In Memoriam pays tribute to those who have left this world, and the songs they left us to remember them by.

Whilst it is now many a long year since the last active members of the Band threw in the towel, it is surely now appropriate to give a collective eulogy to this epochal and iconic band, now that the last surviving member, also the eldest, has died. Garth Hudson, the extravagantly bearded professorial figure behind his faithful Lowrey organ, left the earth last week, aged 87. It would be nice to hope the rest of the band have had time to patch up their differences, and that Valhalla is shaking once more to the mighty sound of the five-piece in their prime. For Robbie Robertson (1943 – 2023), Levon Helm (1940 – 2012), Rick Danko (1943 – 1999) and Richard Manuel (1943 – 1986) were like no other band, before or since.
Coming together in 1957, initially as The Hawks, behind and backing Ronnie Hawkins, the four Canadians and Helm, from Arkansas, they were impossibly young, some yet to finish high school whilst signing up with the rockabilly merchant. Hudson was last to join, needing encouragement to break off aspirations to become a music teacher; that and an extra few bucks a week in his payroll, to teach the others how to read musical notation. Fast becoming the biggest fish in the Toronto pond, the quintet tired of their bandleader, constricted by his insistence upon his own material and arbitrary rules around band behavior and relationships.

By 1963 they were Levon Helm and the Hawks. 1965 nearly saw them become Sonny Boy Williamson’s band, but he died. Who knows where that could have taken them, the blues never that much more than one part of their polyglot mix of American musical traditions? Arguably, a country-folk tendency, built on an understanding of vintage rock and roll and rhythm and blues, became their later oeuvre, but they were still essentially guns for hire.
Up-and-coming folk singer Bob Dylan was looking for a band and looking to “go electric.” Various recommendations, including that of John P. Hammond, had him see the band play and then meet, first with Robertson. First hiring he and Helm, who played a couple of shows. They told him they actually came as a unit; Dylan acceded and his band became The Band. Not an easy time, given the body of vocal displeasure directed at Dylan, in this act of betrayal to his acoustic muse, Helm actually quit after barely 4 weeks, being replaced by a number of other drummers. The rest remained and featured on the infamous “Royal Albert Hall” concert bootleg, actually at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall, the ‘Judas’ concert.
When Dylan came off his motorcycle, in 1966, the existing quartet regrouped, playing bars again and even, for a brief period, backing Tiny Tim. Hiring a house in Woodstock, N.Y. state, at Dylan’s request, they lived together there, The Big Pink, the name a result of its distinctive color scheme. It was there, and at Dylan’s own house, that the Basement Tapes became recorded, as much to get back into the groove as for any future public consumption. Opportunity also arose for them to work on their own material, with Robertson gradually taking on the mantle of main songwriter, Manuel adding a few also. Helm rejoined them in 1967, and Music From Big Pink came out in 1968.

It was not until they released 1969’s The Band that they first toured as that unit. Between then and 1977, they released a further six albums, live and studio, along with three more as Dylan and the Band. During this time they did no less than change the way in which music was presented. Every band in the world seemingly looked for the distinctive Band sound, not least the idiosyncratic drum sound that characterized their work, mixed far more inclusively into the whole than anyone had previously employed. Eric Clapton was infatuated with their sound, to the point that it was a factor in breaking up Cream. George Harrison called them “the best band in the history of the universe” – yes, that’s the Beatles’ George Harrison. Elvis Costello said their music was “like receiving a letter from the other side of the world, a world you couldn’t possibly understand, let alone visit.”
However, frictions were building between Robertson, main recipient of the royalty checks, and the others. Furthermore, he was wearying of touring and engineered that the band would end with a bang, with the Last Waltz, a famously lavish last gasp with guests to include Hawkins and Dylan, as well as like-minded peers, such as Neil Young and Van Morrison. It spelt the end.
With Robertson embarking on a solo career, the others were at looser ends, but it was still several years before they revived the brand name, sans Robertson, in 1983. With additional musicians taken on as needed, they re-established themselves as a touring band. This second chapter of the band was ultimately less successful. Despite the continuing arrangement, instrumental and (especially) vocal strengths of the remainder, they sorely missed the writing initiative of the non-singing Robertson. (To be fair, after the acclaim around his highly selling solo debut, he too never produced anything quite up to the standard of his Band days.)

