The Band: The Authorized Video Biography 2/5

here in montreal you could play 365 days never play the same club things are looking up for hawkins a recording deal leads to a couple of breakthrough singles and exposure on tv shows like dick clark's american bandstand we were on actually one night with chuck connors the rifleman and of course the the the scene for the whole show was this western look and uh naturally we ended up with the garters on our sleeves uh with the aprons we were dressed like waiters so i remember but we thought we was in the big time and that was the time when everybody in arkansas saw us boys we went back to play and then me and levon we thought we were somebody then the hawk was uh was something else he was uh he looked apart walked the walk and talked the talk [Music] i mean the kind of a woman [Music] slowly as uh some of the boys would get homesick or want to get married or this and that they leave and i would hire canadian musicians that had been you know following us around or watching this or we knew of them the first recruit is a persistent street smart toronto kid robbie robertson would finally claim his spot after a series of heated guitar duels hawk now was uh always looking to set something like that up you know get a couple real good players and and hit them against each other and have them try and just you know one of them cut the other until he was bleeding you know robbie looked at me one day and said fred you're a great guitar player but one of these days i'm gonna cut you i'm gonna beat you i said well okay your lessons are over son [Music] robbie started getting really good and just in leaps and bounds because he worked at it seven days a week night and day so from then on on stage i turned my back to robbie so he couldn't see my fingers i wouldn't let him see my fingers i was highly offended but levon and robbie in the group the hawk runs into an apprentice butcher with rock and roll ambitions well i have never seen a rockabilly live show like the likes of ronnie hawkins giving up so much energy you know showing the people just uh rockabilly music was just another force you know and uh that was some heavy rock and roll and then base for me i was so impressed that i booked myself to be his opening act that following spring for five shows also gunning for a spot in the hawks is a stratford-ontario's sole disciple whose voice immediately catches hawkins here richard manuel when it was time for us to need a piano player i called richard and he came in at that time of course after having stand celeste richard was not quite adequate on the piano but he could play simple but richard had a throat richard could really sing that rhythm and blues stuff and soul stuff garth hudson is the missing piece of ronnie's musical puzzle we needed someone to teach us a little music and we needed someone to show richard a lot of stuff the garth had had some kind of a jazz band or something there in london ontario he played with different people he was kind of known as the musician's musician i talked to robbie and levon about playing and i said i can't play that stuff you know i can't play like that guy he believes ronnie appealed uh to the musicianship of the band and and how how much better we all could be with darth giving us music lessons and helping us find some teachers to study with and so forth and let dark's family know that we weren't just there to you know play every club and drink everything in every club that we play we were it did have a purpose everything garth hit seemed to fit the rest of them they'd play through things and do this and do that but garth would hit notes and music that we weren't familiar with but it seemed like man it just laid right in there just give it a little push [Music] toronto was the best i've ever seen there were more places to play well if you went on up to north young and started with oscar peterson and ed figpen and people like that who played up in the jazz clubs on the north end if you came on down and came by the zanzibar you might have billy riley there from memphis you'd come to the edison hotel carl perkins would be there we'd be with the hawk next door at the la door ray charles and his orchestra might be around at massey hall cannonball latterly and his band would be at the colonial and maybe harry belafonte down at o'keefe center we'd start maybe at 8 30 or 9 and we'd play for 30 minutes and break for 30 minutes up until one o'clock we'd do about five or six sets we were playing seven days a week and practicing at least five and so they really got good and tight i cut out back door and i'd be standing behind the stage listening to these guys they were strong they were as good as any rockabilly players anywhere [Music] there's still guitar players everywhere that used to just come in just to watch robbie and the drummers used to come in just to watch levon they all had a fan club and a following each and every one of them we always drew so well that it would be extended for two three weeks so you get to know the night people besides the the people coming into the club you get to know all the street people the rounders and on and on and the doormen and the managers of the different clubs and they were always there on their breaks you know to see mopping ronnie hawkins in the hawk so you lived at the warrick hotel and back then the warwick hotel you know was the red light district and we learned every pimp's first name levi can