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Wilco's career's v. The Bands'


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Musicianship: Go look at The Last Waltz. Watch as some of the greatest artists of all time are humbled to be on the same stage. Watch as someone like Eric Clapton stands awestruck by Robbie Robertsons playing. Watch as 4 of 5 members take lead vocals and can be considered great front men in their own right.

 

Watch. Learn.

Clapton wasn't awestruck. Robertson had feeling behind his solo, but it wasn't technically impressive, especially when compared to Clapton's playing. But, yeah, I can agree that most were humbled including Clapton (Ron Wood, Ringo Starr, Neil Diamond, and Van Morrison seemed happy to be there, but I don't think humbled is the word for it). It wasn't because of their instrumental talent though. Like I said, instrumental talent isn't really that important. It is aptitude for making good music, it doesn't mean you can't make great music with a mediocre amount of it.

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I didn't get the impression that Clapton was "awestruck" by Robertson's playing.

 

He may be talking about the solo exchange during "Further on up the Road". Not many people know that Clapton's guitar came unstrapped during the solo. So what looks and sounds like Robbie trying to showboat is just him lending a hand to the de-guitared EC. The ensuing mugging between the two is a result of that.

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Regarding Little Feat being influenced by the Band...

 

Was Lowell George playing with Zappa when Big Pink came out? I don't know the exact timeline. If so, it's possible Big Pink played a major role in George leaving Zappa and doing Little Feat.

 

Totally untested hypothesis...Just thought I'd throw it out there.

Yes....about the same time. Lowell George was just barely in the Mothers. A couple others (someone can sort out the names) were there for some time.

 

LouieB

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He may be talking about the solo exchange during "Further on up the Road". Not many people know that Clapton's guitar came unstrapped during the solo. So what looks and sounds like Robbie trying to showboat is just him lending a hand to the de-guitared EC. The ensuing mugging between the two is a result of that.

No, I'm sure he's talking about "Further on up the Road," and there's plenty of smiling and stuff going on between the two of them. They were clearly having a great time playing together. I just didn't get the impression that Clapton was in awe of Robbie's prowess. No doubt there was mutual respect there, but it didn't strike me (ha) as if he was astonished by what he was hearing.

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As much of a fan of the Band as I am, I'm not drinking that Kool-Aid. Robbie Robertson was a talented guitarist, and he had his own style, which he used to great advantage by soloing sparingly, but I didn't get the impression that Clapton was "awestruck" by Robertson's playing. In fact, as I understand it, they went back and overdubbed a lot of The Last Waltz, although that could have been due to technical problems during recording (which are well documented, of course). Clapton (and everyone else except Neil Diamond) seemed to be having a great time on stage and were obviously honored to be there, though.

Yes, Little Feat is still around. And I forgot that Lowell George wrote "Willin'," which is a great song that stands up with the majority of the Band's stuff. We're going to have to disagree about who's talked about more, though. I just don't hear anything, ever, about Little Feat, and I hear plenty about the Band and their legacy.

 

Yeah, I don't think he was awe struck as such either. But, Clapton did go to Woodstock after hearing Music From Big Pink, as did George Harrison, Van Morrison, John Martyn to name but a few, and completely changed his style as a result of that. I wouldn't say that there weren't minor moves toward what the band did by other bands slightly earlier, but it wasn't until that album that people really sat up and changed what they were doing musically.

 

The thing about Robbie Robertson was not just that he was a great guitarist, he was a great song writer too, and very rarely do those two things come together.

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Why did Clapton have to be astonished? The point of the Last Waltz was a chance to get together (with a big time director and lots of talented folks) to play together. Why read any more into it than that??

 

LouieB

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Clapton was definitely awestruck by The Band, though not necessarily by their instrumental prowess. The music blew him away, and he actually tried to join the group at one point.

 

As for Little Feat, the idea that "they" are "still" playing is misleading. Without Lowell George, the band that is now called "Little Feat" is a competent but otherwise uninteresting unit that hasn't released anything worth remembering.

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Why did Clapton have to be astonished? The point of the Last Waltz was a chance to get together (with a big time director and lots of talented folks) to play together. Why read any more into it than that??

