: but just again something he cobbled together and then they

1537
01:23:45,479 --> 01:23:48,599
Speaker 2: put Robbie's guitar through it for Tiers of Rage.

1538
01:23:49,000 --> 01:23:52,320
Speaker 1: No pictures of it.

1539
01:23:51,400 --> 01:23:56,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, trust me, I looked for it.

1540
01:23:55,760 --> 01:23:58,040
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of tears of rage, and then you got

1541
01:23:58,080 --> 01:24:00,599
Speaker 1: a lot to say about tiers of rage, especially our

1542
01:24:00,600 --> 01:24:02,200
Speaker 1: beloved Richard Manuel.

1543
01:24:02,400 --> 01:24:04,440
Speaker 2: Richard Manuell Man, I mean that falsetto?

1544
01:24:05,840 --> 01:24:08,800
Speaker 1: Is it? Eric Clapton who said he sounds like he

1545
01:24:08,840 --> 01:24:12,080
Speaker 1: has a tear in his voice. I think it was

1546
01:24:12,120 --> 01:24:15,559
Speaker 1: like holy mad man, I believe was the Yeah. And

1547
01:24:16,040 --> 01:24:19,240
Speaker 1: his wife was his second wife. Wife was married to

1548
01:24:19,320 --> 01:24:21,920
Speaker 1: him when he died, said that his voice sounded like

1549
01:24:21,960 --> 01:24:24,439
Speaker 1: a hug. Yeah.

1550
01:24:24,479 --> 01:24:27,400
Speaker 2: And he you know, everyone compared it to Ray Charros.

1551
01:24:27,439 --> 01:24:29,000
Speaker 2: I think, doesn't he do? George on my mind on

1552
01:24:29,040 --> 01:24:30,639
Speaker 2: one of the records. It was just like a live

1553
01:24:30,680 --> 01:24:33,800
Speaker 2: thing that he's done. Yeah, but you know, a great

1554
01:24:33,880 --> 01:24:36,519
Speaker 2: keyboardist player too. One of the things in Wheels on

1555
01:24:36,560 --> 01:24:40,599
Speaker 2: Fire that Levon talks about is is how the piano

1556
01:24:40,680 --> 01:24:43,280
Speaker 2: was a rhythm instrument in those early bands because the

1557
01:24:43,280 --> 01:24:45,800
Speaker 2: only thing that could get above the sound of the

1558
01:24:45,880 --> 01:24:50,120
Speaker 2: din of everything else was a sax guitar or organ.

1559
01:24:50,600 --> 01:24:53,280
Speaker 2: So the piano was I don't they didn't have a

1560
01:24:53,320 --> 01:24:56,160
Speaker 2: sophisticated pa at that point, so the piano was rarely miked,

1561
01:24:56,240 --> 01:24:59,679
Speaker 2: So Richard in the Hawks was just doing a piano.

1562
01:24:59,800 --> 01:25:01,680
Speaker 2: But then he would come out on stage and do

1563
01:25:01,720 --> 01:25:04,240
Speaker 2: all of these ballads in that falsetto voice. They would

1564
01:25:04,240 --> 01:25:06,519
Speaker 2: do these Ray Charles tunes and he could just bring

1565
01:25:06,640 --> 01:25:10,400
Speaker 2: down the house with it. He's also a drummer, you know,

1566
01:25:10,760 --> 01:25:14,000
Speaker 2: he became the band's drummer when they didn't have Levon.

1567
01:25:14,240 --> 01:25:16,679
Speaker 2: He's drumming a lot of those original demos, and he's

1568
01:25:16,680 --> 01:25:21,439
Speaker 2: also drumming on Ragmama Rag because Levon's playing mandolin, I believe,

1569
01:25:21,560 --> 01:25:26,599
Speaker 2: and his drum feel is wacky, but it's great. Suits

1570
01:25:26,640 --> 01:25:31,920
Speaker 2: them well. And he also has my favorite joke in

1571
01:25:32,040 --> 01:25:37,120
Speaker 2: Last Waltz when they're all talking about groupies and the

1572
01:25:37,520 --> 01:25:40,639
Speaker 2: relationships that they've had on the road. Richard just Richard goes,

1573
01:25:40,680 --> 01:25:44,720
Speaker 2: he cracks I'm just trying to break even, which is

1574
01:25:44,720 --> 01:25:46,599
Speaker 2: one of those you'll get that on the way home

1575
01:25:46,760 --> 01:25:49,600
Speaker 2: jokes like it just when the first time I saw it,

1576
01:25:49,600 --> 01:25:49,840
Speaker 2: I was.

1577
01:25:49,800 --> 01:25:58,920
Speaker 1: Like, what does he mean? Oh? Also dated the woman

1578
01:25:59,120 --> 01:26:03,200
Speaker 1: who was charged with the involuntary manslaughter of John Belushi.

1579
01:26:03,439 --> 01:26:06,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a lot of darkness in Richard. Yeah, shape

1580
01:26:06,760 --> 01:26:11,679
Speaker 2: I'm In was an autobiographal autobiographical song about him.

1581
01:26:12,040 --> 01:26:14,719
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, my god.

1582
01:26:14,760 --> 01:26:17,599
Speaker 2: When they in the Last Walls, when they're like they're

1583
01:26:17,640 --> 01:26:19,880
Speaker 2: playing the intro of that song and the spotlight hits

1584
01:26:19,960 --> 01:26:20,639
Speaker 2: him and he's just.

1585
01:26:20,560 --> 01:26:26,680
Speaker 1: Like, ah, it's so so rough. That's so rough. He

1586
01:26:26,720 --> 01:26:30,400
Speaker 1: looks like a skeleton. Wait, there's a description of him.

1587
01:26:30,720 --> 01:26:32,520
Speaker 1: It's sad too, because his voice.

1588
01:26:32,280 --> 01:26:34,280
Speaker 2: Was really out of shape by that point, from just

1589
01:26:34,560 --> 01:26:38,599
Speaker 2: from drinking and coke, and so his falsetto was really

1590
01:26:38,640 --> 01:26:39,840
Speaker 2: not the best shape for it.

