Okay?
Okay, man.
- Okay? - Yeah, I'll start again.
Okay. Same slate. Still running.
Cutthroat.
Keep running. It'll get better. That's it.
We're starting all over again. Same slate, right?
- Yeah. - Now tilting up.
Okay, Rick, what's the game?
- Cutthroat. - What's the object of it?
The object is to keep your balls on the table
and knock everybody else's off.
You're still there, huh?
We're gonna do one more song, and that's it.
All right.
Happy Thanksgiving.
- Thank you very much. - Thank you.
Good night. Goodbye.
Okay, look. We've been together 16 years.
Who?
- Who? - Yeah.
- The Band. - Uh-huh.
- Um, do you want me to plug that in there? - Yeah, let's do it again.
The Band has been together 16 years,
together on the road.
We did eight years in bars, dives, dance halls.
Eight years of concerts and stadiums, arenas.
We gave our final concert, The Band's final concert,
and we called it "The Last Waltz."
Why was it held in San Francisco in Winterland,
when you guys have been on the road for 16 years, you know?
Winterland was the first place that the band played as The Band.
Some friends showed up and helped us take it home.
Well, they weren't just friends. I mean, they're more than that.
Would you ask me that... Ask me that again?
They weren't just friends.
They weren't just friends who came in to say hello.
You know what I mean? Get that fly!
No. They were more than just friends.
I feel they're probably
some of the greatest influences on music on a whole generation.
We wanted it to be more than just a concert.
We wanted it to be a celebration.
Celebration of a beginning or an end?
Beginning of the beginning of the end of the beginning.
That's it.
- Good evening.
It was kind of, uh...
We didn't know where we were going, we didn't know what it was.
But, for some reason, it seemed like a good idea.
We got to this place, a joint, in Fort Worth, Texas.
It was burned out, bombed out.
The roof wasn't even on the place anymore.
And that's when they decided to call it the Skyline Lounge.
And we got there and set up and... A big place.
Huge. Bar, way at the back and a big dance floor.
- Real old. - So we set up the first night.
We go down to the place to play.
We go in there and there's about —
In this huge place, there's about three people in the audience.
Mm-hmm.
A one-armed go-go dancer
and a couple of drunk waiters.
A couple over here and a couple over there.
Somebody shoots off a tear gas.
- And a fight starts.
There isn't enough people in the place to get angry.
And we found out a few years later that it was Jack Ruby's club.
Sixteen years ago, when we started,
we started with a guy you might have heard of.
We'd like to start with him. The Hawk! Ronnie Hawkins!
He called me up and I said,
"Sure, I'd like a job. What does it mean? What do I do?"
He said, "Well, son, you won't make much money,
but you'll get more pussy than Frank Sinatra."
All right, ready!
> Bo Diddley, Bo Diddley 7
Whoo!
Big time, Bill! Big time! Big time!
Ah-ah!
Ah...
Ah!
Ahh!
Come on, Robbie!
Ah!
Ahh!
Oh, it's burning!
Come on, son, come on!
Whoo!
Thank you, Ronnie!
The Hawk!
And the week went on, and it was a little depressing.
And it was especially depressing 'cause we didn't have any money at all.
- No dough.
At one point, we had no more food money.
It got to the point where,
coming from Canada and everything, we had these overcoats,
big overcoats with pockets and everything, and we had a little routine.
We'd go to the shopping center, all together.
- But I stayed home, right? - No, you didn't.
I got — I got the cigarettes.
I turned the cigarette machine upside down and got everybody some cigarettes.
Do you remember?
- Yeah, but that was on the... - You got me some baloney.
We'd go to the supermarket,
and a couple of people would buy a couple of loaves of bread,
'cause that was about the cheapest thing you could get, you know.
And the rest of us would be carousing the aisles, stuffing baloney.
It got time to leave, the guy with the two loaves of bread
would go up to the checkout and we'd say,
"We'll meet you out at the car. You take the bread out."
- "Y'all come back!" - And with these overcoats...
I And it makes no difference Where I turn
I No more I
I That I never felt so alone
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye,
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages;
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for the seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.
Michael McClure!
You all know the Doctor? Dr. John?
Mac Rebennack. Come on, Mac.
It's in thankfulness to The Band and all the fellas.
Two, three, four, one...
I My heart just skipped a little beat F
Hey!
The Doctor!
Everybody knows him.
You know this guy, I think.
- Thank you, man, for letting me do this. - Oh, shit. Are you kidding?
Are you Kidding?
I'd just like to say before I start that it's one of the pleasures of my life
to be able to be on this stage with these people tonight.
They got it now, Robbie.
I Oh, you feel so helpless F
Thanks!
Neil Young!
I don't know what it is. Maybe — I don't know if the years connect
or it's a coincidence, or what it is,
but it seems like, that's it.
That's what The Last Waltz is.
