Few music groups go out on top. And even fewer go out in style.
That was the case for The Band, the legendary quintet behind such classic songs as “The Weight” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
Their time together came to an end in an elaborate and star-studded concert known as The Last Waltz, an event that was immortalized in a documentary of the same name by a young Martin Scorsese.
Now, over four decades since The Last Waltz was first released, the film has become a Thanksgiving viewing tradition for both music and movie fans.
Becoming The Band
Lead songwriter Robbie Robertson formed The Band with Levon Helm of Arkansas and fellow Canadians Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson. Previously known as The Hawks, the group got their start as backing musicians for rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins and, later, Bob Dylan.
After collaborating with Dylan in the mid-1960s, the group was rechristened simply as The Band, and went on to release their landmark debut album Music from Big Pink in 1968. The rest, as they say, is history.
By the time The Last Waltz took place, The Band had spent 16 long years on the road, honing their craft and cementing themselves as roots rock pioneers — developing a unique sound that mixed folk, rock, jazz and country.
But the road, for all its creative currents and live-wire energy, had also taken its toll.
“Sixteen years on the road, the numbers start to scare you,” Robertson says to an off-screen Scorsese in the film. “I mean, I couldn't live with 20 years on the road. I don't think I could even discuss it.”
Driven in large part by Robertson’s desire to leave the road, The Band announced one final performance in November of 1976.
Staging the show
Held at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving Day, the concert took the form of an all-night celebration. A turkey dinner was served to the 5,000 attendees, who also enjoyed ballroom dancing and live readings from famous poets like Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
The concert, which didn’t start until 9 p.m., lasted for over five hours and featured a rotating lineup of surprise guests who played alongside The Band.
By the end of the night, a who’s who of future Rock and Roll Hall of Famers had graced the stage, including Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Neil Diamond, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr and, of course, Bob Dylan.
The star power was enough to rival Monterey Pop or even Woodstock. It would take a truly skilled filmmaker to capture it all as a documentary. Enter: Martin Scorsese.
Crafting the film
Robertson reportedly wanted Scorsese for the job after seeing how he blended music with narrative in Mean Streets. Scorsese, who had previously worked as an editor on the Woodstock documentary, was up for the challenge.
As director, Scorsese helped transform the concert into an immersive theatrical experience. Boris Leven, the production designer for the Oscar-winning films West Side Story and The Sound of Music, designed the chandelier-strung stage and lighting.
Scorsese also assembled a team of world-class cinematographers to capture the hours-long performance, which he painstakingly storyboarded ahead of time. Among the cameramen that night were László Kovács, Vilmos Zsigmond and Michael Chapman, whose credits include work on Easy Rider, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raging Bull, respectively.
From emotionally charged close-ups to gliding tracking shots, Scorsese and his team did more than just film a concert; they told a story. Using the cinematic techniques at their disposal, they pinpointed the emotional heartbeat of each song, of the concert as a whole, even of The Band itself.
Scorsese also threads together a series of interviews with all five members of The Band, whose stories provide the perfect launch pad for each subsequent song. A few soundstage performances are thrown in for good measure, including a soul-stirring rendition of “The Weight” with The Staple Singers and a classical suite composed by Robertson specifically for the film.
Leaving a legacy
Taken all together, The Last Waltz remains one of the most visually staggering and emotionally poignant concert films ever conceived. It is a moving, grooving and soothing snapshot of music history, a paean for a lost era — or, as Robertson himself puts it, a celebration of “the beginning of the beginning of the end of the beginning.”
In the years following The Last Waltz, The Band reunited intermittently to tour and record a handful of new albums without Robertson’s involvement.
Robertson, meanwhile, became close friends with Scorsese during the post-production process and went go on to collaborate with the director as a music producer for ten films. Their decades-long collaboration culminated with 2023's Killers of the Flower Moon, which features an original score by Robertson.
Recreating the show
In 2023, to celebrate the film's 45th anniversary, the Des Moines concert series Monday Night Live! staged a recreation of The Last Waltz with Iowa musicians at xBk Live in the Drake neighborhood. IPR Studio One was there to record the performance.
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