1591
01:26:40,920 --> 01:26:43,360
Speaker 1: Richard was thin, but drank like a fish, with a

1592
01:26:43,360 --> 01:26:46,759
Speaker 1: fish's distended belly and a fish's pension for being eaten

1593
01:26:46,800 --> 01:26:49,920
Speaker 1: by sharks. When he vacated his Malibu beach house in

1594
01:26:50,000 --> 01:26:54,040
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, they found two thousand empty Grand Monnier bottles.

1595
01:26:54,360 --> 01:26:57,040
Speaker 1: He had to take Placidyl, a potent downer, in order

1596
01:26:57,080 --> 01:26:59,680
Speaker 1: to sleep naked. He looked as if his liver were

1597
01:26:59,720 --> 01:27:02,600
Speaker 1: bald out of his abdomen. He was so saturated with

1598
01:27:02,640 --> 01:27:05,839
Speaker 1: alcohol that even his skin seemed to sag off his bones.

1599
01:27:06,439 --> 01:27:10,440
Speaker 1: That is by Martin Levin from the Canadian magazine Toronto

1600
01:27:10,600 --> 01:27:14,240
Speaker 1: Life in March nineteen ninety six article The Lonesome Death

1601
01:27:14,680 --> 01:27:18,200
Speaker 1: of Richard Manuel. Oh, that article's rough. Yeah, I remember

1602
01:27:18,240 --> 01:27:22,040
Speaker 1: that one. I didn't. Yeah, it's real, real bad. Where

1603
01:27:22,080 --> 01:27:23,519
Speaker 1: are we going? Get us out of here? Where are

1604
01:27:23,520 --> 01:27:27,439
Speaker 1: we know? Jesus Christ speaking of speaking of.

1605
01:27:27,439 --> 01:27:30,559
Speaker 2: Nudity, jes.

1606
01:27:32,080 --> 01:27:36,280
Speaker 1: Yes, Well, the whole arrangement of Big Pink bucked trends

1607
01:27:36,280 --> 01:27:38,439
Speaker 1: at this time, and this was even the case sonically.

1608
01:27:38,760 --> 01:27:41,760
Speaker 1: The album opens with Tears of Rage, which is this

1609
01:27:42,800 --> 01:27:46,880
Speaker 1: gently soulful ballad. I mean, it's a beautiful song, but

1610
01:27:46,920 --> 01:27:51,799
Speaker 1: it's not exactly like the traditional explosive album opener.

1611
01:27:52,120 --> 01:27:54,840
Speaker 2: It's anything. It's just a it's a completely counterintuitive it's

1612
01:27:54,840 --> 01:27:58,719
Speaker 2: a dirge. You know, more than one person has compared

1613
01:27:58,720 --> 01:28:01,280
Speaker 2: it to She's Leaving Home, because it was the sort

1614
01:28:01,320 --> 01:28:04,360
Speaker 2: of the rare rock song of the time that sympathized

1615
01:28:04,400 --> 01:28:08,080
Speaker 2: with the parent being distraught over their wayward child.

1616
01:28:08,439 --> 01:28:10,080
Speaker 1: Well, that's you know what. I was gonna talk about

1617
01:28:10,080 --> 01:28:11,519
Speaker 1: this later, but this is a good point for that.

1618
01:28:11,600 --> 01:28:15,320
Speaker 1: I mean, they used that whole mentality of rebelling against

1619
01:28:15,320 --> 01:28:18,200
Speaker 1: the rebellion as part of the design on the album

1620
01:28:18,200 --> 01:28:21,800
Speaker 1: cover and the inner sleeve. You've got I think three

1621
01:28:21,800 --> 01:28:25,559
Speaker 1: members of the band I think Rick, Richard and Garth maybe.

1622
01:28:25,880 --> 01:28:28,280
Speaker 1: I think it was those three posing with their parents

1623
01:28:28,360 --> 01:28:30,000
Speaker 1: up in Canada and.

1624
01:28:30,000 --> 01:28:36,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, Leons couldn't make it, so they they overdubbed the Yeah,

1625
01:28:36,600 --> 01:28:38,680
Speaker 2: it's so funny how they were dressing at that time too.

1626
01:28:38,680 --> 01:28:40,360
Speaker 2: I think it's in Across the Great Divi where he

1627
01:28:40,400 --> 01:28:45,120
Speaker 2: talks about Freakin' Robbie was driving his Jaguar from from

1628
01:28:45,200 --> 01:28:47,759
Speaker 2: Woodstock to New York and got pulled over for speeding

1629
01:28:47,800 --> 01:28:50,080
Speaker 2: and the cop was like, all right, Rabbi, I'll let

1630
01:28:50,120 --> 01:28:51,639
Speaker 2: you off of the warning this time.

1631
01:28:55,240 --> 01:28:57,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Capitol. When they were putting this album together,

1632
01:28:57,680 --> 01:28:59,719
Speaker 1: they wanted the band to you know, get a slick

1633
01:28:59,720 --> 01:29:03,400
Speaker 1: cover portrait, and instead, Robbie had become fascinated by a

1634
01:29:03,400 --> 01:29:07,679
Speaker 1: book of nineteenth century photographs depicting grim faced laborers from

1635
01:29:07,720 --> 01:29:11,880
Speaker 1: the Western Frontier walked in rigid poses because back then,

1636
01:29:11,920 --> 01:29:14,920
Speaker 1: you know, took thirty seconds or something to get like

1637
01:29:15,280 --> 01:29:19,000
Speaker 1: a single shot. So everybody stood stock still so that

1638
01:29:19,000 --> 01:29:22,519
Speaker 1: they wouldn't screw up the exposure. And they decided to

1639
01:29:22,520 --> 01:29:25,760
Speaker 1: take a group portrait that your inspiration from that, and

1640
01:29:26,120 --> 01:29:30,479
Speaker 1: they also chose the least glamorous photographer they could find

1641
01:29:30,560 --> 01:29:34,519
Speaker 1: a man named Elliot Landy, who worked at the time

1642
01:29:34,600 --> 01:29:38,320
Speaker 1: for the very ragged underground paper Rat, which I'm not

1643
01:29:38,360 --> 01:29:41,680
Speaker 1: super familiar with, but the name is evocative enough, and

1644
01:29:41,800 --> 01:29:46,160
Speaker 1: I believe our former bandmate his aunt worked for him.

