The next day Dominique, with our help, moved the furniture around at Big Pink and brought some of that charm that Rick was pining for. When Bob arrived, he immediately noticed the difference.
“Oh, this is much better. Now you can breathe in here.”
Bob typed out the words to “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” and we descended to the basement. We had all completely fallen under the spell of this atmosphere of devil-may-care creativity. Songs poured out of Bob and we tore through them; if lightning struck and you weren’t around, the show went on without you. I had to run a couple of errands before the stores closed, and when I got back, they had recorded “Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread” and “Million Dollar Bash.” We smoked a J and laughed ourselves to pieces at these recordings. Bob said, “Okay, who would be good to do those songs?” We suggested everybody from Brook Benton to Marty Robbins. “No…Little Jimmy Dickens, don’t you think?” I offered. Garth made some toots and whistles come out of his organ.
Howard Alk and his wife, Jonesy, Albert and Sally Grossman, and Al Aronowitz all came out to Big Pink to see what was going on. They could tell we were having too much fun. We had just recorded “Quinn the Eskimo” with Anthony Quinn in mind—he’d portrayed a memorable character, Inuk the Eskimo, in the 1960 film The Savage Innocents. We’d already done “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” so we had a nice cross section of material to play. Our guests were knocked out by these recordings.
Albert began seeing the Hawks in a different light—hearing Richard and Rick sing and getting a flavor of our kind of songwriting created a space for us in his mind independent of Bob. He called me the next day and said he wanted to pursue getting us a record deal right away. His first choice was either Columbia, Bob’s record label, or Warner Bros. This was music to my ears, and I couldn’t wait to share the good news with the boys. For the first time, everybody had a sense that we were on track with our musical journey.
We made arrangements to go into a studio in the city the next week and record a song I had just written called “Chest Fever.” It featured Garth’s organ with Richard taking the lead vocal. Albert supervised the session and said we should record two songs while we were there, so we also cut a very bizarre tune of Richard’s and mine called “Ruben Remus,” inspired by the character of Uncle Remus in the movie Song of the South. Both these songs were in the basement-tapes mold of “anything goes,” with boundaryless, surreal lyrics. We had a studio session drummer play on the tracks, and it was right then that I knew we needed to get in touch with Levon.
I wasn’t happy with the finished recordings. They sounded dull, with no original sparkle, but Albert thought they would serve the purpose to land us a record deal. He had gone a little soft on the idea of the Hawks being on the same label as Bob; it got in the way of certain flexibilities, and he also thought we should have our own separate identity. I very much agreed. He did feel an obligation to play the tracks for Columbia, but avoided the hard sell, hoping to make the deal with Mo Ostin at Warner Bros.
Back in Woodstock, I told the guys I wanted to call Levon. He still lived in our hearts and we hoped he would return. “I think he’ll love our setup here, and it’s time.” Bob too was in such a different place now. Something had evolved with him since the accident, and after his son Jesse was born. He looked different and sounded different. I’d never seen him in a more relaxed, contented state, the polar opposite of what Levon had known in the past. These days Bob was a short-haired family man, he and Sara having kids quicker than you could shake a stick. We were off the manic treadmill of fame and madness, and it might have been lifesaving.
At the end of my spiel, Rick stood up and said, “Let me call Lee. I’d like to be the one to give him the news and invite him back. I’ll also try to find out what condition he’s in.” The obvious and most natural thing would have been for me to make the call, but Rick’s conviction and confidence struck me. In Levon’s absence, Rick’s playing had continued to bloom. He absolutely felt like he was holding his own, and I could tell that he wanted to make the call not just to bring Lee back but to let him know that he’d grown some too. This seemed a good way to smoke Levon out and see where he was really at. Let little brother call him, I figured. That’s gonna be good for both of them.
The next couple of days in the basement were dedicated to Bob recalling some Ian and Sylvia Tyson tunes. When it came to folk music, I knew slightly more about the records of Gordon Lightfoot and Ian and Sylvia because of our Canadian connection. We ran over versions of “The French Girl,” “Song for Canada,” and “Four Strong Winds.” Again the number of songs Bob had rolling around in his memory really impressed me. Amazing how he could remember all the words to his songs, let alone hundreds of other people’s.
After a little break upstairs for coffee and a smoke with some frantic typing going on—two typewriters clacking away in stereo, Richard on one, grinning to himself, Bob on the other, same expression—we marched back down into our subterranean refuge and recorded “Get Your Rocks Off.” Garth played some killer organ on this one. Bob could usually get through his hilarious lyrics, but after he sang “mid-muscle creek,” he cracked up, couldn’t hold it in any longer. Richard’s bass vocal raised the stakes—“Get ’em off!” Great fun, great mood, which set us loose that night after Bob left. We began recording a crazy collage of music called “Even If It’s a Pig, Part 2.” With Garth in the lead, paving the road to madness, the Hawks turned the basement into a laboratory of deranged noise.