still remember and all the hookers you know we knew by their first names and every now and then they'd slip in and give us a little freebie [Laughter] so basically we would just each drink sweet play and party it was a pretty rough life for the recently married hawkins taking a few nights off each week the group begins to indulge themselves with some musical influences of their own oh yeah we just we stayed in touch with anything that's going on from the south and the urban stuff too you know he likes standing taranting and cannonball adderly mainly we wanted different music we wanted to play some stuff that the hawk knew wasn't going to go over and but we didn't know it and wanted to play it and did and it didn't go over you know i was from the old school you have to play what the people want you know and i had to contend with the bar managers or the club managers and so when they get four out there doing some of that stuff it wasn't going over to our clientele man you for the few people who did dig it really dug it because they knew that this band was had something special and along in there we started we started dreaming about us singing all the songs and that sideman front man routine was getting a little bit old for us and we wanted to do it with with no front man we wanted to do it where we did all the singing and all the playing on their own at last and now billed as levon and the hawks their footloose fancy free and knee-deep in the blues i'm gonna get up in the morning [Music] we hit the peppermint lounge just after we had left the hawk and had our buddy john hammond show up and uh when john played with us i thought we had one of the best bands in the car because john knew the stuff was a hell of a player and we knew the stuff so john came down was having a hell of a time the guy there at the peppermint lions told us and [Music] you know this blue will never get you anywhere it's a twist joint play the twist [Music] those were really good times because what you saw on that those wonderful occasions was a bunch of boys who really loved each other and talked to each other musically i was just mind-boggling these guys were one of the best blues r b bands i had ever heard they were so intense and so especially good because the cumulative example of what a band really was of brothers was levon and his voice you know it was just it was as good as it got though they're still playing the same old club circuit their reputation is growing meanwhile the musical underground buzzes with rumors that the times are indeed changing for a folk music icon who is not only in the process of reinventing himself but also changing the face of rock music forever [Music] i can't hear you anymore good friends in the right place mary martin friend of ours from toronto was one of albert grossman's right hand people there in his office there in new york she knew bob of course from working there at the office and put a word in to bob knew he was ready to have a band and play some music [Music] dylan had gone electric and to the die hard folk fan he had become a traitor to the cause the controversy of us playing with bob you know that that brought on a lot of stuff like uh standing ovations of booing you know uh they certainly booed i'll tell you that you could hear it all over the place i don't know who they were though and then certainly they may they wherever it was they did it you know loud twice as loud as they normally would you know you play a song and and you get through what everybody do boo the worst awful get out and it uh boy it'll make you fight mad i ain't joking it'll really get under your skin or it did me yeah i remember it well albert hall and bob did a set at the beginning like the show was in two halves in the first half he came out and did his usual thing with the guitar and the harmonica and then on the second half he came out with the band now we knew this was going to happen anyway but bob just came out and he said well you know you all may know this song remember how it goes one here's how it goes now you know [Applause] you know i knew that what we were creating you know even to the ones that hated it you know was a whole lot bigger than uh the band or bob or us all put together it was a it was a hell of a thing you could feel that i heard you pulling out there i heard you bowing let's go this guy here booed he bummed as the world tour ends fate steps in dylan is laid up for a year after a motorcycle accident and retreats to the catskill mountain town of woodstock new york [Music] levon robbie rick richard and garth follow dylan to woodstock it's here that they set up musical shop in a rather unremarkable house they endearingly dub big pink [Music] after we met bob we were afforded the luxury of time you know we didn't have to play six or seven nights a week and just uh to be able to sit back and think for a few minutes truly was heaven sent you know and it kind of changed everybody's life you know and helped us hone and craft our career but once again uh it was uh us getting together every day you know and applying ourselves where good things started to happen it's an idyllic period in their collective lives a time of friendship and unrestrained creativity now known as simply the band they set about writing the material they

Channel: big pinkerton

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Id: ZCWLUU1p-MU

Length: 15min 0sec (900 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 20 2022