1645
01:29:46,320 --> 01:29:50,160
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Yeah, but what stuck? Yeah?

1646
01:29:50,240 --> 01:29:54,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. People were telling us about the best photographer, so

1647
01:29:54,200 --> 01:29:56,519
Speaker 2: I asked who was the worst photographer in New York.

1648
01:29:56,760 --> 01:30:00,040
Speaker 2: Robertson told Barney Hoskins. Someone said, there's this guy, the

1649
01:30:00,080 --> 01:30:02,720
Speaker 2: staff photographer for Rat magazine. I don't know if he's

1650
01:30:02,760 --> 01:30:04,680
Speaker 2: the worst, but he works for this magazine, which is

1651
01:30:04,760 --> 01:30:05,960
Speaker 2: unquestionably the worst.

1652
01:30:06,200 --> 01:30:09,880
Speaker 1: Landy, the photographer, actually cross paths with the band's organization

1653
01:30:10,040 --> 01:30:13,120
Speaker 1: when they were backing Bob Dylan at his concert at

1654
01:30:13,120 --> 01:30:16,920
Speaker 1: Carnegie Hall in January nineteen sixty eight, when Dylan's manager,

1655
01:30:16,960 --> 01:30:21,280
Speaker 1: Albert Grossman literally escorted him out of the theater for

1656
01:30:21,360 --> 01:30:27,200
Speaker 1: taking unauthorized photos during the concerts. But despite this, he

1657
01:30:27,240 --> 01:30:30,439
Speaker 1: and Robbie Robertson became friendly, and in late April nineteen

1658
01:30:30,479 --> 01:30:32,880
Speaker 1: sixty eight, the band asked him to take a group

1659
01:30:32,880 --> 01:30:36,000
Speaker 1: shot for the album cover for the album art at

1660
01:30:36,040 --> 01:30:38,840
Speaker 1: least not the cover at the Bearsville Home or Levon

1661
01:30:38,960 --> 01:30:42,080
Speaker 1: and Rick Danko had moved after leaving Big Pink, and

1662
01:30:42,120 --> 01:30:45,679
Speaker 1: they all donned period hats and vests and string ties

1663
01:30:45,800 --> 01:30:48,320
Speaker 1: and you know, like you said, not very dissimilar to

1664
01:30:48,360 --> 01:30:51,600
Speaker 1: their everyday attire. And they trooped out to a grasshill

1665
01:30:51,720 --> 01:30:55,120
Speaker 1: to recreate an old fashioned derrego type. Does any say

1666
01:30:55,120 --> 01:31:01,200
Speaker 1: that Garrett French derro typepe Dugueryo type, the aristocra, Yeah,

1667
01:31:01,240 --> 01:31:05,760
Speaker 1: that one. Landy later explained. I told them that in

1668
01:31:05,800 --> 01:31:08,240
Speaker 1: those days, film was very slow, and people had to

1669
01:31:08,280 --> 01:31:11,400
Speaker 1: stand very still. You were pose, You took a deep

1670
01:31:11,439 --> 01:31:14,320
Speaker 1: breath and you didn't move. And the band did their

1671
01:31:14,320 --> 01:31:18,080
Speaker 1: best to maintain their stern expressions, but this was made

1672
01:31:18,080 --> 01:31:22,360
Speaker 1: difficult by naked people. Heichel tell us about the naked people.

1673
01:31:24,280 --> 01:31:28,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, friend of the pod, naked, friend of the pod, nudity.

1674
01:31:29,160 --> 01:31:31,280
Speaker 2: The band did their best to maintain their stern and

1675
01:31:31,360 --> 01:31:36,080
Speaker 2: dour countenances, but there was a naked hippie couple dancing

1676
01:31:36,200 --> 01:31:42,479
Speaker 2: behind the photographer, friends of Garth's. Unusually enough, yeah, Levon wrote,

1677
01:31:42,520 --> 01:31:45,000
Speaker 2: and this wheels on fire. While the photographer was focusing

1678
01:31:45,040 --> 01:31:47,200
Speaker 2: his camera, the young wife of a friend of Garth's

1679
01:31:47,240 --> 01:31:50,160
Speaker 2: was dancing behind Landy, trying to make a smile. As

1680
01:31:50,160 --> 01:31:52,679
Speaker 2: he snapped the first shot, she tore off her dress

1681
01:31:52,760 --> 01:31:55,559
Speaker 2: and did a naked little grind. So there we were

1682
01:31:55,640 --> 01:31:57,560
Speaker 2: trying to be cool in the face of this outrageous

1683
01:31:57,600 --> 01:32:00,200
Speaker 2: hippie dance. I think that's the shot we ended up using.

1684
01:32:00,800 --> 01:32:04,640
Speaker 2: It's like on the second album, the Brown album, that

1685
01:32:05,160 --> 01:32:06,840
Speaker 2: photo of them on the cover and they all looked

1686
01:32:07,520 --> 01:32:12,440
Speaker 2: miserable because it was just raining. Yeah.

1687
01:32:12,560 --> 01:32:14,880
Speaker 1: I think was also landy. I think so. Yeah. It

1688
01:32:14,920 --> 01:32:19,000
Speaker 1: looks like the artwork on the album, despite getting the

1689
01:32:19,840 --> 01:32:24,040
Speaker 1: self proclaimed worst photographer in New York, has quite the pedigree.

1690
01:32:24,880 --> 01:32:27,439
Speaker 1: The cover featured a painting by Bob Dylan, which I

1691
01:32:27,439 --> 01:32:30,559
Speaker 1: didn't realize until recently, featuring six musicians which a lot

1692
01:32:30,560 --> 01:32:32,559
Speaker 1: of people think are the five members of the band

1693
01:32:32,600 --> 01:32:36,559
Speaker 1: and himself, a roadie who I don't know who that is,

1694
01:32:36,600 --> 01:32:39,200
Speaker 1: and an elephant who I'm going to guess is Albert Grossman.

