All language subtitles for Once Were Brothers

This guitar was
the beginning of it all for me.

I don't have
much of a process of, like,

"I'm thinking about this,

and now I'm gonna write a song,
and it's gonna be about that."

A lot of times,

the creative process is trying
to catch yourself off guard.

And you sit down, and
you've got a blank canvas,

and you don't know
what you're gonna do,

and you just see what happens.

How you doin', man?

When you talk
about songs that are

reflective of your past,

it becomes a Jigsaw puzzle,

because... you write
about what you know.

You write
about where you've been.

You write about who you know.

When I stumbled onto this song,
"once were brothers"...

It really did, for me,
zero in on the band.

I don't know
of any other group of musicians

with a story equivalent
to the story of the band.

And it was a beautiful thing.

It was so beautiful,
it went up in flames.

There is no band that emphasizes

coming together and becoming

greater than the sum
of their parts than the band.

Simply their name,
the band, that was it.

I've never been
in a band that long.

I ran away, usually,
and would move on

to the next thing that was
attractive to me,

or that was missing in the band
I was in. So I didn't

have a sense of brotherhood,

so I was in great awe
of their brotherhood.

It was the soul of the band.

Not only did they
have the incredible writing,

you know, Robbie's writing,
but they had three

of the greatest white singers
in rock history.

To have any one of those guys
would be the foundation

for a great band. To have three
of them in one group,

that was...
Just loaded for bear.

This music
drew upon country music,

English, Scottish, Irish,
the choral sounds

of the Welsh. At the same time,

Mississippi delta, the blues.
And there was so much imagery.

This... just didn't
seem like anything else.

No one sounded
like those guys. You know,

they came in, and they played.
And I just loved

that about them, you know,
they were about the music.

I think about levon,
Richard, Rick, and garth

all the time. We went through
things together you could

never replace. You can never
give enough credit

to something that special.
I was an only child,

so this brotherhood was
so powerful.

I think
we're warmed up.

Since I was a kid,
I see stories

in a different way. I don't see
them like fairy tales.

These stories are powerful,

and some of them are
dangerous and big.

Maybe that's
because my upbringing was

a little bit scattered
and not normal in some ways.

My mother was born and raised

in the six nation
Indian reserve.

Her name was Dolly.

When she was
around 16 years old,

she was sent to live
with an aunt in Toronto.

When we would go back to visit

the relatives
in the Indian reserve,

I thought this was
a magical place.

It seemed like every day,

when the sun
started to go down,

the instruments would come out.

And I could sit
in the middle of this,

and hear the fingers
on the strings,

and the hands rubbing
on the skins of the drum.

My parents got me
a little guitar

with a cowboy painted on it.

I already know a couple
of chords on the guitar

that my relatives at
six nations had taught me.

I would practice and practice.

This is where I belong.

This is calling me.

I don't know for sure

whether I would ever have found
my way to music

without this experience,

and that's why I have
such a deep appreciation

for that place.

And then we crossed
into a time zone

when I was 13 years old.

Overnight, out of nowhere,

this new music came pouring out.

For guys my age,
it was a life-altering moment.

Like, it just cut
against the grain

of the mundaneness of
entertainment at that time.

Jann you know,
it's raw, it's loud,

it's raucous, it's tough.

You know, the guitar sound is
loud and thrilling.

It immediately

imparted to you
this entire new way

of living, of looking,

of walking,
of talking, of being,

of the possibility
of what you might be able to do

with your life. It was a
revolutionary moment, you know.

I thought of it as my
own personal big bang.

I thought, "that's
it. I don't know

what all you people
are gonna do,

but I know what I'm gonna do."

Within weeks, I
was in my first band.

We were off and running.

My schoolmates, they're like,

"one of these days, I wanna have
my own bowling alley."

I'd be like, "oh, my god,
your own bowling...

You could bowl for free
all you wanted, right?"

I don't have that vision.

I saw something else,
and the lights

were really bright.

Within a couple years,
we were getting somewhere,

booking different shows
around Toronto.

A local dj booked US to open

for Ronnie Hawkins
and the hawks.

Ronnie Hawkins
and the hawks had

a reputation to be the best

rockabilly band around.

These guys were up there

with Jerry Lee Lewis,
Conway twitty,

Carl Perkins,
they were in that league.

We didn't
know anything about Canada.

We figured, Canada is the
wilderness, they've still got

mountain men, you know,
eating each other,

stuff like that.

We didn't know nothing
about Canada. Boy, and Canada is

the promised land compared
to where we came from.

We played
our hearts out.

Then Ronnie Hawkins
and the hawks take

the stage. Oh, my god.
They took flight.

Ronnie Hawkins was

over here. Boom,
he was over there.

He was singing just in time.

The piano player would be

playing a solo,
keys would be flying off

the piano,
he was hitting it so hard.

There was a guy playing drums

who looked like
he was 15 years old,

with white-blonde hair,

and he was twirling sticks,
and he was laughing,

and smiling,

and he just seemed
to glow in the dark,

and his name was levon helm.

Well, I started with
Ronnie when I was trying

to get out of high school
back in Arkansas.

Ronnie was putting
a band together.

I got into it to play drums.

We hit the road,
played around for years,

and ended up
playing up in Canada.

This is it. This is the
most amazing thing

on the planet earth.

After they played,
I just stood around.

I wanted to help out
in any way I could,

to have this rub off on me,

this music, this talent,

this southern-ness.

I stuck to them like glue.

I knew
right off the bat

Robbie had something special.
I don't know,

he must've been
15 or 16 years old.

But he was hip.
Robbie was street hip.

He was a hell of a young man.

