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Sunday means the second of two memorials for the weekend, with another recently departed superstar taking center stage one last time.
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He started out in his native Canada in the early 1960s, soon finding his way into the touring band of someone from Arkansas.
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In this group, he met an additional four people: one, like the leader, from Arkansas and three other Canadians.
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A couple of years after he joined, the entire band broke off as a unit and became the backing group for some character called Bob Dylan.
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They installed a basic recording system in the basement, and then all heck broke loose and the face of all popular music became genetically altered by their existence.
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Called simply The Band, there is music before them and there is music after them, and those two things are very different.
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Today's guy was essentially the main man, writing most of the material, even though the group contained essentially five frontmen, depending on whatever song was being performed.
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I suppose the supreme irony is that a band of mostly Canadians could become one of the main pillars in the music now called Americana. Well, Canada's in North America, isn't it?
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Eventually the other four guys got hooked on bad drugs, and our hero knocked it on the head with one final blowout concert before embarking on a solo career.
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Of all of them, he was really the only one that got anywhere on his own. He passed last week at 80, leaving only one of them still left alive.
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Being half Mohawk, one of the places Robbie Robertson got to was a concept record about his Native American roots.
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Robbie Robertson
"Music for the Native Americans"
Italy 1995
01 Ghost Dance (w/Red Road Ensemble)
02 Mahk Jchi (w/Ulali)
03 Golden Feather (w/Red Road Ensemble)
04 Eagle Dance (w/American Indian Dance Theater)
05 Cherokee Morning Song (w/Rita Coolidge, Priscilla Coolidge & Laura Satterfield)
06 It Is a Good Day to Die (w/Red Road Ensemble)
07 Crazy Horse (w/John Trudell & Bad Dog)
08 Skinwalker (w/Red Road Ensemble)
09 Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (w/Buffy Saint Marie)
10 Coyote Dance (w/Red Road Ensemble)
11 Hoop Dance (w/American Indian Dance Theater)
12 Coyote Dance (reprise w/all)
13 Fire Dance outro (w/all)
14 RR announcement
15 I Shall Be Released (w/Rita Coolidge & Elvis Costello)
Total time: 1:01:42
Tracks 01-13: Palacongressi, Agrigento IT 2.11.1995
Tracks 14-15: Festa Del Lavoro @ Piazzi San Giovanni, Rome IT 5.1.1995
audio sourced from 2 Italian RAI-TV broadcasts of indeterminate origin
retracked, repaired & remastered by EN, August 2023
419 MB FLAC/direct link
419 MB FLAC/direct link
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This one is a bit rough sounding hisswise, but I did the best I could with it and it's the only documented, pro-recorded performance of this (yes it's transfixing) material.
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I've got still more planned for these hot August nights, but I wanted to make sure I paid tribute to Robbie Robertson, as formative a figure in the music of our age as anyone you could name.--J.
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