1695
01:32:41,040 --> 01:32:44,000
Speaker 1: And the sleeve design itself was done by a man

1696
01:32:44,080 --> 01:32:48,679
Speaker 1: named Milton Glazer, who later designed the iHeart New York graphic,

1697
01:32:49,320 --> 01:32:52,759
Speaker 1: and he'd gained notoriety in the band's circle for creating

1698
01:32:52,760 --> 01:32:55,880
Speaker 1: the colorful poster of Bob Dylan found in Dylan's Greatest

1699
01:32:55,960 --> 01:32:59,200
Speaker 1: hits album the previous year. It's very famous. It's his

1700
01:32:59,320 --> 01:33:01,400
Speaker 1: hair and all the curls are a different color, and

1701
01:33:01,439 --> 01:33:03,960
Speaker 1: he looks like a kind of it's like a gumball machine,

1702
01:33:04,000 --> 01:33:09,280
Speaker 1: which I'm into in a sense. Milton Glazer actually sparked

1703
01:33:09,400 --> 01:33:12,400
Speaker 1: this entire project because I read that he was actually

1704
01:33:12,479 --> 01:33:14,840
Speaker 1: the one who first took Albert Grossman up to visit

1705
01:33:14,840 --> 01:33:18,800
Speaker 1: Woodstock in the early sixties, and then Bob Dylan, his client,

1706
01:33:18,840 --> 01:33:20,519
Speaker 1: would come up and visit him a lot. He fell

1707
01:33:20,520 --> 01:33:22,080
Speaker 1: in love with the area, and then he bought a

1708
01:33:22,080 --> 01:33:25,799
Speaker 1: place up there, which led to the whole musical influx

1709
01:33:25,840 --> 01:33:28,080
Speaker 1: that followed, or at least led to the whole Big

1710
01:33:28,120 --> 01:33:31,439
Speaker 1: Pink project, and Glazer still lived near the band up

1711
01:33:31,479 --> 01:33:34,120
Speaker 1: in Woodstock when Robbie Robertson sought him out to design

1712
01:33:34,200 --> 01:33:38,439
Speaker 1: the cover for the group's debut, using Dylan's painting Landy's

1713
01:33:38,439 --> 01:33:41,519
Speaker 1: Mountain view portrait and the next of kin photo of

1714
01:33:41,560 --> 01:33:44,000
Speaker 1: the band members with their families. Robbie wrote in his

1715
01:33:44,040 --> 01:33:46,519
Speaker 1: memoir Testimony, I told him we were thinking of going

1716
01:33:46,560 --> 01:33:49,719
Speaker 1: with the album title music from Big Pink. Milton said,

1717
01:33:49,760 --> 01:33:52,880
Speaker 1: what's Big Pink? I told him about our clubhouse where

1718
01:33:52,920 --> 01:33:55,639
Speaker 1: the music we were making had originated. Can I get

1719
01:33:55,640 --> 01:33:58,240
Speaker 1: a photo of that house? He asked, so we understand

1720
01:33:58,240 --> 01:34:01,519
Speaker 1: what Big Pink is. I said, it's really kind of

1721
01:34:01,600 --> 01:34:04,920
Speaker 1: ugly and the house is pink. That's okay, said Milt,

1722
01:34:05,080 --> 01:34:08,240
Speaker 1: It may be good. What about the group's name. We

1723
01:34:08,320 --> 01:34:10,960
Speaker 1: don't have a fancy name. We're just called the band

1724
01:34:11,439 --> 01:34:14,599
Speaker 1: and yeah, adding to that very nondescript name, The bands

1725
01:34:14,640 --> 01:34:17,599
Speaker 1: were pretty much an enigma. When music from Big Pink

1726
01:34:17,680 --> 01:34:21,400
Speaker 1: was released on July first, nineteen sixty eight, they more

1727
01:34:21,479 --> 01:34:24,599
Speaker 1: or less refused to give interviews, which could have very

1728
01:34:24,640 --> 01:34:28,680
Speaker 1: easily doomed the band commercially, but instead, the refusal to

1729
01:34:28,680 --> 01:34:31,360
Speaker 1: play the whole promo game made them seem more real

1730
01:34:31,479 --> 01:34:34,519
Speaker 1: and authentic and enhance their musical purity in the eyes

1731
01:34:34,560 --> 01:34:37,240
Speaker 1: of the public and Albert Grossman. He was kind of

1732
01:34:37,280 --> 01:34:41,120
Speaker 1: famous for persuading his artists to remain silent in order

1733
01:34:41,160 --> 01:34:43,960
Speaker 1: to cultivate mystique. He did that with Bob Dylan a lot,

1734
01:34:44,240 --> 01:34:47,679
Speaker 1: but the band's disinterest in show business glitz was pretty

1735
01:34:47,720 --> 01:34:51,479
Speaker 1: much genuine. Levon wrote in his memoir our policy was

1736
01:34:51,520 --> 01:34:54,320
Speaker 1: not the tour if we could help it, The policy

1737
01:34:54,400 --> 01:34:57,120
Speaker 1: was to keep making music using the methods and work habits,

1738
01:34:57,120 --> 01:34:59,559
Speaker 1: so that had kept us productive throughout the basement tapes

1739
01:34:59,560 --> 01:35:02,519
Speaker 1: and Big In era. We didn't care about being stars.

1740
01:35:02,760 --> 01:35:05,920
Speaker 1: We just wanted to survive with our integrity, and.

1741
01:35:05,880 --> 01:35:07,640
Speaker 2: This mystique was also helped by the fact that they

1742
01:35:07,640 --> 01:35:10,400
Speaker 2: didn't tour for a time. According to Levon, this wasn't

1743
01:35:10,400 --> 01:35:12,559
Speaker 2: because they didn't feel like it, but because Richard Manuel

1744
01:35:12,760 --> 01:35:17,760
Speaker 2: grilled himself or seared himself an accident that happened at

1745
01:35:17,760 --> 01:35:20,160
Speaker 2: home Michael Scott's style.

1746
01:35:20,600 --> 01:35:21,080
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1747
01:35:21,200 --> 01:35:23,680
Speaker 2: The house had a nice view of the Ashokan Reservoir

1748
01:35:23,760 --> 01:35:26,120
Speaker 2: and a barbecue grill which Richard tried to fire up

1749
01:35:26,160 --> 01:35:28,960
Speaker 2: one day by building a gasoline fire in the bottom.

1750
01:35:29,080 --> 01:35:31,920
Speaker 2: Hudson recalled Manuel pouring some lighter fluid in it. The

1751
01:35:31,960 --> 01:35:34,880
Speaker 2: thing exploded and the flame shot out and burned his ankle.

