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| One of the greatest nights in rock and roll history |
Late one night in 1979 I was watching a newfangled movie channel called HBO and a concert by a band that I'd heard of, but had never heard any of their music, came on and within the first couple of songs I was mesmerized. It was, as I've mentioned a time or two here, The Last Waltz and it was the beginning of a love affair with The Band that's now forty-four years running strong (and even captured my youngest son, as well). I could not overstate how much that concert changed the way I looked at music, how much it influenced my future listening to music, and how much joy, even to this day, it has given me.
Sadly, it seems that far too many of my original posts these days are for the deaths of my rock and roll icons, and today is no different. After a yearlong battle with prostate cancer, Robbie Robertson, The Band's lead guitarist and songwriter, passed away today. There are many, many people who are historians of rock and roll and/or have written about music professionally who could do much more justice to Robertson's career than I. What little I can say, can be summed up with what I feel each time one of my heroes heads for the Great Rock and Roll Concert on the Other Side--that a small piece of me has gone with them.
"Acadian Driftwood" wasn't featured in the original release of The Last Waltz, but as I explored their catalog it became one of my favorite songs of theirs, and it seems a fitting tribute to Robertson (lyrics here). Enjoy:
Republicans = Nazis
Peace,
emaycee
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