Manuel took his own life in 1986; the remaining three chose to soldier on. All three of their post Robertson albums came out after Manuel’s demise, taking occasional advantage of existing tapes and material from Manuel’s lifetime. But when Rick Danko died in 1999, that was enough and they broke up, a final recording still supposedly untapped in the vaults.
The legacy of the Band is and has been enormous. Whether Robertson, who latterly bought out any financial rights from Hudson and Danko, helped or hindered that process has been the source of much debate, it certainly giving rise to much lifetime ill-will between Helm and the guitarist. Ironically, it was perhaps Helm who seized the greatest attention in the years ahead his death, his final two releases each grasping Grammy awards.
A lot of words, but a lot of ground. Let’s round up with some covers.
Ronnie Hawkins & the Hawks – Boss Man (Bo Diddley cover)
Despite their six years with Hawkins, it isn’t so easy to find a track with all five Bandsters present, but this would seem to be one of them. Whilst Helm seems to have been on most studio recordings, as was normal for the day, records were often made with local hired hands. This Diddley song clearly has Hudson; his insistence on a Lowrey had already borne fruit, and is the most notable feature of an otherwise straightforward delivery.
I Shall Be Released – The Band (Bob Dylan cover)
You might not consider this a cover, given the Band’s participation in the Basement Tapes origin of this song. But, in the ten-year delay between recording and release of the Bob Dylan and the Band version, others appeared, with the first being, intriguingly, by Boz (Burrell), later a King Crimson and Bad Company bassist. It then appeared on Music From Big Pink, and became, I like to think, the intellectual property of Richard Manuel. On later tours with Dylan it was usually performed in the Band solo set, rather than when the writer was on stage, with or without them. The vocal is almost preternaturally strained, stretched into peak plangency. The play off between Manuel’s piano and Hudson’s hazy organ fills is glorious, Danko’s bobbing bass also very characteristic, Helm content to keep his drums to a respectful minimum. Robertson is a distant strum of acoustic.
As Manuel’s health declined, so the frailty in his tone became all the more pronounced, adding even more poignancy, exemplified in ” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>this 1974 live version. Robertson has upgraded himself from background role to his deliciously spiky lead electric patterns. In truth, I prefer it.
Don’t Do It – The Band (Marvin Gaye cover)
The next three Band studio albums contain all originals, most written solely by Robertson, so it is to the live set, 1972’s Rock of Ages, that this selection comes. Helm sings lead vocals, drumming simultaneously; that dual requirement is what gave the delectable sway and swing associated with the group. If you are quizzically searching for the signature organ sound, search away, as Hudson is on saxophone duties, leading a small additional horn section. Soul standards were a big part of the Hawk’s repertoire, so it’s good to see the polish was still there on demand.
The Band – A Change Is Gonna Come (Sam Cooke cover)
So far we’ve heard Manuel sing and we’ve heard Helm sing. Time now to capture the third frontline voice, of Danko, a slightly more soulful croon than his fellow singers. From Moondog Matinée, the all-cover set from 1973, Hudson adds a beauty of a saxophone fill, as well as the organ glissandos. Often undercooked amongst the very many versions of this Sam Cooke civil rights classic, it captures the lack of surety in the lyric with wry precision.
The Band – Ain’t That a Lot of Love (Homer Banks cover)
1975’s Northern lights, Southern Cross was an outlier, carrying all Band originals, but none by Robertson. So it is from the final Robertson containing album, Islands (1977) that this comes. The rendition of the much-covered song is much more faithful to the 1966 original hit by Homer Banks. It also features the ragged wall of harmony the three singers could together provide.
Although the album was a contractually required round-up of existing material, it includes also their version of “” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>Georgia on My Mind,” made in support of Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign.
Atlantic City – The Band (Bruce Springsteen cover)
The Last Waltz and Robertson far behind them, and Manuel less so, it took until 1993 for the remaining three to return to the studio, despite a still heavy interim touring schedule. Jericho may have missed the guitar and songmanship of the former, and the vocal angst of the latter, but, curiously, by reverting to an even more time warped concentration of old styles and imagery, it had many moments of exquisite charm. This live version of “Atlantic City” captures the spirit of the Band as much as anything from their prime. Helm gets the opportunity to show off his mandolin and Hudson, on accordion, is just a sheer joy.
The Band – Free Your Mind (En Vogue cover)
Having to rely on finding outside songs, meant a finger had to be kept on the pulse as to suitable material. By and large this meant dredging up old chestnuts or sourcing from kindred spirits like J.J. Cale. But they could still pack a surprise, with this retro refashioning of the black all girl group En Vogue, whose song “Free Your Mind” originally appeared on their Funky Divas album. With Helm’s gritty drawl, it could easily have been by UK soulsters Imagination, and could have fooled many that it was, little expecting to see the grizzled backwoodsmen actually responsible.
The Band – You See Me (Allen Toussaint cover)
Allen Toussaint would appear to be ideal cover fodder for the augmented trio, not least as they had covered many of his songs, going way back to the Canadian bar band days with Hawkins. But, by this final release, 1999’s Jubilation, the road weary veterans sound diminished. It’s fine, by most standards, but it could really be anyone, with little of their idiosyncratic intuitive touch left. An anonymous groove only kicks off in the final bars, with a sudden little kick in the drum pattern–hopefully Helm, rather than any of the session men.
The Band – Loving You (Is Sweeter Than Ever)(The Four Tops cover)
Rather than ending on that relative low point, let’s finally return to the five-piece lineup at their best, with another live favorite. Forgive the slipping film, it is such a lovely version as to allow for that, and to revel in the fact it was even caught at all. One they performed frequently, it never made any Band lifetime studio release, but, with a few live versions available on the tube, I think this the best. Filmed at Wembley, 1974, it shows their archetypal essence of being able to tackle most musical genres and distil them into their own inimitable style.
R.I.P., guys!!!