One day,
I heard Ronnie Hawkins

saying to the other guys,
"I gotta cut a new record.

I need some songs."

I scampered home,
went to my room,

and never came out
until I wrote two songs.

Robbie was writing
songs when he was 15 years old.

I recorded two of said songs
on my album

before anybody ever thought
about Robbie robertson.

At that time,
Robbie dropped out of school.

His mother, Dolly, she
was worried about him.

There had been quite a period

where my parents weren't
getting along.

My father, Jim robertson,

was being quite abusive
with my mother,

and with me.

And one day she said to me,

"sit down, I... I need
to tell you something.

And maybe I should've
told you this before,

but he's not your real father."

"What?

I... what do you mean,
he's not my real father?"

Robbie's real daddy was
a Hebrew gangster.

Yeah, they killed him,
they shot him on...

Yonge street, I think.

My mother says, "your
blood father, his name was

Alexander klegerman.

He got killed
before you were born.

He's Jewish."

And she introduced me

to the relatives
of my blood father,

natie klegerman
and morrie klegerman.

They bring me into their world

with tremendous love
and affection.

I met his uncle who'd been
in the penitentiary

ten years.
He was a gangster too.

Through these
relatives of mine,

I'm understanding
what's been stirring

inside of me all this time.

They understand vision.

They understand ambition.

When I told the klegermans

I had musical ambitions,
they were like,

"rock 'n' roll?
You don't wanna be

in furs and diamonds,
you wanna be in that...?"

And then they were like,
"oh, you mean, show business."

I'm 16 years old now.

Ronnie Hawkins says, "I want
you to come down to Arkansas

and try out
to become one of the hawks."

If I didn't go down there
and try out for this,

I would be sorry
the rest of my life.

I sold my '56 stratocaster,

I got the money
to take a train from Toronto

to fayetteville, Arkansas.

I'm going
to the Mississippi delta,

to the fountainhead
of rock 'n' roll.

"This is it, this is it.
I've gotta make this work."

So many amazing music
people came out of there.

This music

is down and dirty.

And it's heavy,

just like the air.

Growin' up there
in the delta,

just in the Memphis,
west Memphis area there,

we had as good a radio
as you could find.

Our jukeboxes and radios

weren't running short
of good songs.

I consider
myself fortunate to have

grown up there and heard
the kind of music that I did.

Robbie was

a hell of a gifted musician,
I can tell you that.

But what made him better
than anybody else is

he worked twice as hard.

Finally, Ronnie says,

"I'm gonna offer you the job."

I say, "you'll never have
to tell me to work harder."

He said, "I know."
So I say, "great.

How much will I get paid
working for you?"

And I said, "well, don't worry
about the money, kid.

You ain't gonna make much money,

but you'll be gettin' more pussy
than frank Sinatra."

And he did.

I depended on levon
to show me the road.

He had grown, in my eyes,

bigger than life.
When he laughed,

everybody laughed.

They were the best
friends you could ever be.

They were like huckleberry Finn
and Tom Sawyer.

It was a hell of a combination,
I thought,

because levon could put the
arrangements and stuff together

and do all that, and Robbie
could write the songs.

When I saw
Robbie play guitar,

it just blew my mind.

Every guitar player in Toronto
learned from Robbie.

He changed
the whole ballgame up here.

I can remember
people discussing,

"how does Robbie make
that guitar sound?"

That was
the big mystery.

There was, like,
stories going around

that, oh,
he slashed his speakers,

broke a couple of tubes
in the amp.

Every guitar player I met after
that was doing the same thing.

I watched them all change
from their old style of playing

to the new Robbie style
of playing,

and I was...
I was one of the pack.

Ronnie depends
on levon and I

to help him choose
musicians that have potential.

Ronnie wants to have
the best band in the land.

Have you ever heard me sing?

I'll better have a good band.

The Arkansas boys would quit

and Ronnie would replace
with a Canadian musician.

Within a fairly short time,
we had

Richard, Rick, and when garth

finally joined the outfit,
I think that gave US a leg up.

We didn't
know a musician

that could do what he could do.

Garth understood muddy waters

and bach in the same sentence.

Richard was
an incredibly beautiful soul.

You couldn't help
but just love the guy.

It was
kind of like boot camp.

I mean, we drove ourselves

to as near perfection
as we could get, you know?

To the point where we'd
really thrill each other.

Rick was one
of these people that was like,

"trombone, bass, tuba,

violin, whatever it is,
I can do it."

We were kids
playing in bars

that you were supposed
to be 21 to play in.

We were 17, 18, 19. It can

get pretty outrageous when
you're out there that young.

Robbie's mom, Dolly,

she helped the band out
more than anybody.

She would give them
places to stay cheap,

fed 'em, cooked.
She did everything.

She was somethin' else.

We played six days
a week and we practiced five.

That's how come they got good.

They were probably the best
white rhythm and blues band

in the world at that time.
When they were young,

they were absorbing
all that knowledge quick.

They shot by me musically
like a bolt of lightning.

We were
outgrowing the past

and the music that we were
playing with Ronnie.

When we
left Ronnie, we ended up

playing at a club in New York,

and one day my friend,
John Hammond,

a great musician, blues singer,

he came and picked me up
at the hotel,

and we're going to the Columbia
records building,

to one of the studios.

We go in.
I see over in the corner

this guy with dark glasses on

and frizzly hair,
and John says,

"this is Bob Dylan."

Bob Dylan's
a really respected songwriter.

He was best known
to me as a folk singer

with a guitar
and he has a harmonica.

And he sings
his beautiful songs.

Folk music, from what we knew,

was happening
over by a university somewhere,

and people were
sipping cappuccinos,

listening to folk music.