Rick bounded downstairs, saying he had just spoken to Lee. “He sounded good—I think we got things worked out!” He came over and sat beside me. “Give him a call tomorrow too. He’d really like that. He’s staying with a friend in Memphis but seemed ready to go.” I couldn’t wait to hear Levon’s voice again, so we all called him the next day.
“Hey, boys. Hey, Duke. What’s going on, baby?” Levon said.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” I told him. “You need to get your skinny butt up here to the Catskills as quick as the wind will carry you.” It was good to hear his fantastic chuckle. My heart jumped a beat. “When you get here, you should stay over at my house with me and my girlfriend, Dominique.”
“Whoa, you got you a girlfriend, do you? Well, I’ll look forward to meeting the sweet thing.”
Then Garth, who never got too outwardly emotional, said, “I really look forward to seeing you, Levon,” and I could hear he was touched by that.
Richard called out, “Come on, Lee, we already got your drums set up.”
“I can get up there by Tuesday. How’s that?”
“Perfect,” I said. “See you then.”
I told Dominique that Levon was the closest thing that I’d ever had to a real brother. He would be coming to stay over Tuesday night. She was genuinely happy for me. “He’ll go stay with the boys at Big Pink after that,” I added. “They’re fixing up a room for him now. I hope he sticks around this time.”
Bob too was happy to hear that Levon was going to join us at Big Pink. Nobody had any hard feelings from his sudden departure—that was all water under the bridge at this point.
I started writing out some abstract words on a typewriter at Big Pink: “The forefather pointed to kingdom come.” Bob sat down and wrote the lyrics for “I Shall Be Released.” A lot of the tunes coming out of the basement had deep humor, but “Tears of Rage” and “I Shall Be Released” were no joking matter. This material wasn’t meant to reflect our lifestyle or the times we were living in. It was really just about trying to write an interesting song. In the Tin Pan Alley tradition, we were all just showing up every day at songwriting headquarters, doing our job, seeing if we could come up with anything of merit, and then going home. A big part of it was getting together and making music and discovering where we were really at during this stage in our own journey.
After we laid “I Shall Be Released” down on tape, I mentioned to Richard that I thought he could sing that one really well. “Maybe in a falsetto,
like Curtis Mayfield might do it. In the same range as your harmony.” I sang a couple lines of the chorus in falsetto, and Richard smiled. “Yeah, I can do that.”
The boys and I drove down to pick up Levon at LaGuardia Airport in Richard’s black 1947 four-door Oldsmobile, which was slightly roomier than our Hupmobile. There he was, with his suitcase in hand, looking good and healthier than the last time we had seen him. It felt great to see his “sorry ass” again, as he would say. First we cruised to Big Pink to show him the clubhouse, which we were feeling quite proud of. He took it all in with a look of wonderment. “Damn, boys. I like this,” he said, laughing. Then, as Rick handed him a pipe of grass, “Hell, I’m liking this more and more all the time.”
Anticipating Levon’s return, I had written a tune called “Yazoo Street Scandal.” Levon had once shown me a street in Helena, Arkansas, called Yazoo, and Yazoo was a pretty common name in the Mississippi Delta. The song had some of that voodoo southern mojo to it, which made it an obvious fit for Levon to sing. We congregated down in the basement and played it for him. I had sung the original recording into a tiny harmonica mic, or “conscious mic,” as Rick called it. Extremely lo-fi, reminiscent of what your subconscious might sound like coming through an old-time radio. “Man, that feels good,” Levon said. He turned to Richard. “Beak, is that you playing drums? Man, that’s some good shit.” We played a couple more tunes we were working on and a few things we’d done with Bob—I didn’t want to barrage him with too much too quick. It felt so natural to have Levon back in the brotherhood, but I could tell he was taking it all in one step at a time.
Levon and I got into the blue station wagon Bob had given me and drove back into town so I could show him around. We ended up at my house, where I introduced him to Dominique. They hit it off right away, and we settled in for a bite to eat. There was so much to catch up on and no time to waste. Levon and I took some uppers and stayed up all night telling stories. He described how he and Bonnie had to take a break, that their lifestyle had gotten out of hand. “We had to cool it, or someone was going to get hurt,” he said plainly. “So I went back to Arkansas.” He confessed that he hadn’t played much music in the past year. A little with sax player Bobby Keys and the cats from Oklahoma, Jim Keltner out in LA, a bit with the Cate Brothers in Arkansas. But music had somehow gotten lost in his day-to-day life. Then he ended up staying with a friend in Memphis. He explained it as a period of redemption, trying to get back on track. Rick’s call came just in time. He was running out of options.
