subject: The Last Waltz: One Of The Best Concerts Ever Filmed [print this page] The Last Waltz (The Last Waltz) is the name given to the "farewell concert" of the Canadian rock group The Band, which took place on Thanksgiving Day 1976 (November 25) at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. Besides the band, many guests took place that evening, including Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Ronnie Hawkins, Dr. John, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Muddy Waters, Ron Wood and Neil Young.
The concert was filmed by director Martin Scorsese, who pulled a documentary, released in 1978. The film includes concert performances, scenes shot in a recording studio and interviews with group members by Scorcese. A triple album containing the soundtrack of the film was released the same year. The film was released on DVD in 2002, and a 4-CD box set includes the concert and studio recordings linked.
The Last Waltz is considered one of the best concerts ever filmed . However, the drummer of the Band, Levon Helm, was very critical of this film, considering he was too focused on Robbie Robertson, guitarist, and not enough on other group members.
Commencing at a sign saying "This Should Be Played Loud movie! ("This film should be played loud!"), Referring to the inner sleeve of the album Let It Bleed The Rolling Stones, the documentary explores the influences of the band and his career. The group, consisting of Rick Danko (bass guitar, violin, vocals), Levon Helm (drums, mandolin, vocals), Garth Hudson (keyboards, saxophone), Richard Manuel (keyboards, percussion, vocals), and composer Robbie Robertson guitar, began his career in the late 1950s, as a group of rock and roll led by Ronnie Hawkins, the first guest of the concert. The band played for Bob Dylan in the 1960s, and Dylan playing with them towards the end of the concert.
Many other artists play with the Band: Muddy Waters, Paul Butterfield, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Dr. John, Neil Diamond, Eric Clapton, playing blues, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, pop, folk and rock. Other types appear in the footage later in the studio with Emmylou Harris (country) and The Staple Singers (gospel and soul).
The film opens with the band performing an encore the last song of the evening, a remake of Marvin Gaye tube Baby Do not You Do It. It then returns to the beginning of the concert, and the rest is more or less chronologically. Aided by a horn section, the group performs many of his hits, including Up on Cripple Creek, Stagefright and The Drove Old Dixie Night Theys Down.
Among the excerpts are interspersed with concert footage and studio interviews with director Martin Scorcese, during which members of the Band return to the band's history. Robertson discusses the entrance of Hudson Group, which had provided that the other members pay ten dollars a week for music lessons. Hudson, who was classically trained, could not say to the round he was professor of music, not just a rock musician. Robertson also describes the surreal experience of having played in a nightclub owned by Jack Ruby, the assassin of President Kennedy's alleged assassin.
Manuel remembers that among the first names of the Band, they counted "the Honke" and "the Crackers" (Both are slang terms to refer to whites, used by black Americans). As Dylan and their friends and neighbors in Woodstock called them simply "the band" ("the Group"), they decided to call as well. We also see Danko show it to Scorsese's studio group, called Shangri-La, and play him a recording of Sip the Wine, a song of his future solo album Rick Danko, released in 1977.
A recurrent theme in interviews with Robertson that the concert marks the end of an era for the band, after sixteen years on the road, it's time to move on. "That's what The Last Waltz: sixteen years away. The figure starts getting scary, "says Robertson Scorcese. "I mean, I could not bear to have behind me twenty years of touring. I do not think I could even talk. " This feeling is accentuated by the choice of songs filmed: for example, the lyrics of Up the Cripple Creek that contains the phrase "this living on the road Is Getting pretty old" ("this itinerant life begins to make long ").
The idea of a farewell concert was born in early 1976, after Richard Manuel was seriously injured in a boating accident. Robbie Robertson began to think about abandoning the concert band to a group of studio exclusively, in the same way as the Beatles had decided to stop touring in 1966 .
While other group members were in disagreement with the decision of Robertson, the concert was set at Winterland Ballroom, Bill Graham, where the Band had its beginnings in 1969. The group was originally only occur but once the idea of inviting Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan launched the guest list began to grow to include other artists.
Promoted and organized by Bill Graham, longtime associate of the Band, the concert was very elaborate. He began at 17 hours, and 5000 spectators saw themselves serve a dinner with turkey. There was a session of ballroom dancing to the music of the Berkeley Promenade Orchestra, and the poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Michael McClure gave readings.
The Band began the concert to 21 hours, starting with Up on Cripple Creek, followed by eleven of his most popular songs, including The Shape I'm In, This Wheel's on Fire and The Drove Old Dixie Night Theys Down. They were accompanied by a great horn section whose score was arranged by Allen Toussaint and other musicians. They were joined by a succession of guests, starting with Ronnie Hawkins. Under the name of the Hawks, the Band was the backing band of Hawkins in the early 1960s. Dr. John sat at the piano for his most famous song, Such a Night. Turning to the guitar, he then joined Bobby Charles' Down South in New Orleans.