Where we're playing,

on the other side
of the tracks,

there ain't nobody sipping
cappuccinos over there.

I didn't know
a whole lot about Bob.

We were more into
R&B and blues music.

When we left Ronnie,

I wanna be something original,

I don't wanna be a bar band.

I've gotta
come back to writing.

I'm having dreams
about finding a sanctuary,

finding a place that we can go,

and we can hone these skills,
and we're just not

on the road
driving to the next gig.

They were
playing these gigs,

trying to get a recording deal.
I said, "well, gee, you know,

how about we make
a record together?

And I was signed
to vanguard records.

And they gave US, like,
a three-hour window to record.

I invited my friend Bob Dylan
to the recording day.

So I introduced them to Dylan.

And... and Dylan flipped out,
I mean,

he thought
these guys were phenomenal.

What we didn't know is
that Bob's already doing

the rock 'n' roll thing.

He wanted to hire
an amazing band

that he could take
on tour with him.

So he hired the guys.

Bob Dylan's thing
was like a detour.

We're hooking up with this guy,

and he's changing
the course of music.

He's like... the king
of the folk movement

who now wants
a rock 'n' roll band.

Huh! That's not a bad thing

to experience along the way too.

We thought,
"let's take that detour."

We hook up with him,
and have no idea

that he's the only one

that thinks
this is a good idea.

The rest of the world
hates this idea.

We play with him
and they boo US every night.

It is weird that people could

be this upset about this guy

just wanting to expand
his musical horizon

and play with other musicians.

We'd go somewhere,
we set up our equipment,

we play.

People come, they boo US,

sometimes throw things.
We'd pack up our equipment,

go on to the next place,

set up, play, they boo US.

I think, "what a strange way
to make a buck."

Kids would break for the stage,

cops were making
open-field tackles...

Out in front of the stage.

And Bob had told US, you know,

whatever happens,
just don't stop playing.

Cool car!

Get the bass in with Robbie.
Let's go.

Let's go, we have to go now.
Hey, tell them we have to go.

Hey, don't pull my fingers!

So long. So long,
don't boo me anymore!

When they yell in this
weird nasal tone.

Oh. Jesus, you know,
I don't understand why they...

How can they buy
the tickets up so fast?

Let's get that light off.

Levon expressed
to me that there was

something in this whole world

that we had entered into that
just didn't feel right to him.

And the idea that we would

go out and play
and people would boo US,

he thought
that was just ridiculous.

And I... I was
much closer to Bob

than the other guys were.

I don't think levon felt good
about that, either.

One night, levon comes

to my hotel room and he says,

"I don't like this music.
I don't like these people.

I don't wanna be here.

And I don't wanna be
in anybody's band.

I wanna go."

He didn't go
anywhere without me.

He said, "I'm gonna go
down to New Orleans

and maybe work on an oil rig

in the Gulf of Mexico."
And I said,

"have you told the other guys?"

He said, "no, I haven't spoke
to the other guys.

I'd like you to do that for me."

"Tell them I wish them well,

and I'll see them
down the line."

So I walked him
down the street,

and I put my arm
around his shoulders

as we were walking along.

He felt beat up to me.

And I knew that he was
really in pain.

My heart was breaking.

My partner, my brother...

Has left, has gone.

I don't know how to
do this without levon...

But I'm gonna have
to figure it out.

After levon left,

we had to get another drummer.

Mickey Jones was his name

and he was a terrific guy,

but, boy, they were
tough shoes to fill.

Levon left a big hole.

We play all over Europe,
and it just gets worse.

We were thinking,
"maybe they don't like it here,

but when we go there, they'll
probably feel differently."

- No.

Being in the
trenches with Bob on this fight

probably reinforced
their relationship.

I think they became closer
under fire.

It's fun to revolt.
Robbie's young,

and you know, throwin' it
in the faces

of all these like, pissant,

you know, people that are
in tweeds, or whatever.

I remember
it well. The show was

in two halves. In the first
half, Bob came out and did

his usual thing with the guitar
and the harmonica.

In the second half,
he came out with the band.

All through that second half,
people were getting up

and walking out, shouting,

and Bob just came out
and he said, "well, you know,

"you all may know this song.
Um, remember how

it goes? Well, here's how
it goes now." You know?

I remember saying
to the other guys,

"this is good. They're wrong.

This is good."

And then you realize,

you're in a musical revolution.

There is something
going on here,

and you have
nothing to compare it to.

It just made US

feel like flexing
our musical muscles.

We're gonna play this music
in your face.

The guys that were
with me on that tour,

you know,
we were all in it together.

We were puttin' our heads
in the lion's mouth.

I had to admire them
for sticking it out with me,

just for doing it,
in my book they were,

you know... gallant knights

for even, you know,
standing behind me.

One day, we were
just taking a walk

and looking in stores.

I see two really pretty girls.

We're
taking a wonderful walk. It was

the springtime in Paris.
There was a gathering of people

somewhere around the corner

who began to talk to US,
and asked US what we were doing.

In broken English,

they say they're journalists
from Montreal.

I'm like, "wow!

I'm from Canada too.

I'm from Toronto."

And they look like,
oh, that's too bad.

And this whole thing
at the time

between English-speaking
and the French-speaking,

they were in a revolutionary
spirit. This is when they were

putting bombs in mailboxes,

and it was rough going.

I'm on neutral territory,
I'm in Paris.

He looked like family to me
from the beginning.

It was like...
I recognized him.

I am fancy dancing
the best I can

to charm Dominique

into thinking
I'm not a bad person,

I'm not the enemy.

And we've got to spend
some time together.