I mean, 16 years on the road. The numbers start to scare you.
I couldn't live with 20 years on the road.
I don't think I could even discuss it.
> Now when he says that he's afraid ©
> Won't you take him at his word? 7
Well, we were the — We were The Hawks.
And everything was fine. We were sailing along.
And all of a sudden, one day, The Hawks meant something else altogether.
It was right in the middle of that whole psychedelia.
There's "Chocolate Subway." "Marshmallow Overcoat."
- Right. - Those kind of names.
When we were working with Bob Dylan and we moved to Woodstock,
everybody referred to us as The Band.
He called us The Band.
Our friends called us The Band. Our neighbors called us The Band.
And we started out with The Crackers.
We tried to call ourselves The Honkies.
Everybody kind of backed off from that, you know?
It was too straight, you know.
So we decided just to call ourselves The Band.
Beautiful.
- You still have that flat pick? - This looks interesting.
We'll play "Old-Time Religion" for the folks.
Oh, it's not like it used to be.
I "La la-la la la-la la-la la"
I I will work the land
I "La la-la la la-la la-la la"
A dream come true.
Fascinating. Scary.
Kind of hard to take the first time.
You have to go there about two or three times
before you can fall in love with it.
But, uh, that happens eventually.
We stayed at the Times Square Hotel on 42nd Street.
Well, the title of the hotel and everything,
it sounded like it was conveniently located in Midtown Manhattan.
What did we know? We came out of the hotel after checking in,
and you think, "Oh, it's great to be back in New York."
Movie theaters forever.
All these friendly women walking up and down the streets.
It was, uh... It was great.
Yeah, New York, it was an adult portion. It was an adult dose.
So it took a couple of trips, you know, to get into it.
You just go in the first time and you get your ass kicked and you take off.
As soon as it heals up,
- you come back and you try it again.
Eventually, you fall right in love with it.
Roulette Records was located in the middle of this mythical place, Tin Pan Alley.
The songwriting capital of the world.
And we met some of the greatest songwriters ever.
Rock-and-roll songwriters.
Doc Pomus. Mort Shuman. Leiber and Stoller.
They were all there then. Carole King. Neil Diamond.
At the time, it wasn't a very fair thing
that a songwriter was the low man on the totem pole.
But then, uh, these people...
And here come the '60s,
with change and revolution and war and assassinations,
and a whole other frame of mind coming along.
And these songwriters were expressing the feelings of people...
people in the street.
In a way, it was kind of the beginning of the end of Tin Pan Alley.
I And we came fo learn the secret
Neil Diamond!
- Thanks so much.
So when you guys first started playing as The Band,
you kind of shied away from publicity a lot.
Can you talk about that a little?
That was just part of a lifestyle that we got to love in Woodstock.
We got to like it, you know, just being able to chop wood
or hit your thumb with a hammer.
We'd be concerned with fixing a tape recorder, fixing a screen door.
Stuff like that. And getting the songs together.
We always seemed to get a whole lot more done
when we didn't have a lot of company around, you know.
Just, uh, we were more productive.
And as soon as company came, of course, we'd start having fun.
You know what happens when you have too much fun.
Something we've kind of evaded around here, but I'll ask it now.
- What about women on the road? - I love 'em.
That's probably why we've been on the road.
- That's it. - Not that I don't like the music.
You know, but...
I thought you weren't supposed to talk about it too much.
- No, I guess we're not. - I thought we were supposed to...
pan away from that sort of stuff, get into something else.
Since the beginning, since we started playing together,
just like we've all grown just a little bit, so have the women.
- You know? And it's amazing. - That's right. That's good.
I just wanna break even.
Joni Mitchell. Right.
I Just how close fo the bone And the skin and the eyes I
I You're not a hit-and-run driver
Levon's hometown, it's near West Helena.
At one time we were there, for some reason or another,
and we decided we were gonna look up one of the legends of that town,
which was Sonny Boy Williamson.
In my opinion, he's the best harp player,
that's like harmonica,
blues harmonica, that I've ever heard.
- He's the big daddy of 'em. - Yeah.
And he took us to a friend of his place, a woman's place,
who served food and corn liquor.
In a Southern booze can.
And he would sit there and he was playing for us.
And we were getting drunk and trying to figure out where we were.
We were wiped out.
He was spitting in a can. I thought he was dipping snuff.
I thought maybe he had something in his lip.
And he kept spitting in this can and playing, and we kept getting drunker.
Finally, I looked over in the can and I realized it was blood.
He was getting pretty tired and pretty drunk by then.
And we made big plans for the future and all kinds of things we were gonna do.
And it was tremendous. A great night.
A couple of months later, we got a letter from his people,
his manager, or whoever it was, saying that he had passed away.
I Rollin' around the bend I
Paul Butterfield!
Near Memphis...
cotton country, rice country, uh...
the most interesting thing is probably the music.
