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Just yesterday Levon Helm, drummer/vocalist for the legendary group The Band passed away, may he RIP. That makes three members that have passed. Richard Manual committed suicide in 1986 and Rick Danko died of heart failure in 1999. There are two members of the original group still alive, Robbie Robertson and Garth Hudson.

The Band was about as good as it got when it came to Rock and Roll music. I'm sure everyone's heard their music even if you might not recognize the name.

Well, I've just read George Starostin's page on them to give me a clue though I've never seen any of their albums. The obituary comments on yesterday's radio did play a song and I thought then what George puts toward the end - he did sound uncannily like Dylan on New Morning. Perhaps there's other periods when he sounded his own man.

I can't think of a single page George Starostin wrote which I didn't disagree with at some stage but he invariably adds to my understanding and appreciation by the time I've stopped gibbering responses. You might like to bookmark the site.

Blowin in the Wind - YouTube

spot;1391949 wrote: Well, I've just read George Starostin's page on them to give me a clue though I've never seen any of their albums. The obituary comments on yesterday's radio did play a song and I thought then what George puts toward the end - he did sound uncannily like Dylan on New Morning. Perhaps there's other periods when he sounded his own man.

I can't think of a single page George Starostin wrote which I didn't disagree with at some stage but he invariably adds to my understanding and appreciation by the time I've stopped gibbering responses. You might like to bookmark the site.Thanks, I appreciate that.

The Band's songs were stories. In The Weight it's easy for me, I guess because I'm American, to see the conversations taking place in each verse, especially in the deep black south.

Here's one that best conveys my point (I hope). This is off the Rock Of Ages album (my favorite LP).

How would you contrast them with, for example, ZZ Top? If anyone asked me to name a competent US r&r band it would have been them I'd think of. I've been known to give their CDs as Christmas presents.

rajakrsna;1391954 wrote: Blowin in the Wind - YouTube


That's a really odd track to choose, Dylan didn't meet or start recording with The Band's members until months after that hit the streets. They start to appear on Dylan's seventh studio album, Blonde on Blonde, in 1966 and go through with him until Planet Waves in 1974. I'm going by Wikipedia, trying to get to grips with who they were, I'm not speaking from memory.

spot;1391962 wrote: How would you contrast them with, for example, ZZ Top? If anyone asked me to name a competent US r&r band it would have been them I'd think of. I've been known to give their CDs as Christmas presents.I've never been much of a ZZ Top fan, though I know they're popular. The Band's music is listening, story telling music while I've always had the impression that ZZ top was kind of "kick out the jams (blues style)" type stuff. It's what they do and it's fine. If you listen to enough music by The Band, you'll fall in love with it.

Here's Richard Manuel singing.

spot;1391962 wrote: How would you contrast them with, for example, ZZ Top? If anyone asked me to name a competent US r&r band it would have been them I'd think of. I've been known to give their CDs as Christmas presents.


It's hard to really compare the two.

ZZ Top are fun and they put on a good show. Entertaining.

The Band was more heart and soul. Their roots were the folk music of America.

LarsMac;1391969 wrote: Their roots were the folk music of America.Does a group not have to interpret at least one folk song for that to be a valid claim? If so I'd very much like to hear one and find out what they did with it.

LarsMac;1391969 wrote: It's hard to really compare the two.

ZZ Top are fun and they put on a good show. Entertaining.

The Band was more heart and soul. Their roots were the folk music of America.Funny thing is that Robertson and Danko (and I believe Hudson) were Canadian. Helm was the only one from the American south.

spot;1391970 wrote: Does a group not have to interpret at least one folk song for that to be a valid claim? ...


I don't think so.

All of the members were established musicians before they ever formed The Band.

I don't think they are required to record a Guthrie to prove their roots.

I do remember a live performance once where they sang several old folk numbers. Don't recall that it was recorded.

Ahso!;1391972 wrote: Funny thing is that Robertson and Danko (and I believe Hudson) were Canadian. Helm was the only one from the American south.


True. American Folk music was hardly limited to The South.

I've always interpreted The Band as filling that space and time that served to bridge music between the big band era of Sinatra; Darin; Davis Jr and rock of Stones and Led Zeppelin et al. I don't include The Beatles because they overlapped The Band and the others. I think The Band was pure rock and roll.

LarsMac;1391973 wrote: I don't think they are required to record a Guthrie to prove their roots.This may be transatlantic cultural dissonance. I'd not class anything composed by any Guthrie as a folk song, they have to be listed under "Anon" and have a lot more history and be gathered, not written.

Interesting PoV's

spot;1391976 wrote: This may be transatlantic cultural dissonance. I'd not class anything composed by any Guthrie as a folk song, they have to be listed under "Anon" and have a lot more history and be gathered, not written.


So 'Folk' cannot be happening now ?