We went
to the concert at the Olympia,

and the crowd was roaring

in anger
about electric guitars.

I didn't even realize

people were booing anymore.
There was something

about her spirit.

There was something
about her eyes and her smile,

and it was a fire inside her.

Even though I didn't
speak his language,

I spoke a language
that touched him.

I was definitely
falling in love with Robbie.

When we got back
to New York City,

I invited her to come
and join me there,

and eventually she did.

The other guys
in the hawks and myself

were trying to find a place

where we could
start working on our music.

Albert Grossman, Bob's manager,

he had a place up
in Woodstock, New York.

Albert was an
anomaly in the world

of record business people.

He didn't wear a suit.

His had his hair tied back
in a ponytail.

He looked like an overweight
Benjamin Franklin.

Albert took very good care
of his artists.

But as far as dealing with
other people, he was shrewd.

Bob had moved up to
Woodstock, got a house.

Albert would go up there
on the weekends.

So Albert says,
"come up to Woodstock.

There's so much room up there.

You can get a place.

You can make
all the sounds you want."

It was a very
welcoming possibility.

Rick found US this
ugly pink house.

This is just what I've been

dreaming about
all these years...

A sanctuary that we could
go and write and create.

Oh, my god, I mean, a...

Pretty corny house, you know?

But it was perfect.

So we moved up
to Woodstock.

We built a little studio

in the basement,
just for writing purposes.

Garth, Richard, and Rick
moved into this house.

I called Bob,
and I drive him out there

to show him the place.

And he comes in
and he looks at this basement,

and he sees all the instruments
set up there,

a little tape recorder,
some microphones.

He says, "can you record music
in this place?"

And I was like, "yeah, we've got
that little tape recorder.

It's not... you know,
a recording studio,

but it's pretty good
for writing and stuff."

He said, "listen, I've got
a couple of song ideas

I've been kicking around.
Maybe we could try them here."

Great! That's the spirit.

Bob would come by, you know,

every day for about a six,
seven-month period,

and we'd... we'd get together
every afternoon

six to seven days a week.
And just from US

getting together
and applying ourselves,

- a lot does come out of that.
- In the living room,

there was a couple
of typewriters,

because Bob wrote songs
on a typewriter.

And he'd say,
"guys, let's go, let's go.

I think I got something. Let's
go." We'd all go downstairs,

we would record it.

No, not any Harmony,

but Harmony in the background
like, ooh!

- You know, just...

- Let me hear you now!

Working with Bob,
I saw a door opening.

He was making the possibility

of using poetry in songwriting

like I had never
quite seen before.

It gave you a sense of Liberty.

You used to think, "I don't know
if you can do that.

I don't know, is it all right
to say that?

Can you express things
in that kind of way?"

Boom, no rules.

Robbie is a real artist.

He is an amazing creative force.

I never saw him

without a little pad of paper
and a pencil,

writing notes about everything.

Some thought, some idea

that he could use
later in a song.

When Dominique was
becoming my girlfriend,

her connection
to French literature,

poetry, music,

was rubbing off on me.

The path that I was
on intellectually,

boom, she altered it,

and I was being highly inspired

by what she was bringing
to the table as well.

Albert Grossman was
thinking about getting

the hawks a record deal.

So he said, "you need to record

a couple of your tunes
so I can play them

for some record companies."

So we went into a studio,

and we got a session drummer.

I was really not satisfied
with what we did.

If you have a... a table
and one of the legs is missing,

it doesn't sit steady.

This was the sign,

it's time for him to come back.
We gotta find levon.

We tracked him down
and we told him

about the place we had
and that we were

gonna get a record deal
and all of this,

and you could hear
the joy in his voice.

I remember
meeting him

and he was such a nice guy.
He was such a charming person.

There was a sense of relief

in the band that he was back,

and hopefully he would stay.

Moved into the house there,
there was an extra spot for me,

and uh,
started gettin' together,

and just
putting songs together.

I had the sense
that levon realized

he was coming back
to a good thing.

They were on a salary,

they were able
to make their own music.

Woodstock was full of young
people and lots of girls.

It was better than being
on an oil rig in the middle

of the Gulf of Mexico.
Robbie played the tapes

that they had made,
"the basement tapes".

Levon's reaction was

so extraordinary.
He was blown away.

We had never
that kind of time

on our hands,
and there we are in the...

In the catskills, and we don't
have a show to play that night,

so we were enjoying it,
just sitting around, you know,

the freedom to go down
and play some music,

or go outside and throw a
football around at each other.

That was just part of a...

A lifestyle that we got to love

in Woodstock, you know,
just being able to chop wood,

or hit your thumb
with a hammer.

We'd be concerned
with fixing the tape recorder

and getting the songs together.

We had come out
with a different sound,

a different sensibility.
The music didn't

sound anything like what we did

with Ronnie Hawkins,
like anything we did

as levon and the hawks.

It didn't sound like
anything we did

with Bob Dylan
on the infamous tour, so having

a new name felt natural as well.

In the town, people'd say,

"oh, those guys, they play
with Bob. They're in the band."

And we kept hearing,

"the band,"
"the band," "the band."

And it felt
unpretentious, UN-jivy,

UN-cute.

Just strictly the band.

We had done a lot of
pre-production work, of course,

at big pink. Robbie was doing
a lot of the songwriting,

you know, and doing
a lot more homework likely

than the rest of US.
It was just a question of US

arranging them,
and putting them together,

and making them
as strong as possible

and working together.

I came back
to the house one evening.

I thought,
"I gotta do some writing

for this record
that we're working on."

And I'm thinking, "what am I
gonna write about?"

And I'm sitting there
with a guitar,

noodling around.

