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WALTZING
INTO THE FUTURE
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MARTIN NATCHEZ
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20116 Crooks • Rochester
Special to the Jewish News
I
n November 1976, Jimmy Carter was elected to the
White House, the United Nations General Assembly
had passed an infamous resolution that equated
Zionism with racism, and a Thanksgiving Day con-
cert was being planned with all the trimmings of a bicen-
tennial bash.
When it was over, the feast of food and music had been
immortalized in a movie called The Last Waltz, which doc-
umented the final stage appearance by The Band at the
Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. Performances by
Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Muddy Waters, Van
Morrison, Neil Diamond, Dr. John, Eric Clapton and spe-
cial guests were recorded, filmed and frozen in time.
The spectacular's 25th anniversary is being remembered
with a newly restored the-
atrical print and a newly
expanded, deluxe Warner
Bros./Rhino four-CD boxed
set. This week's release of
MGM's Special Edition
DVD also offers vibrant 5:1
surround sound, remixed by
The Band's well-known lead
guitarist, Robbie Robertson.
Born Jaime Robbie
Klegerman in Toronto,
Robertson was the son of a
Jewish father, although the
musician only recalls that his
dad was a professional gam-
bler who was killed while
changing a tire on a
Canadian expressway.
Later, Robertson's mother,
a Mohawk Indian from the
Six Nations Reservation near Lake
Erie, remarried and changed her
son's surname.
In his teens, Robertson joined
Canadian rockabilly star Ronnie
Hawkins' backup band, the
Hawks. Within a year of splitting
from Hawkins, Robertson, drum-
mer Levon Helm, bass player Rick
Danko and keyboardists Richard
Manuel and Garth Hudson were
backing and recording with Bob
Dylan.
The Hawks, in fact, were the
storming band behind Dylan's infamous transition into
folk rock. And in 1967, they all took up residence in a
pink house in West Saugerties, N.Y., where reels of "base-
ment tapes" and the group's Music From Big Pink LP —
officially using the moniker "The Band" — were eventu-
ally recorded.
Released in 1968, Music From Big Pink featured memo-
rable cuts such as "The Weight" and "Chest Fever." More
success followed on 1969's second, self-titled LP, which
included "Up on Cripple Creek" and "The Night They
Drove Old Dixie Down," and scored a Top 10 gold album.
The Band would be inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame in 1994, honored for its Americana style of
music. But in 1976, Robertson was becoming haunted
with premonitions of dying.and unilaterally pulled the plug
on more touring.
"It was almost like a boxer who's gone too many rounds,
and you get to think that, at some
point, this is dangerous and not
healthy. That's the way I felt back
then," Robertson recalled in an inter-
Clockwise from top left:
Bob Dylan as he appeared in
"The Last Waltz," considered
one of the most important
concert films ever made.
Robbie Robertson, guitarist
and principal songwriter for
The Band, is the son of a
Jewish father and native
American mother. Shown
here in "The Last Waltz,"
he spearheaded its 25th
anniversary celebration.
Joni Mitchell and Neil Young
perform in "The Last Waltz."