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By PAUL ZOLLO
 emarkably, it's been thirty years since Martin Scorsese made what is arguably the greatest live concert film ever, The Last Waltz, which was the closing chapter in the history of the seminal American band, The Band. There came so many gods of the music world - Dylan, Joni, Muddy Waters, Van the Man, Eric Clapton, Neils Young and Diamond, and more - all to pay their respects to one of the greatest and most essential American bands ever to make rock and roll come alive. Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko and Garth Hudson. Just five guys and all that festive rootsy rock and roll magic. Now all these decades later comes this tribute to The Band, and I'm happy to report it's very great - it has the kind of unchained but fervent intensity that was The Band at their best, echoing the soulful, achingly human vocals of Levon Helm, Richard Manuel and Rick Danko, the historically-resonant, arcane, celebratory Americana rock and roll carnival P.T.Barnum meets Matthew Brady cum Muddy Waters revival songs of Robbie Robertson, plus traces of Robbie's elegantly funky lead playing, Garth Hudson's monumental organ work and the rich horn section majesty that producer John Simon and others cooked up.
Unlike other tribute albums which often start at unlikely places, this one starts perfectly (with Guster doing "This Wheel's On Fire") and the sequencing throughout is solid and seamless. My first favorite from this - a predilection that will probably shift in time - is Bruce Hornsby's soulful, slinky, brawny rendition of the great song "King Harvest." Just the sound of the snare drum (solidly engaged by the great Sonny Emory) makes this track an absolute delight (and sounds better than any other drum sound on the entire record), but there's so much more. And it all starts with Hornsby's wonderfully spirited vocal, which snaps with the spiritual vigor of Richard Manuel - one of the greatest singers to ever walk this earth. Robbie has spoken about how much fun it was for him to "cast" his songs, not unlike DeMille casting a movie with the right actors - and Robbie had quite a cast to choose from. (And his songs were as rich as movies.) Had Levon sung every song, The Band would still be very great. But here was Richard Manuel - as soulful and heartbreakingly vulnerable as a human can get - and let's not forget Rick Danko's rubbery scarecrow vocals on "Stage Fright" and other songs - doing "King Harvest." Here Hornsby (known as Horny Man by Leon Russell and other friends) is right on track, bringing out all the ripe red sweetness of this classic apple, this tale of a man who scoots away from Skid Row on the promise of a man "with a paper and pen" who enlists him to work in the fields. It's the story of a sharecropper, "the grandson of Virgil Kane," perhaps, and whether this is the Oklahoma Dust Bowl or somewhere farther south is unsure, but it resounds. It's a song that is pure Robbie - it's historic, it's American, and it's replete with the kind of earthy, poignant details that make The Band's music so rich, and answers those who still wonder why their influence has been so vast. "Scarecrow and a yellow moon/and pretty soon a carnival on the edge of town/King Harvest has surely come."
You got it all there, with a poignantly stunning economy of language - in just a few lines - the fields, the moon, the carnival, America, the past, the scarecrow. It's all there, and effortlessly so, and Hornsby brings it to life with a vitality that I can safely say is as powerful as the original.
Of this song, Levon said, "Some of the lyrics came out of a discussion we had one night about the times we'd seen and all had in common. It was an expression of feeling that came from five people. The group wanted to do one song that took in everything we could muster about life at that moment in time. It was the last thing we cut in California, and it was that magical feeling of 'King Harvest' that pulled us through. It was like, there, that's The Band." And meeting the challenge of expressing the inexorable spirit that is exemplified by this masterpiece, the writer Greil Marcus - who is one of the best at expressing the eminence of recorded music in print - wrote, "You take a song like 'King Harvest (Has Surely Come).' Is that a blues song? There's a lot of blues in it, but it's not a blues song. Is it a country song? Absolutely not. There's a progression in there, a 'sweep' that country music doesn't have. And yet there is an anxiousness, a nervousness, a sense of being alone in the singing - it's pure country music. Is it rock & roll? Sure, it's rock & roll. And you could go on from there … but what you don't want to do with that song, you don't want to take it apart, you know, separate it into its constituent elements. You want to go with it. You want that song to take you somewhere you haven't been. Or if you know the song, you want it to take you where it took you before. You want to get lost in that song. And when you're lost in that song you're floating through a whole vast American story."
Indeed. Floating through a whole vast American story - it's all there in "King Harvest," and it's all there in Hornsby's rendition. That he chose this song of all of their songs makes sense, as like Marcus wrote, it's neither fish nor fowl nor fruit - it's an amalgam of many things, of blues & country & ragtime & history and rock and roll - and it's essentially American, though written, of course, by a Canadian. So Hornsby - who unlike almost all American songwriters straddles many musical worlds - is the ideal choice to breathe new life into this one. The man can play jazz like Bill Evans and country like Bill Monroe and jam all night with the Grateful Dead. He's got the ideal sensibility for this - as his vocal attests - it's perfect, sure, but it's real. It sounds like a man singing while burning on the keys, aloft on the great groove his brilliant Noisemakers bring on this table. And perhaps it should have been the opening cut of this collection. But it is second, and it is solid, and for this track alone this disc is worth the price of admission. It's recorded better than any Band album was ever recorded - those drums, as mentioned, are just pure manna from heaven. So solid and essential. And the organ, played by J.T. Thomas, is right on - as simultaneously soulful and majestic as Garth at his most majestic and soulful. The track is more perfect - more absolute and immaculate than any Band recording - but not overly so. It's real, it's soulful and it's very great.
But there's much more to come. Not a weak track, really, which sets it far apart from just about every other recent tribute album in our midst.
Starting with Guster's country-funk "This Wheel's On Fire" (written by Danko & Dylan) is a good opening as they capture much of The Band's funky-loose-carnival sound, like a party is going on in the studio and nobody is sober, including the engineer, but everyone is united in the festive mission of getting good tracks down on tape.