I look in the guitar,
and inside,

on Martin guitars,

it talks about
where they're made.

And they're made
in nazareth, Pennsylvania.

And it just, it was
all coming to me.

Going from Canada

down to the Mississippi delta

when I was 16 years old,

characters and circumstances,

all of it started
to come back to me.

And when I got to this chorus...

And I could hear these voices...

And the whole thing
just blended together.

We discovered a whole

vocal thing that we weren't
aware that we even had.

I remember
listening to playbacks

after the sessions
of songs and thinking,

"I really like this stuff.

And... I don't have
anything to compare it to,

but I really like it,
and I hope everybody else does

'cause I really think
this is strong."

I was very excited
playing this record for Bob.

He hadn't heard a note of it.

"The weight" comes on.

He's like, "wait a minute.
Who wrote that?"

And I said,
"I... I wrote that."

He said, "you wrote that?"
And I could just see

the pride in his eyes.

I think
I was in a little coffee shop

in redbank, New Jersey.
Kid came in

with music from big pink
and put it on the sound system.

It was late at night, after...

After the place was
about to close down,

which was a fantastic moment

to be introduced
to that music, you know?

And suddenly this music comes on
and everything changes.

When I heard
big pink, it was as if someone

had like, nailed me
through the chest to the wall.

I was just
immediately converted.

That was when cream was
in its sort of, uh, mid-stage

and pretty much severed
my connection with the other two

in the band. And I thought,
"this is what I wanna do."

- It changed my life.
- They weren't

reading out of
the modern book of music.

They went to the source.

You'd say in the Caribbean,
"they was musical

to the core, to the bone".

If there was
any American musicians

that were comparable
to what the Beatles were,

- it would've been them.

This is the middle
of psychedelic era

in popular music,
so something comes along

that is the antithesis
of where music had been moving.

Here come all these voices
that sound

like you've never
heard them before,

and like they've always
been there, forever and ever.

It was very
clear the moment I met them

who they were
and what they were about.

They were very grounded.

They were very strong.
They were very secure.

They were gracious,
like country people

are gracious,
and they were totally in love

with their music, and they were
in love with each other.

I never saw any jealousy,
I never saw any arguments,

I never saw them disagree.
It was always

supporting each other.
They were five brothers,

very clearly five brothers
who loved each other,

and I never saw
anything but that. In the '60s,

part of the rebellion

was rejecting one's elders,
rejecting one's parents.

The guys in the band
wanted to say,

"hey, that's not right.
We love our parents.

"They worked very hard
to bring US up

and care for US." And so

they wanted to have a picture
of their families in the album.

It was a magical
time within this group.

We're getting somewhere.

They made big pink and then
Robbie said, "we wanna go out

on the road." But then Rick
drove his car into a ditch...

...and broke his neck.

It was
a terrible car accident.

Rick was found
wandering in the woods,

which is pretty extraordinary
for someone who has

just broken his neck. He was

taken to the hospital
and put in traction for

the longest time. We were all

quite scared as to
whether he would recover.

We're canceling everything.

Everything just stopped.

Music from big pink
becomes this thing,

and we don't show up.
We never play a concert.

They're like,
"who are these guys?"

We were becoming
the most mysterious people

in the music business.

After we recorded big pink,

there is that thing of like,

"whoa, what do we do now?
Can we follow that up?"

I was working day and
night on musical ideas.

Rick got out of the hospital,
and then

boom, we were back
in the studio.

You hear
timeless songwriting,

painting pictures
and telling stories,

a cohesion

which is greater
than the sum of the parts.

They were the very first band

who got it together
in a country house,

which became a big thing.

When you shut out
the rest of the world

and the city,
and just concentrate on...

Music-making and performing
and each other,

you get
a different sort of result.

Taking some
of that roots music,

a little bit of muddy waters,
a little bit of Hank Williams,

no long guitar solos, it was

just simple,
straightforward music.

Nowadays we call it americana.

I was in Boston.

I was sleeping on a couch,

and it was
"I shall be released"

was what came on.

I thought, "oh yeah, there's...
There's something. I'm

connecting with something here."
That's what I thought.

I got an impression there was
a lot of mythology going on.

You'd never really
heard a sound like that.

It also it reminded me greatly

of 19th century literature,
American literature.

Particularly melville.
There's something

about the melville stories,
and the sense of...

Searching the band brings
to mind for me.

Each song is like
a little John steinbeck novel.

Steinbeck also gives you
these images of america,

of dustbowl america.

I spent quite a bit of time

with the band, and one of the
things that Robbie said to me

was the fact that when he wrote
a tune, he had

all these different singers
who could sing the song.

And he could write lyrics,
like, to write a song

knowing that levon
was gonna sing it.

You know, you could be...
You could write much different

to knowing if you were gonna
have to do it yourself.

When they came together,
something happened

that could not have occurred
on their own

or individually.
You know, something...

Miraculous occurred.

We were booked
to play our first job

as the band at winterland,
in San Francisco,

with bill Graham presenting.

We went
up to San Francisco, like,

two days early.
Robbie is sick as a dog.

I'm completely drained

and it hits me: The last time
we played together,

everybody boos US
everywhere we go, right?

Am I having some kind
of stage fright thing?

He's got a fever of 103.

I'm saying to bill Graham,
"we've gotta cancel. I'm sorry."

Bill Graham says,
"impossible. There is

no way in the world
that we can cancel this."

And finally bill says,

"what do you think
about the idea

of US bringing in a hypnotist?"

A little guy,
about 5'8",

black suit, white carnation,
shows up,

and he puts him under.

And he's saying,
"your stomach will feel

as calm as a lake.