1752
01:35:35,400 --> 01:35:37,960
Speaker 2: According to Helm, the pit turned into a bomb and

1753
01:35:37,960 --> 01:35:40,439
Speaker 2: he ended up grilling the top of his foot third

1754
01:35:40,479 --> 01:35:45,000
Speaker 2: degree burns. So Richard couldn't work for two months, and

1755
01:35:45,040 --> 01:35:47,360
Speaker 2: that was another reason why they didn't tour. Behind Big Pink,

1756
01:35:48,200 --> 01:35:51,599
Speaker 2: there were some truly harrowing moments that the band got

1757
01:35:51,600 --> 01:35:57,040
Speaker 2: themselves into in Woodstock. Mostly just vehicles, Yeah, pretty much

1758
01:35:57,120 --> 01:36:01,680
Speaker 2: just cars. Really Helm injured himself riding a motorcycle, and

1759
01:36:02,040 --> 01:36:05,240
Speaker 2: Danko furnished an all time quote when he nearly died

1760
01:36:05,360 --> 01:36:08,719
Speaker 2: after wrapping his car around a tree because, in his words,

1761
01:36:09,000 --> 01:36:11,840
Speaker 2: he was a little too drunk, a little too high.

1762
01:36:12,360 --> 01:36:15,599
Speaker 2: He broke his neck and fractured his back in four places,

1763
01:36:16,040 --> 01:36:18,360
Speaker 2: confining him to a bed for three months. In like

1764
01:36:18,400 --> 01:36:19,080
Speaker 2: a halo.

1765
01:36:20,560 --> 01:36:20,760
Speaker 1: Thing.

1766
01:36:21,680 --> 01:36:23,680
Speaker 2: Halo brace, is that what they call it? I was

1767
01:36:24,120 --> 01:36:26,639
Speaker 2: in for weeks of traction, he said in this Wheels

1768
01:36:26,640 --> 01:36:28,719
Speaker 2: on Fire. I told Albert not to tell the press

1769
01:36:28,720 --> 01:36:31,080
Speaker 2: I'd had an accident and decided to suppress all my

1770
01:36:31,200 --> 01:36:34,320
Speaker 2: hyper instincts and lie perfectly still for the time it

1771
01:36:34,360 --> 01:36:37,080
Speaker 2: took my neck to heal. They wouldn't perform live as

1772
01:36:37,160 --> 01:36:39,960
Speaker 2: the band until April of nineteen sixty nine, making their

1773
01:36:40,000 --> 01:36:43,720
Speaker 2: debut at San Francisco's winter Land, also the venue for

1774
01:36:43,800 --> 01:36:47,120
Speaker 2: their final gig, The Last Waltz seven years later in

1775
01:36:47,160 --> 01:36:50,880
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six. Robbie got sick beforehand, and they had

1776
01:36:50,920 --> 01:36:53,759
Speaker 2: to hire a hypnotist to get him into performing shape,

1777
01:36:54,040 --> 01:36:56,679
Speaker 2: which the song stage Fright is at least personally about.

1778
01:36:56,920 --> 01:36:59,759
Speaker 2: They did not have lot a great success with live

1779
01:37:00,520 --> 01:37:04,040
Speaker 2: performances around this time. Famously they bombed at Woodstock, Right

1780
01:37:04,280 --> 01:37:06,240
Speaker 2: did they bombed? Were they just not recorded?

1781
01:37:06,479 --> 01:37:08,519
Speaker 1: I mean, speaking of all those car accidents, there was

1782
01:37:08,520 --> 01:37:11,200
Speaker 1: some quote from Robbie where he was like, I think

1783
01:37:11,240 --> 01:37:14,840
Speaker 1: his girlfriend was riding with one of the other guys

1784
01:37:14,880 --> 01:37:16,800
Speaker 1: in the band during one of them many times they

1785
01:37:16,840 --> 01:37:21,439
Speaker 1: crashed their car, and Robbie would say, yeah, it kind

1786
01:37:21,520 --> 01:37:24,760
Speaker 1: of pissed me off when like, they almost killed my girlfriend.

1787
01:37:25,160 --> 01:37:27,120
Speaker 1: So this is when you start to feel a little

1788
01:37:27,120 --> 01:37:30,000
Speaker 1: more like, oh, he's stuck with these guys who were

1789
01:37:30,560 --> 01:37:36,599
Speaker 1: struggling to the point of being, you know, not responsible people.

1790
01:37:37,200 --> 01:37:37,640
Speaker 1: I'm trying to.

1791
01:37:37,600 --> 01:37:40,680
Speaker 2: Figure out what exactly had happened at Woodstock.

1792
01:37:41,920 --> 01:37:42,439
Speaker 1: Well, they were.

1793
01:37:42,320 --> 01:37:47,280
Speaker 2: Between ten years after and Johnny Winter. Oh yeah, And

1794
01:37:47,600 --> 01:37:51,639
Speaker 2: what happened was Grossman didn't let the band Janis Joplin

1795
01:37:51,680 --> 01:37:53,360
Speaker 2: or Blood, Sweat and Tears be filmed.

1796
01:37:53,479 --> 01:37:56,600
Speaker 1: But there's footage of Janis, isn't there. Yeah, maybe he

1797
01:37:56,720 --> 01:38:00,639
Speaker 1: reversed course for uh Janice. Yeah. I would say I'd

1798
01:38:00,640 --> 01:38:03,160
Speaker 1: barely seen any footage of the band at Woodstock. Oh

1799
01:38:03,200 --> 01:38:07,040
Speaker 1: they look boring. And David Crosby would always say like,

1800
01:38:07,240 --> 01:38:09,880
Speaker 1: because Crosby, Stiels and Nash were playing, I think their

1801
01:38:09,960 --> 01:38:13,800
Speaker 1: second gig ever at Woodstock, and he was always saying like, yeah,

1802
01:38:13,800 --> 01:38:16,400
Speaker 1: we were really all that scared about the four hundred

1803
01:38:16,400 --> 01:38:18,559
Speaker 1: thousand people in front of us. We were scared about

1804
01:38:18,640 --> 01:38:22,720
Speaker 1: all of our peers behind us, especially the band. Did

1805
01:38:22,720 --> 01:38:25,439
Speaker 1: I mention the bands? And he was like, the band

1806
01:38:25,479 --> 01:38:27,040
Speaker 1: are the ones that really freaked him out that he

1807
01:38:27,080 --> 01:38:28,200
Speaker 1: had to perform from?

