So I was locked into Football Saturday Night. The Cats were coming back. My Oregon Ducks were going quack on Arizona.
The Film Babe announced ceremoniously, “I’m going to watch ‘The Last Waltz‘.”
It’s something she does periodically. The lady’s got taste.
I’m not sure how many times she’s watched it or how many times I’ve seen it or how many times we’ve watched it together. Several, at least. (For the record, she guesstimates she’s watched it a dozen times.)
My buddy Knuckle — Don’t ask, just understand it’s a fitting moniker — saw it 17 times when it was playing at his local theater. After ten or so viewings, the manager just waved him in.
It’s always a worthwhile endeavor. It is — and there can be no argument about this — far and away the best rock & roll concert movie of them all. Those Talking Heads fans in the “Stop Making Sense” contingent, please sit down. That one is good. Martin Scorcese’s film about The Band’s last concert is transcendent. Take a look.
You know the deal. Dylan’s buddies from Woodstock, those hippie hosers from north of the border along with that one helluva drummer and and singer from Helena, Arkansas — simply The Band — had been on the road for years and years since they started backing up Ronnie Hawkins. They finally wore out. At least that was the storyline at the time. Levon’s revisionist history is that Robbie Robertson alone wanted to park the bus. Anyway the group hung up their rock & roll shoes.
You’d never feel tension from the interviews in the movie. though they have surfaced and festered since.
So the group and Bill Graham ended it in style. In San Francisco on Thanksgiving night ’76. $25 got you turkey dinner and arguably the greatest collection of rock royalty ever. Certainly the best music ever at one of these conglomeranzas. (Though I’m looking forward to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert premiering on HBO this coming week.)
So, along with Levon, Robbie, Garth, Rick and Richard, you had a boffo horn section, the Staples singing backup, and Dylan, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Dr. John, Eric Clapton . . . take a breath . . . Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Hawkins, Neil Diamond and a few others whose names escape me for the moment.
The tunes in the film, as they usually were with The Band, are immaculate.
The ensemble had the facility of capturing Americana zeitgeist. Their songs were incisive and they rocked. Top score on the Dick Clark American Bandstand scale. And the fivesome lived the life, “getting laid more than Frank Sinatra,” and harvesting deserved acclaim. Even if they often blanched in the spotlight.
The interviews are intimate, and explain why the road doesn’t go on forever.
Remember The Band. But, if you can’t recall the singer, you can still recall the tune.
When you’re 13 years old and male and pubescence has grabbed you in your comfort zone, any song with sexual innuendo resonates.
So it was with this rock & roll/ R & B classic that has stood the test of time since its release in 1958. My buddies and I may have interpreted this a tune back then as one about chokin’ the chicken back, but it remains good rockin’ tonight.
“Way out Willie/ Gave ‘em all a treat/ When he did the Hand Jive/ With his feet.”
Johnny Otis is an interesting study. Born of Greek parents in California, he lived in a black section of Berkeley, where he learned to play the drums. He married an African American woman, and was perceived by many color-coded folks in the entertainment biz as being black himself. He started making rhythm & blues music when it was referred to as Race Music.
Otis never seemed to mind about how folks interpreted any of that. He was a big band leader, a rock & roller, a producer, a perceiver of talent, a disc jockey, a recording artist, an entertainer, etc, etc. At a time when interracial ensembles were still viewed with a jaundiced eye, Otis would have none of it. The world of music is much the better for it.
With a wink at the novelty of the number in an era where the next dance craze was what the record execs were looking for, Otis fashioned the tune. That the eminent Earl Palmer is on drums, and Jimmy Nolan — later with James Brown’s band — plays the famous guitar riff helped make this one a classic.
Plus the whole tale had a happy ending.
‘Willie and Millie got married last fall/ They had a little Willie Junior, and a-that ain’t all/ You know, the baby got famous in his crib, you see/ Doin’ that hand jive on TV.”
At some point during the septuagenarian’s marathon three hour concert in Nashville Thursday — two sets, multiple encores — I turned to the Film Babe and offered how glad I am that I never saw Leonard Cohen until this late stage of his career.
There is something more palatable about this satyr’s poetic sexual musings, something kind of quaint, now that he’s a bit hunched at age seventy five. And never doubt that this man is a sybarite to the core. A grand poet, genius actually, he is first and foremost a sensualist. Janis Joplin wasn’t the only one you know. Rebecca DeMornay . . . oh the list goes on and on.
Some of the songs were probably harder to swallow when Cohen was still young and on the prowl. Now presented with an abiding sense of humility for a life well lived all in all, the tunes come across with a sweetness.
But I digress.
Leonard Cohen stands tall among the great poet/lyricists of our time.
More after this little interlude of “Everybody Knows.” (The scenes from ” A Man From U.N.C.L.E.” are kind of strange. I’m not sure what they have to do with the song.)
That is one of those what I call list songs that Cohen does so well, starting or ending most lines with the same phrasing. It really works here.
“And everybody knows that it’s now or never/ Everybody knows that it’s me or you/ And everybody knows that you live forever/ Ah when you’ve done a line or two/ Everybody knows the deal is rotten/ Old Black Joe’s still pickin’ cotton/ For your ribbons and bows/ And everybody knows.”
The concert in Andy Jackson Hall at the oddly designed Tennessee Performing Arts Center was truly a cut above. Backed by implacable musicians playing impeccable arrangements and stunning back up singers, the performer didn’t disappoint on any level. I’m hard pressed to think of a song somebody might want to hear that Cohen didn’t do. His voice a foggy resonance, he was a most gracious performer.
I’d love to post a rendition here of Cohen singing “First We’ll Take Manhattan,” my favorite of his songs, but there isn’t one worth the trouble available on You Tube. Understanding that ofttimes Cohen’s tunes are best presented by others, I found this version by the Joe Cocker. Enjoy.
“They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom/ For trying to change the system from within/ I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them/ First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.” I love that beginning.
I remember my first Leonard Cohen moment, hearing Judy Collins sing “Suzanne.” Who is this Leonard Cohen guy who wrote these lyrics, I wondered?
“There are heroes in the seaweed/ There are children in the morning/ They are leaning out for love/ And they will lean that way forever/ While Suzanne holds the mirror/ And you want to travel with her/ You want to travel blind/ And you know she’ll find you/ For she’s touched your perfect body with her mind.”
The bottom line is this. Cohen’s voice has never been much, but it now soothes like a fine aged wine. He sang every song we wanted to hear. And more. The imagery, subtle, incisive, affective, filled the auditorium.
Leonard Cohen is one of the pop music giants of the last fifty years. How invigorating that he’s on his game now as never before.
Revised 11/23 9:50 a.m.
When you’re 13 years old and male and pubescence has grabbed you in your comfort zone, any song with sexual innuendo resonates.
At some point during the septuagenarian’s marathon three hour concert in Nashville Thursday — two sets, multiple encores — I turned to the Film Babe and offered how glad I am that I never saw Leonard Cohen until this late stage of his career.