Unlike other tribute albums that mysteriously avoid featuring a songwriter's finest or most famous songs, this train stops at all the important stops - such as "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "King Harvest," "Whispering Pines," "Stage Fright," "This Wheel's On Fire," "It Makes No Difference" (glorious), - and even "I Shall Be Released," which The Band famously recorded but which was written entirely by Bob Dylan. The only gap here is that one which could have been filled by Manuel & Dylan's ever elegiac "Tears Of Rage." But besides that, this is a satisfying journey through the music of The Band, which is an essentially American voyage, an exploration of railroad towns, late-night backstage parties, carnivals, circuses, and those endless nights in the basement of Big Pink, the now-mythical house in West Saugerties where they lived, recorded and celebrated life and music.
Dylan spoke about how you get a mysterous gospel intensity out of the black keys on the piano - the flat keys - and that's certainly the case with this wonderfully explosive B-flat rendition of "It Makes No Difference," one of Robbie's greatest songs, performed here with abundant heart by My Morning Jacket. The lead vocal and harmonies have the rich intensity of The Band at their best, and Jim James' lead guitar is excellent - picking up on Robbie's original aching riffs, which are everything about emotion over flash - so much yearning, so much passion in the bending articulation of those notes - and then Carl Broemel's great celebratory New Years Eve party sax, echoing Garth's sax playing in a haunting way, crystallizing the pure soul expression of this timeless melody, and all peaking with rich, warm harmony vocals. Recorded at Levon's own Woodstock studio, this one lives with the palpable passion that made The Band matter.
And as mentioned - the sequencing here - evidently the work of executive producers Stu Fine and Steve Vining - is expertly right on. After the deeply dimensional orchestral splendor of "It Makes No Difference," we segue into Zach Gill's hushed, delicate piano block chords and just a hint of haunting lap steel lines before some acoustic guitar rhythm comes in and then Jack Johnson's reedy baritone on "I Shall Be Released," the Dylan classic that served as the culminating encore of The Last Waltz. The drums kick in but quickly kick out - instead of overblowing this in any way, restraint is the ticket here, and it works.
Nobody will ever sing "Whispering Pines" with the kind of mournful intensity that the late Richard Manuel brought to this, his signature song, (and which Manuel and Robbie wrote together). But Dylan's boy Jakob does a damn respectable job -bringing an earthy, yearning gravity to this still ripe melody, beautifully etched by Joe Henry's muscular production, accented by Keefus Ciancia's fine organ work, Patrick Warren's tasty piano flourishes and nice back-up vocals by Lizz Wright.
The Roches - Terre, Maggie and Suzzy - take on "Acadian Driftwood" beautifully - their vocals are richly resplendent, switching off lead and coming together in pure harmonic splendor on the chorus. Produced by the sisters with their old pal Stewart Lerman, it's highlighted with lovely whistles by Lisa Morsberger. The sound of siblings in harmony is always grand when they're great singers, and the sisters are very great singers, and the textures of shared soul singing sparkles here.
Widespread Panic's feverish take on "Chest Fever" packs all the horn-powered punch of the original with a wonderfully impassioned Levon-like lead vocal performed by John Bell, and a funny funky breakdown dappled by sax just like the source. Launched by John Hermann's great gothic organ tribute to Garth Hudson, it bends and expands on Garth's original introduction to this song, and kicks into the groove beautifully.
Gomez carries off "Up On Cripple Creek" really well - trading vocals, and employing a funky fuzz bass that is oddly appealing - not as faithful to the original as are many of these tracks, but not so far off-base that it doesn't succeed. Produced by Los Lobos saxman Steve Berlin, who also lends some nice bari sax to the tracks, this has got a lot of that gospel fervor the song requires.
Then a really nice touch here is another legendary American band - the Allman Brothers - performing what is maybe Robbie's most famous composition, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" - and this is a live recording from a 2005 concert in Erie, Pennsylvania. Gregg Allman is one guy who has the authority to sing this song even after Levon defined it so specifically. The drums, the harmonies, the spirit all fuse ideally with Gregg's B-3 and twin slide guitars by Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks. And hearing the audience's ovation adds a happy, celebratory energy to the proceedings and is delicately woven into the fast guitar-picking introduction of Steve Reynold's rendition of "Stage Fright."
"Stage Fright," which was always Rick Danko's tremulous moment in the spotlight, is much darker than the Band's version - and quite emotionally rewarding - the vocal is intense, and takes on the lyrics with a new sense of restrained revelation that is surprising and subtle. Instead of Danko's rooster warble after "he gets to sing just like a bird," Reynold's gives us instead a shadowy silhouette of a bird. It's dark and ethereal and very tasty.
Also great here is Blues Traveler's version of "Rag Mama Rag," recorded in Chicago, on which John Popper's harmonica ferocity happens to be ideal - the man plays harmonica like Stéphane Grappelli on Jimi Hendrix's guitar. It's over the top, but it works. Trevor Hall's vocals on "Life Is A Carnival" is all party fire and festivity, as celebratory as this happy song deserves. And wrapping it all up after some 17 songs - an ideal accumulation of The Band's catalog - is Death Cab For Cutie on this great elegy to Ragtime Willy, "Rockin' Chair," ending this album out on the porch rocking away, a peaceful and constant place to bring this curtain down. Rather than slamming to some big finish, this song quietly and slowly peters out, and it's a good way to quietly go out, with gentle gratitude to The Band for this amazing collection of music.
Yeah. Listen to this. If you love The Band you'll enjoy the soulful respect that is expressed here. Not a track out of line or focus. The spirit is solid and festive and right, and the songs live again. Not that they ever stopped. These are songs for the ages.
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