1808
01:38:28,720 --> 01:38:32,120
Speaker 2: Well, they went and overdubbed their voices after, right, did they?

1809
01:38:32,760 --> 01:38:35,160
Speaker 2: That's what Robbie just said in the.

1810
01:38:35,160 --> 01:38:37,200
Speaker 1: Book Crosby Stills A Nash.

1811
01:38:37,280 --> 01:38:40,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, our tapes were the best of any of the group,

1812
01:38:40,200 --> 01:38:42,479
Speaker 2: said Robbie, but we didn't like the setup and the

1813
01:38:42,479 --> 01:38:45,479
Speaker 2: album seemed pretty shoddy. Crosby Still's Nash Young had to

1814
01:38:45,479 --> 01:38:47,559
Speaker 2: go back into the studio and dub over their voices.

1815
01:38:48,479 --> 01:38:50,439
Speaker 1: Oh what a bitchy, what a prick?

1816
01:38:53,600 --> 01:38:56,080
Speaker 2: With the band essentially ghosts in the public eye, the

1817
01:38:56,080 --> 01:39:00,000
Speaker 2: PR team at Capitol did their best worst to come

1818
01:39:00,080 --> 01:39:02,800
Speaker 2: up with a series of ways to promote the album.

1819
01:39:02,840 --> 01:39:06,759
Speaker 2: God awful, man, the record industry. I have some friends

1820
01:39:06,760 --> 01:39:13,280
Speaker 2: in PR, but man, it was always terrible. It's terrible

1821
01:39:13,320 --> 01:39:15,639
Speaker 2: now when you try and make like Amy Man come

1822
01:39:15,720 --> 01:39:18,400
Speaker 2: up with a TikTok dance to promoter record, and it

1823
01:39:18,439 --> 01:39:23,000
Speaker 2: was terrible. Back then, they developed a series of contests,

1824
01:39:23,040 --> 01:39:25,280
Speaker 2: in Levon's opinion, that tried to market us like some

1825
01:39:25,439 --> 01:39:30,040
Speaker 2: teeny bopper group. A Big Pink Think campaign was proposed,

1826
01:39:30,120 --> 01:39:34,200
Speaker 2: inviting fans to quote name Dylan's cover painting. A fill

1827
01:39:34,240 --> 01:39:37,320
Speaker 2: in the blank competition was also pitched, inviting hopefuls to

1828
01:39:37,360 --> 01:39:40,479
Speaker 2: complete the sentence if I could be a big pink anything,

1829
01:39:40,680 --> 01:39:49,240
Speaker 2: I'd be a big pink blank, oh prizes would Prizes

1830
01:39:49,280 --> 01:39:52,640
Speaker 2: were to include pink lemonade, pink stuffed pandas, and a

1831
01:39:52,680 --> 01:39:56,679
Speaker 2: pink Yamaha motorbike. Can you imagine that contest hit the internet?

1832
01:39:56,720 --> 01:40:01,400
Speaker 2: Now you have everything ranging from like the entire Western

1833
01:40:01,520 --> 01:40:05,479
Speaker 2: canon of slang terms for Genitalia, to like, I'd be

1834
01:40:05,520 --> 01:40:11,679
Speaker 2: a big pink Holocaust survivor. They suggested getting an elephant

1835
01:40:11,760 --> 01:40:14,200
Speaker 2: painted pink in front of Tower Records in LA for

1836
01:40:14,240 --> 01:40:17,640
Speaker 2: the release of our record. A horrified Robertson recalled in testimony,

1837
01:40:17,960 --> 01:40:19,800
Speaker 2: Albert and I flew to Los Angeles to get on

1838
01:40:19,840 --> 01:40:23,200
Speaker 2: the same page with Capitol's new president, Stanley Gortakov, and

1839
01:40:23,240 --> 01:40:25,080
Speaker 2: to enlighten the company as to what Big Pink and

1840
01:40:25,120 --> 01:40:28,200
Speaker 2: the band represented. Which most certainly was not a Pink elephant,

1841
01:40:28,479 --> 01:40:32,360
Speaker 2: nor a name this band contest, which Capital had also suggested.

1842
01:40:32,600 --> 01:40:35,320
Speaker 1: But ultimately the band didn't need these corny gimmicks to

1843
01:40:35,360 --> 01:40:38,600
Speaker 1: be successful. Music from Big Pink caught the attention of

1844
01:40:38,640 --> 01:40:42,240
Speaker 1: the biggest names in music. Even the Beatles, whose studio

1845
01:40:42,280 --> 01:40:45,759
Speaker 1: Pyrotechnics on Sargent, Pepper and Revolver had provided a foil

1846
01:40:45,880 --> 01:40:48,880
Speaker 1: for the lo fi basement dwellers, took notice of their

1847
01:40:48,920 --> 01:40:52,600
Speaker 1: rootsy approach. Paul McCartney can be heard launching into an

1848
01:40:52,600 --> 01:40:55,519
Speaker 1: ad libbed version of take a Load Off, Fanny towards

1849
01:40:55,560 --> 01:40:58,040
Speaker 1: the end of the Beatles' promotional video for Hey Jude,

1850
01:40:58,120 --> 01:41:01,560
Speaker 1: during the not an off part, which was recorded that September,

1851
01:41:02,280 --> 01:41:05,120
Speaker 1: and George Harrison actually made a pilgrimage to see Dylan

1852
01:41:05,160 --> 01:41:07,320
Speaker 1: and the band on their home turf and the Catskills

1853
01:41:07,400 --> 01:41:10,880
Speaker 1: that fall in nineteen sixty eight, and you could make

1854
01:41:10,880 --> 01:41:13,360
Speaker 1: the argument that the stripped down White album bore the

1855
01:41:13,400 --> 01:41:15,920
Speaker 1: influence of Big Pink. But if you listened to the

1856
01:41:15,960 --> 01:41:18,559
Speaker 1: single Lady Madonna, which came out in February in nineteen

