Well, hell yes you can. I have that one on CD and am going to buy some more music from The Band just to be safe. Thank you.

Of course, I was being facetious, but these days who knows. I saw "The Tour," Bob Dylan and The Band in the 70s and it was a terrific show. This song would be on my list of Greatest of all Time songs. I don't play it all the time, but every time I think of it and put it on, it brings a smile to my face.

This perf from The Last Waltz is perfect.

BTW, Robbie Robertson is the songwriter of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.

Robbie wrote it, but for me, it is all about Levon Helm. Great song.

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:
Robbie wrote it, but for me, it is all about Levon Helm. Great song.

Yes, and Levon was the only southerner in The Band--he was from Arkansas. Robertson is from Canada.

Hell, I think everyone is from Canada except Levon. What a great band.

But, it makes no difference.

Ironic, I was listening to the CDB version pulling into work today. No one will tell me what to listen too. I choose my music.

The song shall soon be banished never to be heard again so it is wiped from the memory of all who have heard it and to never fall on the ears of future generations.

The song mentions the offensive Robert E.Lee in the lyrics.

On a serious note Dixie is truly one of the great songs. Levon Helm is greatly missed. For me The Band's hallmark song was The Weight.

A good read is "This Wheels on Fire" by Lavon Helm. Almost everywhere people pronounce it Levon, but it's not a big deal. In his book Levon claims Robbie didn't write many of the songs he is credited for but the Band wasn't aware of it at the time and didn't realize that it meant Robbie was getting money out of it. They were all great musicians, but after reading the book I like Robbie a lot less than before.
The town that I worked in at the time of Levons death had its high school drumline invited to the service and the drumline was led by Ringo. Pretty cool.

quote:

Originally posted by lastmanstanding:
The song shall soon be banished never to be heard again so it is wiped from the memory of all who have heard it and to never fall on the ears of future generations.

The song mentions the offensive Robert E.Lee in the lyrics.

On a serious note Dixie is truly one of the great songs. Levon Helm is greatly missed. For me The Band's hallmark song was The Weight.

[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9P202C3mm8g" width="420"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]

Some interesting background on this song. Nazareth, Pennsylvania is where the Martin Guitar factory is/was. Anna-Lee was one of the guitar experts at the factory. Crazy Chester is a character that used to walk around Nazareth with toy old western six shooters around his waist. The Band would travel there to get equipment fixed as it was not that far from where they were living in NY State. Levon tells this in his book.

 
The Band's is the greatest performance, but a close second is Joan Baez's cover. Forget her politics. Her voice reigns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTNirVqTepE
 

quote:

Originally posted by rtquig:
In his book Levon claims Robbie didn't write many of the songs he is credited for but the Band wasn't aware of it at the time and didn't realize that it meant Robbie was getting money out of it. They were all great musicians, but after reading the book I like Robbie a lot less than before.
.

Yeah, the Robbie/Levon feud was certainly a bad one, hard to say who was right and wrong. It is interesting that Robbie (and manager Albert Grossman) made the lion's share of the money and the rest of the band made little. And I did find Robbie to be a little creepy in The Last Waltz, being an attention grabber while the rest of the band looked like they wanted to disappear.

I read years ago that Robbie's backing vocals were erased (along with a lot of stuff) from the film's final soundtrack, since Robertson was not in the top 3 of best vocalists in the band.

The editing of the Last Waltz was done by Robbie and Martin Scorsese. Robbie made sure he was in the spotlight for most of the show. Robbie claims he made up with Levon right before Levon died, I doubt it. I had also heard that Robbies mic was turned off in a few shows, but I don't know that for sure.

Such a great song, when I saw the title, immediately in my head I heard the short little ramp up into and "Virgil Cane is the name......"

I've always liked this version, it's slower, but has good peaks and valleys. Jerry's voice has a lot of emotion to it, and the organ with the gospel singers are powerful.