Bruv;1392007 wrote: So 'Folk' cannot be happening now ?


My view is that folk is a process. Every tune or lyric is a composition. A tune or a lyric gets folked over by progressive incremental modification through successive performances during which different artists create their impression of what they learned and in turn pass that impression on to new generations. I'm not sure I'd include sampling as part of folk. I suspect I'd include the creation of new work where the overwhelming influence is the folk canon because I cant exclude Crazy Man Michael, for example. Both those caveats are just trimming at the edge of the primary folk process.

It may be I spoke to hastily as far as Woody Guthrie's concerned, it was Arlo I had in mind when I used the term but even there I'm too ignorant to have known whether I was right or not. Certainly both included a lot of folk music in their repertoire. Whether either of them wrote folk compositions I don't know.

King Harvest. Robbie shows off a little. What a lot of people look for in rock is the soloist, the star. Nobody in this group ever hogged the spotlight. The Band's music is very technical. Listen to ALL the guitar work throughout this next piece.

spot;1392014 wrote: My view is that folk is a process. Every tune or lyric is a composition. A tune or a lyric gets folked over by progressive incremental modification during successive performances during which different artists create their impression of what they learned and in turn pass that impression on to new generations. I'm not sure I'd include sampling as part of folk. I suspect I'd include the creation of new work where the overwhelming influence is the folk canon because I cant exclude Crazy Man Michael, for example. Both those caveats are just trimming at the edge of the primary folk process.

It may be I spoke to hastily as far as Woody Guthrie's concerned, it was Arlo I had in mind when I used the term but even there I'm too ignorant to have known whether I was right or not. Certainly both included a lot of folk music in their repertoire. Whether either of them wrote folk compositions I don't know.


Woody Guthrie is considered one of the principle songwriters of 20th Century Folk music.

I just regard that as a tautology. Obviously if you think folk has principally songwriters rather than arrangers then it means something to you.



eta: I've looked him up in Wikipedia to see what I'm missing and the article starts "best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician". I have no qualms about that statement but it's not what you said at all.

spot;1392024 wrote: I just regard that as a tautology. Obviously if you think folk has principally songwriters rather than arrangers then it means something to you.



eta: I've looked him up in Wikipedia to see what I'm missing and the article starts "best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician". I have no qualms about that statement but it's not what you said at all.


You're toying with me now. I can tell.

There arrangers, and there are songwriters.

I doubt that woody spent much time "arranging" other than, perhaps, figuring out where he wanted his chair when he sat down to play.

LarsMac;1392026 wrote: You're toying with me now. I can tell.

There arrangers, and there are songwriters.

I doubt that woody spent much time "arranging" other than, perhaps, figuring out where he wanted his chair when he sat down to play.


Go on, let's take any of the songs you'd reckon he wrote. This Land Is Your Land, maybe? The tune adapted from a Carter Family recording of a Baptist gospel hymn, the words written by himself as a tailored protest against the saccharine "God Bless America". There are many recorded versions over the last seventy years with many variations. I'd call that a folking process from start to finish.

Would you like to choose another? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: ... hrie_songs

Froggy Went A-Courtin? The Cumberland Gap?

spot;1392033 wrote: Go on, let's take any of the songs you'd reckon he wrote. This Land Is Your Land, maybe? The tune adapted from a Carter Family recording of a Baptist gospel hymn, the words written by himself as a tailored protest against the saccharine "God Bless America". There are many recorded versions over the last seventy years with many variations. I'd call that a folking process from start to finish.

Would you like to choose another? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: ... hrie_songs

Froggy Went A-Courtin? The Cumberland Gap?


I am certainly not arguing with you on the idea of folk music being a process, if that is what you're onto me about.

Many of the songs written by Guthrie were lyrics to an existing tune.

That is often part of the process.

Does that take away from his contribution to American Folk Music?

I think not.

LarsMac;1392039 wrote: I am certainly not arguing with you on the idea of folk music being a process, if that is what you're onto me about.

Many of the songs written by Guthrie were lyrics to an existing tune.

That is often part of the process.

Does that take away from his contribution to American Folk Music?

I think not.


And nor do I, he was obviously one of the major contributors in his time. If we're both describing most of his output as an evolution from the folk quarry rather than creation from scratch then we have no difference I can see. The process stands in contrast to, for example, Lennon/McCartney.

Which, I think, brings us back to The Band.

While they worked up to their "debut" with Big Pink in '65, they perfected their technique playing in pubs, and then touring with Dylan, the work that became Big Pink shows not only that rock and performance ability, but the music and style falls back on the roots of the Folk, and even Country sources.

Many of the North American musicians of the latter 20th Century soaked up the cultural influences of American Folk styles and artists such as Monroe, Guthrie, Scruggs, The Carters, and so many others.

And even those owe their roots to the folk music of the old countries.

Music is both a source and a product of continued social evolution.