1857
01:41:18,600 --> 01:41:22,559
Speaker 1: sixty eight, or was recorded recorded in February nineteen sixty eight,

1858
01:41:23,360 --> 01:41:25,200
Speaker 1: it kind of seems like they were already head in

1859
01:41:25,240 --> 01:41:31,120
Speaker 1: that direction anyway, but still the band really crystallized it. Unfortunately,

1860
01:41:31,200 --> 01:41:34,160
Speaker 1: when it comes to discussing famous admirers of Big Pink,

1861
01:41:34,320 --> 01:41:38,880
Speaker 1: we have to talk about Eric Clapton. His fandom for

1862
01:41:38,960 --> 01:41:43,040
Speaker 1: the band was evangelical. He first discovered them via a

1863
01:41:43,160 --> 01:41:46,040
Speaker 1: bootleg tape when he was on a very unhappy summer

1864
01:41:46,080 --> 01:41:48,960
Speaker 1: tour with his then group Cream. He wrote in his

1865
01:41:49,000 --> 01:41:51,479
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven memoir, it stopped me in my

1866
01:41:51,680 --> 01:41:55,200
Speaker 1: tracks speaking about the bootleg, and it also highlighted all

1867
01:41:55,200 --> 01:41:58,280
Speaker 1: the problems I thought Cream had. Here was a band

1868
01:41:58,360 --> 01:42:03,479
Speaker 1: that was really doing it right, incorporating influences from country music, blues, jazz,

1869
01:42:03,520 --> 01:42:06,559
Speaker 1: and rock, and writing great songs. I couldn't help but

1870
01:42:06,600 --> 01:42:09,519
Speaker 1: compare them to us, which was stupid and futile. But

1871
01:42:09,560 --> 01:42:12,479
Speaker 1: I was frantically looking for a yardstick, and here it was.

1872
01:42:13,080 --> 01:42:15,600
Speaker 1: Listening to that album, as great as it was, just

1873
01:42:15,640 --> 01:42:18,520
Speaker 1: made me feel like we were stuck and I wanted out.

1874
01:42:18,720 --> 01:42:21,120
Speaker 1: And so that July, weeks after music from Big Pink

1875
01:42:21,240 --> 01:42:24,639
Speaker 1: was released, Clapton announced that Cream, which were then one

1876
01:42:24,680 --> 01:42:29,360
Speaker 1: of the biggest groups in the world, with disband when

1877
01:42:29,439 --> 01:42:31,880
Speaker 1: Robbie Robertson was informed of this. He said he had

1878
01:42:31,920 --> 01:42:35,519
Speaker 1: mixed emotions about his role in killing Cream. He said

1879
01:42:35,560 --> 01:42:38,000
Speaker 1: Big Pink had turned him around with its subtleties and

1880
01:42:38,080 --> 01:42:41,080
Speaker 1: laid back feeling that's him writing and his memoir testimony,

1881
01:42:41,640 --> 01:42:45,080
Speaker 1: Cream played with a much more bombastic approach, and Eric

1882
01:42:45,160 --> 01:42:48,400
Speaker 1: wanted a change. That was a huge compliment coming from him.

1883
01:42:48,600 --> 01:42:51,240
Speaker 1: But I liked some of Cream's songs, and I wasn't

1884
01:42:51,240 --> 01:42:54,120
Speaker 1: sure how I felt about our record being partially responsible

1885
01:42:54,120 --> 01:42:54,879
Speaker 1: for their demise.

1886
01:42:55,080 --> 01:42:56,439
Speaker 2: I think it was just because they got blown off

1887
01:42:56,439 --> 01:42:58,320
Speaker 2: the stage by the MC five when they came here

1888
01:42:58,360 --> 01:43:00,880
Speaker 2: to tour. Oh did they Yeah?

1889
01:43:01,479 --> 01:43:05,320
Speaker 1: WHOA? And when Eric Clapton inducted the band in the

1890
01:43:05,400 --> 01:43:07,240
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety four,

1891
01:43:07,560 --> 01:43:10,120
Speaker 1: he admitted on stage that he also took a pilgrimage

1892
01:43:10,160 --> 01:43:12,519
Speaker 1: to the Woodstock in a half hearted attempt to be

1893
01:43:12,600 --> 01:43:15,600
Speaker 1: welcomed into their ranks. He said, I really sort of

1894
01:43:15,640 --> 01:43:17,479
Speaker 1: went there to ask if I could join the band,

1895
01:43:17,920 --> 01:43:21,200
Speaker 1: but I didn't have the guts to say it. Instead,

1896
01:43:21,280 --> 01:43:24,000
Speaker 1: he would try to create their nuanced playing and collaborative

1897
01:43:24,040 --> 01:43:27,240
Speaker 1: spirit in a new group, the short lived Blind Faith,

1898
01:43:27,800 --> 01:43:31,879
Speaker 1: and also probably more accurately during his stint with Delaney

1899
01:43:31,920 --> 01:43:35,519
Speaker 1: and Bonnie, but while Big Pink indvertently took one group

1900
01:43:35,560 --> 01:43:39,920
Speaker 1: out of commission, but also inspired at very least one

1901
01:43:39,960 --> 01:43:43,960
Speaker 1: new one. Hig tell us about the band that the

1902
01:43:43,960 --> 01:43:48,599
Speaker 1: band inspired with music from Big Pink, must I hurt?

1903
01:43:49,840 --> 01:43:56,080
Speaker 2: Scottish hard rockers Nazareth later of Love Hurts, Fame, Love Hurts?

1904
01:43:56,840 --> 01:44:00,800
Speaker 2: That song does go It formed in nineteen six took

1905
01:44:00,800 --> 01:44:06,360
Speaker 2: their moniker from Robbie Robertson from the Weight, pulled into Nazareth.

1906
01:44:07,040 --> 01:44:08,680
Speaker 2: We were sitting around in a place we used to

1907
01:44:08,720 --> 01:44:10,839
Speaker 2: rehearse him when we first got together, and we couldn't

1908
01:44:10,840 --> 01:44:14,080
Speaker 2: agree on the name. Vocalist Dan McCafferty said in twenty fourteen,

1909
01:44:14,120 --> 01:44:16,200
Speaker 2: where are they from? Glasgow, Edinburgh?

