Robbie Robertson has gone to that Happy Hunting Ground in the sky, so it’s only proper we pay our great respects.
Robbie was the leader of a leaderless collective till things went South and his ego took him to LA. But undeniable credit is due to him for some of the finest, most definitive music of our times.
Why do I so respect Glenn Gould? Because his playing is willful, extreme, eccentric. Because it’s utterly engaged.
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So much of The Band’s essence can be found in the instrumental introduction to ‘Tears of Rage’—the lead voice of the guitar so integral to the whole; the floating sustained organ; the interplay of the bass and the drum and the rhythm piano providing an implicit rhythm created as much by the gaps as by the beats, as intimate as lovers, as self-effacing as monks, as synchronized as guys who have been on the road together for six years.
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‘Tears of Rage’ is Dylan’s “King Lear”, a brutally painful description of a daughter’s love denied. The Basement Tapes, recorded in 1967 as he convalesced from his motorpsycho accident, lay underground for decades. But their impact on the way we perceive the world is greater than any other pop music, including “Sgt Pepper”.
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