Your head feels
as cool as a winter breeze."

The next thing
I know, my head doesn't feel

so bad. And I'm thinking,

"I'll be damned,
I'm actually feeling

stronger and better
than I was before."

He says,

"any time you start
to feel too weak,

you look over at me

and I'm gonna say
to you, 'grow.'"

And the crowd is yelling
and we're playing.

And I look over at him
and he goes, "grow."

This guy had
to be onstage with Robbie.

This was the first concert
I'd ever experienced with them,

so... what did I know?
But I did,

I know that usually there's not
a hypnotist onstage.

Everybody got their
own starring moment.

Rick had his songs.

Garth got to do "chest fever,"

and Richard was brilliant.

So in those first
year and a half,

- it was amazing.

Well, when we first
went out on tour,

they were famous
because of their relationship

with Bob Dylan, but here they
were now as themselves.

This was the band.
That brought about a fame

to them that they had
never had before.

Announcer: Folks, the band.

And I got the
chance to go and meet Robbie.

And I went up to Woodstock
to hang with him.

And the reason I went up there
was to pluck up the nerve

to ask him
if I could join the band.

Maybe they needed
a rhythm guitar player!

And I was wearing pink
boots and I had curly hair,

just psychedelic. And they were

kinda really earthy.

And I was saying,
"well, let's jam."

And he said, "we don't jam."

So it was a songwriting outfit.

Robbie's listening to the way

that each of them play,
but the way they worked

as a unit was,
like, incredible.

Rick was pretty dynamic,

and he was
a very powerful energy.

Garth was shy, and I
fell in love with Richard.

He was the most mournful,
soulful thing I'd ever heard.

God, Richard was
such a sensitive man.

Like a wounded bird.

But a beautiful, beautiful soul.

He was very fragile,

and we liked to drink together.

When you put US together,
there was an instant bond.

Robbie, in a way,
was kind of outside of that

because I saw Robbie
as the straight guy.

He was a guy
who we could drink with,

but at some point,
he would lose interest in that,

you know, whereas me and Richard
were the kind of people

that we would like
to drink together,

but we'd drink... we'd like
drinking even more on our own.

Just when the band
was really hitting,

the difference between Robbie
and the rest of the band was

his family was
incredibly important to him.

He already had a baby.

Dominique was
this incredibly vital,

smart woman that he liked
hanging with.

She was incredibly beautiful.
And the rest of the guys

were still trying to figure out
did they want a family or not?

And they were consuming
a lot of drugs,

playing a lot,

drinking too much, you know,
everything else.

In Woodstock, it was...

At one point, car accidents.
And the phone ringing

in the middle of the night
to say this one or that one

had totaled the car
or was in the ditch.

Rick, he was lucky, you know,

but it became far too

often that there were
situations like that.

I had this mustang

that Robbie had bought,

and Richard wanted to drive it.

I said,
"really, can you do it?"

And he said, "well, I sober up
behind the wheel."

And I said,
"please, don't go so fast,

you know, can you see?
Can you see?"

And he said,
"oh, I can see like a lynx."

You know,
and I was naive, frankly.

We hit this curve,
and it was like every...

Hit every cement pole
in the curve.

We ended up in the ditch.

Then Richard lit a match.

And I thought,
"you're gonna blow the car.

We have to get out."
Push. "Get out. Get out."

We were
at big pink and somebody

came rushing up and said...

"Richard's just had an accident
and he's crashed a new car."

Levon you know,
jumps into his corvette

and rushes to the scene,

and accidentally crashes
into the police car.

The cop threw levon
on the back of a car.

I think they handcuffed him.
I don't know how long

it took me, you know,
to really absorb the shock.

Richard could've
killed Dominique.

What do you say?

It pissed me off.

But it was something
that we weren't educated in

at the time,
of dealing with alcoholism.

And all the things
that you think you should do

is mostly the things that you
should absolutely not do.

And after that, there
was a whole period

where he didn't
hardly drink at all.

So we were holding it at bay.

By this point, there was
an experimenting going on

that led to heroin.

And I was confused
that the guys wanted

to play with that fire.

That was devastating.
Nobody had

any understanding of addiction,

that it's a mental disorder.
And at the time,

it felt very much
like a betrayal.

Robbie might've used,

he might've drank, he might've
tried different things,

but he did not have that gene

that would cause him
to become an addict.

He had a vision,

and nothing
was gonna get in the way

of the vision.

If you think about
the summer of 1969 into 1970,

music from big pink,
I think Robbie wrote

less than half the songs.
By the brown album,

he wrote maybe two thirds
of the songs.

By stage fright, he was
writing all of the songs.

And it wasn't that
he wanted to do that.

Robbie would start
writing, like,

at ten in the morning.
And to be honest,

levon, and Rick, and Richard,
were still asleep.

I loved writing with Richard.

Richard had a beautiful,
melodic ear,

and he would come up with
chord changes

I would never find,

but somehow it just
wasn't happening for him,

and if I pushed too hard,
it made him feel bad.

With Richard,
it was really poignant.

I very clearly remember Robbie

pleading with Richard, asking
him, do you have anything?

Anything to add to the song?
Richard just didn't have it.

He didn't have
anything to offer.

It was up to Robbie
and garth, primarily,

to keep driving
the basic creative force,

and hoping that their friends
would keep on.

During the recording
of stage fright,

heroin was being used.

It had an effect on their
energy, their ability

to be present. Levon
would sometimes be

nodded out upstairs, and it was
a little sad, you know,

because he would come down,
and you could still see a look

in his eye that was
a little strange,

and it was-- it was difficult.