 

LouieB

 

He didn't and my guess is he wasn't. I think the original poster used that "fact" as proof of The Bands prowess. However Clapton has been pretty forthcoming about guitarist's that had an influence on him or changed his way of thinking ie. Hendrix. He has been pretty vocal about the influence Big Pink had on him so maybe the person who said that drew some conclusions from that. Who knows.

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i love the band and all, and i recognize their influence on wilco. but that's not the door i came through to become a wilco fan. for me...before wilco, there was uncle tupelo, before tupelo there was the nitty gritty dirt band. if it wasn't for them, i probably never would have discovered uncle tupelo and later become a wilco fan when i did. the dirt band imo has a pretty impressive pedigree in their own right. i won't be and idiot and compare them to the band side by side, but i think they should get more credit than they do by today's artists/critics. i think their 1978 - 1981 detour through album rock forever cast them in an unfavorable light, but they came out of that in fine form and still record and tour. some of the best shows i've ever been to were NGDB shows.

 

and if you've never checked out the NGDB's "circle" albums, you should. just about every living country legend played on those [mother maybelle carter, roy acuff, earl scruggs, merle travis, doc watson, vassar clements, johnny cash, june carter, chris hillman, roger mcguinn, chet atkins, bela fleck, radney foster, levon helm, john hiatt, bernie leadon, john prine, emmylou harris, taj mahal, del mccoury, willie nelson, tom petty, dwight yoakam, to name a few]. i don't know of any series of albums that does a better job of paying respect to musical elders than these.

 

but, the band was pretty cool too...

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Clapton was definitely awestruck by The Band, though not necessarily by their instrumental prowess. The music blew him away, and he actually tried to join the group at one point.
Same with Neil Young. Hell who wouldn't want to play with the Band???

 

LouieB

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before tupelo there was the nitty gritty dirt band.

 

and if you've never checked out the NGDB's "circle" albums, you should. just about every living country legend played on those [mother maybelle carter, roy acuff, earl scruggs, merle travis, doc watson, vassar clements, johnny cash, june carter, chris hillman, roger mcguinn, chet atkins, bela fleck, radney foster, levon helm, john hiatt, bernie leadon, john prine, emmylou harris, taj mahal, del mccoury, willie nelson, tom petty, dwight yoakam, to name a few]. i don't know of any series of albums that does a better job of paying respect to musical elders than these.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was always one of my favorites too. Saw them a couple times. Great stuff. The Circle albums are good, but the original one was still the finest. I played the grooves out of that thing and it got me digging back into the original music and artists that were involved in the project.

 

LouieB

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Richard Manuel is probably the best "rock" piano player ever and The Band are probably Wilco's biggest influence but I really do think Wilco is one of the few bands that are making music right now that will be relevant 20 or 50 years from now.

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Clapton was definitely awestruck by The Band, though not necessarily by their instrumental prowess. The music blew him away, and he actually tried to join the group at one point.

 

As for Little Feat, the idea that "they" are "still" playing is misleading. Without Lowell George, the band that is now called "Little Feat" is a competent but otherwise uninteresting unit that hasn't released anything worth remembering.

 

 

Simple fact is they can't sing anymore and needed to bring in a new singer. To make matters worse it's a chick :hmm Still, Let it Roll wasn't without any merit.

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I got to see Danko and Helm play a show that almost no one attended where they played mandolin and other stuff (along with Dave Bromberg). I think they had a bit much to drink, but it was fun anyway.

 

LouieB

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Danko, Helm and Bromberg! I'm just here to register my envy for posterity.
Trust me it wasn't all that special. It was in the space where the Metro is now, which was at the time called Stages and run by Ed Hostein. They had canceled an earlier show (which a bunch of us showed up for and had to go home,) but we returned when they finally did show up a few months later. This was during a period of time when Bromberg was showing up to play with alot of his old pals (I saw him with some of the guys from the Eagles in a folk show too) because he was living in Chicago learning how to make violins.

 

If you REALLY want to be envious let me whip out the whopper of all of them, I saw the entire Band with Bob Dylan the second night of what became the After the Flood tour (the reunion tour) at the Chicago Stadium. They were all about one inch tall from my vantage point, but it was cool anyway.

 

LouieB

 

 

Shit I meant Manuel! haha.
Or you could misspell it Manual like Dylan did on Planet Waves.....

 

Louieb

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