1910
01:44:16,439 --> 01:44:18,960
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I can't believe they've been around

1911
01:44:19,000 --> 01:44:20,000
Speaker 1: since nineteen sixty eight.

1912
01:44:20,080 --> 01:44:25,600
Speaker 2: I know that's wild done, firm, lean done, firmline in Fife, Scotland.

1913
01:44:26,920 --> 01:44:30,560
Speaker 1: That means anything to you, nothing, not a thing. Nothing.

1914
01:44:30,640 --> 01:44:32,400
Speaker 1: In my Anglophile, we.

1915
01:44:32,280 --> 01:44:34,200
Speaker 2: Were listening to the Weight when it first came out

1916
01:44:34,280 --> 01:44:37,080
Speaker 2: and Pete Agnew, our bass player, said what about Nazareth?

1917
01:44:37,520 --> 01:44:40,200
Speaker 1: And that was it and with that we have the

1918
01:44:40,280 --> 01:44:45,240
Speaker 1: least appropriate ending could ever imagine for this episode. We

1919
01:44:45,280 --> 01:44:48,280
Speaker 1: can't We cannot end it there. Music from Big Pink

1920
01:44:48,400 --> 01:44:50,839
Speaker 1: was generally met with universal praise when it was released

1921
01:44:50,840 --> 01:44:53,680
Speaker 1: in the summer of sixty eight. Al Cooper gave it

1922
01:44:53,680 --> 01:44:57,280
Speaker 1: a five star review in Rolling Stone, writing, not inaccurately,

1923
01:44:57,439 --> 01:45:00,920
Speaker 1: this album was recorded in approximately two weeks. There are

1924
01:45:00,960 --> 01:45:03,800
Speaker 1: people who will work their lives away in vain and

1925
01:45:03,840 --> 01:45:07,439
Speaker 1: not touch it, and that is true. But according to

1926
01:45:07,560 --> 01:45:11,759
Speaker 1: levon Helm, there was one dissenting note our local paper

1927
01:45:11,760 --> 01:45:14,800
Speaker 1: in Woodstock. By the way, I said the album was okay,

1928
01:45:14,920 --> 01:45:17,880
Speaker 1: but we could have done better, he later said. And

1929
01:45:18,360 --> 01:45:20,519
Speaker 1: I don't remember where I read this. I was going

1930
01:45:20,560 --> 01:45:22,880
Speaker 1: through some old notes of mind, some just like braw

1931
01:45:23,040 --> 01:45:25,880
Speaker 1: research notes when I was working on putting this together,

1932
01:45:26,400 --> 01:45:28,200
Speaker 1: and I couldn't tell where I got it from. So

1933
01:45:28,320 --> 01:45:32,719
Speaker 1: apologies for not properly citing and possibly plagiarizing, but Music

1934
01:45:32,720 --> 01:45:35,320
Speaker 1: from Big Pink has been described as the closest that

1935
01:45:35,439 --> 01:45:39,080
Speaker 1: rock and roll has come to pure socialism, which is

1936
01:45:39,160 --> 01:45:42,200
Speaker 1: hilarious considering the fact that the band's next album would

1937
01:45:42,200 --> 01:45:44,960
Speaker 1: be recorded in the pool house of a Beverly Hills

1938
01:45:44,960 --> 01:45:48,720
Speaker 1: mansion that once belonged to Sammy Davis Junior. And it's

1939
01:45:48,760 --> 01:45:52,360
Speaker 1: also hilarious given all the stuff of a capitalist nature

1940
01:45:52,520 --> 01:45:56,360
Speaker 1: that would basically spell the end of the band within

1941
01:45:56,400 --> 01:46:02,519
Speaker 1: the next seven years. Yeah, yeah, we got a positive note.

1942
01:46:03,439 --> 01:46:08,640
Speaker 2: I mean nothing, gold can stay. Hey, Jordan, let's go downtown.

1943
01:46:09,160 --> 01:46:11,760
Speaker 2: You say, well, I gotta go, but my friend can

1944
01:46:11,800 --> 01:46:16,120
Speaker 2: stick around. And that friend was Satan, That friend was

1945
01:46:16,160 --> 01:46:20,519
Speaker 2: Doctor John, that friend was Neil Young's cokebooker. That friend

1946
01:46:20,600 --> 01:46:28,080
Speaker 2: was Robbie Robertson's bronzed stratocaster. That friend that friends the

1947
01:46:28,200 --> 01:46:33,920
Speaker 2: old Diamond. I'm gonna pull up I'm gonna pull up

1948
01:46:33,920 --> 01:46:36,640
Speaker 2: a song here that I think we should actually use

1949
01:46:36,640 --> 01:46:37,559
Speaker 2: as the outro for this.

1950
01:46:39,400 --> 01:46:41,479
Speaker 1: Then I'd like it. I'd like a moment of silence.

1951
01:46:52,439 --> 01:46:57,640
Speaker 2: Well, folks, as Robbie Robertson once said, it's in the

1952
01:46:57,640 --> 01:47:01,479
Speaker 2: way that you use it. Thanks for listing. This has

1953
01:47:01,520 --> 01:47:04,520
Speaker 2: been too much information. I'm Alex Heigel.

1954
01:47:04,360 --> 01:47:12,160
Speaker 1: And I'm Jordan Runtogg. We'll catch you next time. Too

1955
01:47:12,200 --> 01:47:15,680
Speaker 1: Much Information was a production of iHeartRadio. The show's executive

1956
01:47:15,680 --> 01:47:19,160
Speaker 1: producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtalg. The show's supervising

1957
01:47:19,200 --> 01:47:20,559
Speaker 1: producer is Michael Alder.

1958
01:47:20,680 --> 01:47:23,880
Speaker 2: June The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan

1959
01:47:23,960 --> 01:47:25,520
Speaker 2: run Talk and Alex Heigel.

1960
01:47:25,360 --> 01:47:28,599
Speaker 1: With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

1961
01:47:28,920 --> 01:47:30,960
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

1962
01:47:31,000 --> 01:47:34,000
Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts and iHeartRadio, visit the

1963
01:47:34,000 --> 01:47:37,320
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

1964
01:47:37,320 --> 01:47:42,000
Speaker 1: favorite shows.