This is very different
from the very energetic levon

that I used to know,
who was always very wiry,

always up for action,

up for going after it,
whatever it may be,

and now it was like sleepy time.
That's not easy to deal with.

It's hard to connect
with somebody

who's doing that,
it's hard to trust,

it's hard to really keep
a friendship going.

It was beginning to feel
like a real fracture.

One day I said to levon,

"I can see what's going on.
I know you."

And he was doing
the junkie denial

and explaining
and making excuses

and laughing
and slapping me on the back,

and I'd never had this kind of
an encounter with him before.

We don't do that.
We don't lie to one another.

I still loved him, but
something got broken

in that. It was like glass,

it was hard to put back
together again.

It was not just
an exasperation,

it was a feeling that Robbie
could lose everything.

That brotherhood,
that friendship,

that bond, that love
that they had for each other.

They were terrific guys,

I loved them myself,
all of them,

but when you begin
to function out of fear

of losing something,
it's maddening.

I think I wanted something
that I couldn't have,

which was normalcy
and a regular schedule.

After the children were born,
my focus changed entirely.

Our children
were elevating my life,

they were making everything

have a beautiful aura
around it,

except when
I had to go to work,

and then this darkness,
this cloud came back overhead.

My family was my saving grace.

I had to go from Woodstock
out to Los Angeles,

and while I was out there,
I got a message

that this guy who had
a record company

wanted to meet with me,
and his name was David geffen.

In every band,
there is someone

who ends up being the leader
one way or the other.

Usually, the star
is the lead singer.

In the band, it wasn't.

Robbie's a star.
You put him in any group,

Robbie'll start talking,
and telling stories,

and performing,
and he's a star.

David geffen was
a manager, a record executive.

He thought if he could get Bob
Dylan to his record company,

that would cement him as the
king of the music business.

David saw Robbie as a way
to make that happen.

He started romancing Robbie.

David was incredibly candid,

incredibly straightforward,

and back in Woodstock,
in the world

of Albert Grossman,
and of Bob Dylan,

a lot was left unsaid.

There was something
about meeting with David

that was so open.

I remember
saying to Robbie,

of all the places you could
live, why pick Woodstock?

Because Albert Grossman
lives here?

I thought it was a shithole,
I mean, I hated it.

I suggested to Robbie
that he move to Malibu.

If you could imagine, that
move to Malibu, sight unseen,

it was another
twilight zone experiment.

You know? For me.

- I guess for all of US.
- Robbie loved it.

It did feel
like something fresh.

He woke up
every morning at the ocean,

his kids loved it,

his wife loved it. You know,
I remember Robbie saying to me,

what the fuck was I doing
in Woodstock?

I was like, I'm gonna call the
guys, tell 'em to come out here.

I thought it would be
very stimulating for Robbie,

I thought it would be
stimulating for the band,

and Bob was there.

Robbie was the one
who suggested I meet him.

The next thing, David
geffen is saying, you know,

it might be a great idea
for Bob Dylan and the band

to play together again,
and do a tour.

Bob had basically been
in hiding in Woodstock

since the tour of '66.

David somehow managed
to convince Bob

to come out on the road.

No one
had seen Bob for years.

It created quite a stir.

It was what
David geffen wanted,

but David was just pure,
unleashed ambition.

The last time
we played together,

in 1966, it wasn't
very well received.

Now we go out, it was embraced

like the second coming.

We didn't change
a thing; The world changed.

It was kind of a good feeling.

I had signed the band

and Bob Dylan
to asylum records.

I had a handshake agreement
with them,

because Bob Dylan said to me,

"is my word good for you?"
And I thought, Bob Dylan,

he wrote "blowin' in the wind",
"the times they are a-changin'."

Yeah, I'll take your word.

What I remember
very clearly,

after the tour of '74,
they went on tour as the band,

and not with Bob Dylan.

After a while touring,
it was very noticeable

that there was change afoot.

We played a gig
in Cleveland...

...Richard had been
doing heroin,

and apparently
he lost his stash.

Sorry about the delay,

Richard Manuel, the pianist,

has taken ill, he's being
taken care of backstage.

The band is gonna go on in a few
minutes without Richard.

Hopefully he'll be fine.

They actually played
the concert

as a quartet, without Richard,
and it sounded so strange.

I kept seeing a lot of looks
between everybody.

Obviously very uncomfortable
with this.

These guys were soldiers,

but Richard Manuel
had a disease.

This band was a real band.

All those spark plugs needed to
be ignited, or it didn't work.

At first it was Richard
holding everybody back,

he wasn't able to play,

and that's why they called me
out there,

to try to scare
Richard straight.

Everybody, all of them

was good, young, honest,
solid guys, all of 'em.

Two or three years later, they
were different personalities.

The rhythm section
had definitely fallen into

heavier drugs.
And once again,

it was up to Robbie
and garth, primarily.

Levon was doing things he'd
never done in a million years

if it hadn't been for drugs.

Levon often complained
about our lawyer,

about our manager, and it was
a kind of paranoia.

I would often say,
"don't worry,

if anybody is taking
advantage of US,

we are gonna stop that
immediately."

But a bitterness
set in with him.

Vivino: Levon felt something
was being taken away,

you know? But families, man,
nobody can feud like a family.

Families can go
to the grave feuding.

If a person is getting
a little more attention,

resentment can set in,
you know, and jealousy.

Robbie kept moving forward,
and not everybody could follow.

This is different now.
This is hard.

This is kinda painful.

This could be tragic.

I don't know
why we're doing this.

Robbie told me
he just didn't wanna

go on the road
with a suitcase full of heroin.

Robbie was planning
the next step in his life.