Levon, who came from around there?
Carl Perkins.
- Carl Perkins? - Sure.
- Muddy Waters, the king of country music. - Yeah.
- Elvis Presley. - Mm-hmm.
Johnny Cash. Bo Diddley.
That's kind of the middle of the country, you know, back there.
So bluegrass or country music,
you know, if it comes down to that area
and if it mixes there with rhythm and if it dances,
then you've got a combination of all those different kinds of music.
Country, bluegrass, blues music.
- The melting pot. - Show music.
- And what's it called then? - Rock and roll.
Rock and roll. Yes. Exactly.
Whoo!
Yeah!
> "0," child I
> I'm a full-grown man I
> All you little girls F
Yeah!
> "0," child I
> I'm a full-grown man I
I Man-child
Wasn't that a man? Muddy Waters!
On the guitar, Eric Clapton!
One, two, a-one, two, three...
Okay. So, Rick, what is Shangri-La? Maybe you could give us a little tour.
What is a Shangri-La?
It's a clubhouse where we get together and play. Make records.
Yeah?
Kind of better. It's like an office, I guess, but...
It used to be a bordello.
- A bordello? - I think you can tell by the wallpaper.
That decadence, that softness in the barroom.
I've heard a few funny stories, man.
That's why all these rooms are here.
You can't believe most of what you hear.
This was a master-control bedroom, this is now a master-control music room.
Let me ask you, now that The Last Waltz is over, what are you doing now?
Uh...
- Eddie, why don't you...
Yeah.
- Just making music, you know? - Oh, yeah.
Trying to stay busy, man.
- That's good. - It's healthy.
It's where the music will take you.
Otherwise, you would never go into such a situation.
Because of the music, it took us everywhere.
It took us to some strange places.
Physically and spiritually?
Physically, spiritually and psychotically.
It just always wasn't on the stage.
Even though you were on the stage.
Even though we were on the stage, yeah.
Garth was one of the most amazing musicians
that we knew at the time.
He could play better than anybody we ever heard.
And Garth joined The Band...
if we would, uh, make him the music teacher.
We didn't know why or what that was all about,
but we said, "Sure. I mean, we're interested anyway."
And we had to pay him $10 a week each for these music lessons.
- Then I was sure it was a riff.
But then I found out what it really was,
was that, where he was coming from and his musical education,
to tell his parents at this point that we was joining a rock-and-roll band
would have been like pouring it down the drain.
So he justified it to his people and his background
by being a music teacher.
There is a view that jazz is evil
because it comes from evil people.
But, actually, the greatest priests on 52nd Street
and on the streets of New York City were the musicians.
They were doing the greatest healing work.
And they knew how to punch through music
which would cure and make people feel good.
Most of the show stuff, though,
it was like traveling shows, like tent shows.
One was Wolcott's Rabbit's Foot Minstrels.
- What was that? - Wolcott's Rabbit's Foot Minstrels. Yeah.
You know how they used to have the show start, right?
They'd have the singers and the players and the different parts of the show.
Then the master of ceremonies would come out just before the finale
and explain that after the finale, after the kids go home,
they'd have the midnight ramble, right?
- The midnight... - The midnight ramble.
The songs would get a little bit juicier and the jokes would get a little funnier.
And the prettiest dancer would really get down and shake it a few times.
A lot of the rock-and-roll duck walks and steps and moves
came from a lot of that.
Everybody did it, and so, when, you know,
you would see Elvis Presley or Jerry Lee Lewis
or Chuck Berry or Bo Diddley really shaking it up,
you know, it didn't come out of nowhere, it didn't come out of the air.
It was like the local entertainment everybody was going to see.
So when they exposed it to the rest of the world,
it was like this unknown beast that had come out,
the grotesque of music that the devil had sent, you know?
Here we go.
Sing it too.
I Do that one more time
Thank you.
Hey, Van the Man!
Lawrence Ferlinghetti!
Let us pray.
Our Father, whose art's in heaven,
hollow by thy name, unless things change.
Thy wigdom come and gone.
Thy will will be undone
on earth as it isn't heaven.
Give us this day our daily dread,
at least three times a day.
And forgive us our trespasses on love's territory.
For thine is the wigdom and power and glory...
Oh, man!
> Well, I'll do anything In this God-almighty world F
- Thank you!
We got Ringo and Ronnie Wood. They're gonna help us out on this one too.
- Thank you. - Thank you very much.
The road was our school. It gave us a sense of survival.
It taught us all we know.
There's not much left that we can really take from the road.
We've had our share of... Or maybe it's just superstitious.
- Superstitious in what way? - You can press your luck.
The road has taken a lot of the great ones.
Hank Williams. Buddy Holly. Otis Redding.
Janis. Jimi Hendrix.
Elvis.
It's a goddamn impossible way of life.
- It is, isn't it? - No question about it.