I've always had that sense,
way back

from when we cut the first album
and we knew we had something,

and he said he wanted to work
with ingmar bergman.

That's not the usual thing
that a rock n' roller would say.

"I wanna work
with ingmar bergman."

There were many elements
that brought this to a head.

It wasn't only
because of drugs,

after you've been together
for 16 years, you think,

"we need to be able
to catch our breath."

I thought,

"if we could get off
the treadmill,

if we can go and
take care of ourselves,

we might be able to
come to our senses."

My solution was,

let's bring it to a culmination
in the name of music.

That's how we fight back
on this.

And we did.

The concert
came together so quickly

it was almost shocking.

I think we started planning
a month before we did it.

We decided to do it
with our friends.

And that's why we felt
comfortable

with the idea of doing
"the last waltz".

I'm thinking, we should
document it properly.

Let's think of some filmmaker

who could tell this story.

Robbie called me one day,

and he said, "these are some
of the names in the lineup:

Joni Mitchell, Neil young,
Van Morrison, muddy waters,

Eric Clapton."

Worse comes to worse,
the library of congress

will have 35mm footage of these
extraordinary people,

performers and artists,
and that would be it.

What it became, really,
it was a celebration.

It was a celebration. It was
all the influences of the band.

Woo! Big time, bill!

Big time! Big time!

Ronnie Hawkins,

when I was 17 years old
with him, I would play

and he would come over
and fan the guitar

like it's gonna go up in flames
if I don't cool it down.

It was just, it was
so heartwarming.

Aaaah!

I went out
with the boys a month early

just to see the rehearsals
because I didn't know

a lot of these people, I'd never
met 'em. I knew who they were,

big stars.

You see a lot
of weird things out there,

and they paid 35,000 cash

right in front of me for a
little ole bit of cocaine.

I snorted a couple lines
and I said, "boys,

there's enough flour and sugar
in this shit

you'll sneeze biscuits

for three fuckin' months
after you snort this."

And they ended up
buying another one.

All I remember is that it was
more of a celebration

than feeling sad.

If I didn't know all
these great-- all these people,

and that was a good gig,
it was fun.

There was no pondering it.

It was only gonna happen once.
You know, hey, presto.

It was a crazy idea,
but we prepared so well.

I remember doing charts as to
how to shoot, where to shoot,

which camera picks up
which performer,

which lyric, which verse,
the chorus, what instrument.

I said, "we shouldn't show
the audience

reacting during songs.

We've seen it,
so we stay on the stage."

We had hoped to get
the way the band works,

the looks, the glances,
the moves.

So I decided to stay onstage

with the performers, and how
they relate to each other.

And that was the key
to the whole piece.

When I found out
who was on the bill,

I thought, "my god,

this is huge," you know?

The main memory
I have of that thing

is obviously
my strap coming off.

Whoa!

His strap broke,
so I jumped in.

You've gotta cover his back,
he was our guest!

And then he's like,
"wait a minute, pal,

let's not get
too fancy over there."

What I remember
about it, it was just...

So free, it was...

And I mean, nobody knew
what was gonna happen next.

And I loved it, I loved it.

I didn't want it to ever end.

"The last waltz"

was such a beautiful thank-you

to this wonderful journey
that we'd been on,

and the amazing
experiences we had.

The whole thing was so moving.

Thank you very much.

- Thank you.
- Thank you very much.

We need a little bit more
of the harp

in the intro and in
the first turnaround.

You want a little bit more,
like, grit on it, or...

Yeah, just a little
more atmosphere. Not so dry.

Yeah, got it.

We did "the last waltz"

with the idea that
we would put that away,

take care of one another a bit,

and really come back
together again

and make music like
we had never made before.

That was our dream.
That was the idea.

Everybody just forgot
to come back.

I was the first one

who was heartbroken,
in a way,

because I loved
the band so much,

you know, and it felt like

it's closing this book,
this chapter.

If somebody had said,

I've got a couple
of tunes started,

we're dying to go in
and create some music,

I would've said yes in a minute.

By that time

I don't think you could've
kept the band together.

Everybody had something
they wanted to do,

and after "the last waltz,"

we started chasing those dreams.

Some years later,

levon was having a tough time.

And out of that,

his anger was aimed at me.

In the end, levon
contended that somehow

he should've gotten a lot
of the songwriting revenue.

And he just got more
and more pissed off.

I can see why

levon might say
something like that,

because he was really good at
helping arrange.

But Robbie wrote all the songs.

Robbie was writing songs
when he was 15 years old.

And the rest of the boys
helped arrange the songs,

which is
a little bit different.

Levon's point
was that these were five guys

that all played a role

in making the band what it was.

I mean, the combination of those
five guys was so unique,

and so he felt as though Robbie

were claiming all the credit
for himself.

You could kinda see in levon,
through this bitterness,

that because of his
interpretation of what happened,

he was really hurting, you know?

He just let it chew him up.

When levon
ran out of money,

that's when he went crazy,

because he had been
living high.

But levon's kind of like me,
he gets mad

and says things he shouldn't
say, and goes crazy.

Levon and Robbie
were best friends,

were brothers, I mean,
levon showed him the ropes.

So it was very sad

that that's how he felt

and that, you know,
that's what he believed.

Years later,
I got a message

that levon was in the hospital

and he was dying.

I got on a plane
and I went to the hospital.

Levon wasn't conscious anymore.

His daughter was there
and she took me into the room,

I sat with him
and I held his hand

and I thought about

the amazing times
that we had had together.

We'd been on the front lines

of two or three
musical revolutions.

And now we're just left
with these memories.

So I sat with my brother,
and held his hand.

You know, I said,

levon, I'll meet you
on the other end.