I filled Levon in on all of our crazy experiences playing around the world with Bob. “It all seems like a dream now, like it couldn’t have happened.” I knew Levon hadn’t been thrilled working with Bob in the past, but I couldn’t express strongly enough how I thought he would feel completely different at this stage. “Bob’s been so supportive, and one of the best friends a guy could ask for. You’ll see.”
I saw a look in Levon’s eyes that told me his concerns were set at ease. “Well, if you say so,” he said, “I’m good with that. I’m in.”
—
With the help of the boys Levon got settled at Big Pink and became part of the family again in no time. He sat down at the drums, adjusted the height and position of everything, gave me a wink, and we kicked into a funky little riff like we hadn’t missed a beat. The Hawks were a five-piece band, and now all the chairs were filled.
Bob came by the next day for our usual routine and greeted Levon like part of the gang. Rick and Levon were in a furious game of checkers as Bob took his place behind the typewriter. Garth passed around coffees as Richard did the brewing.
“You know what’s missing here?” I said in Levon’s direction. “A football. We need a football to toss around outside to limber up.”
“Damn right,” Levon answered. “Always need to limber up.” I thought about when we used to toss around a ball down in Fayetteville, in an attempt at exercise.
Ding! Fresh words right out of the typewriter. Bob grabbed the sheet of paper and handed it to Rick. “Here,” he said, “see if you can do something with this. It’s called ‘Wheels on Fire.’ ” Rick said he’d have something by tomorrow. I looked over at Levon, who had just lost to Rick at checkers, soaking it all in. In the basement Bob launched into a little rockabilly with “I Forgot to Remember to Forget.” I mentioned John Lee Hooker, and in the blink of an eye Bob started singing Hooker’s “Tupelo” and “I’m in the Mood.” When he did the traditional song “Kickin’ My Dog Around,” it was hard to tell it from one of Bob’s original basement songs.
Meanwhile, Hamlet had come into the room, wagging his tail, and wandered over to Levon, who looked unamused. He lifted his hands away from Hamlet. “Go on, get out of here.” I had forgotten that in some kind of southern fashion, Levon had a strong aversion to dogs.
“No, Hamlet’s okay,” Rick said. “He’s one of the boys. He used to be Bob’s dog, but now I’m his master.”
Levon answered, “Well, you can master him all you want. I don’t need no shit-eating dog coming around me.” Bob and I laughed at the geniune southernness of the remark.
As promised, the next day Rick had a melody and an unusual chord progression for “Wheels on Fire.” It took Bob a few times through to get the hang of it, especially the diminished chord in the verse, but he sang it natural as can be. We stepped outside and threw the new football Levon had picked up until we needed a cigarette break. Meanwhile, Bob ripped off another gem on the typewriter called “Odds and Ends” and we tore that one up in the basement before Bob had to go home for dinner.
All these tunes were starting to mount up. The idea was to organize the tapes so they could be sent off to the song-administration people. Albert said they would only be heard by the publishers and select artists that the material might be appropriate for. Very private, very exclusive. That distinct concept gave us the looseness to experiment and have a good time.
Ever since we had hooked up with Bob, you would read in articles and reviews that he could write good songs but he wasn’t much of a singer. Yet on our tours in 1965 and ’66, I heard a vocal coming out of that skinny little body like a hurricane; incredible control and power. And when Bob and I had played music in our hotel rooms, I had started to hear different voices he had in his arsenal. When we were recording in New York or Nashville he wasn’t precious about his vocals and never, ever overdubbed his voice, but boy, did he deliver. Still, there would be someone out there complaining about the sound of his voice. During the basement-tapes period, I witnessed some really unconventional, unique singing that was just killer. I came to the conclusion that this guy who had people whining about his vocal abilities had to be one of the greatest singers ever, and those naysayers were dead wrong.
Playing music in a circle in the basement or on an acoustic set in the living room was having a big effect on our musical approach: it was about a balance of vocals and instruments. If you couldn’t hear properly, somebody was too loud and out of balance. This approach was as old as music but had very little to do with the way a lot of people were playing those days. Louder was becoming king, which we had been blamed for in our past, but we had evolved to a place where loud music was like greasy food, not really good for you.
Don’t know if it was because we were living in the mountains, but mountain music started to find its way deep into our vocabulary. We might do the song “If I Lose” by the Stanley Brothers, or something by Johnnie & Jack or the Louvin Brothers. We weren’t in the Blue Mountains, but it started to sound that way: Rick picking up a fiddle, Levon a mandolin, Richard a slide guitar, and Garth an accordion, and me slapping away high up on the neck of an acoustic guitar. Rick, Levon, and Richard would sing the three-part harmony, with me filling in on the low part. At the same time, the gospel harmonies of the Staple Singers and the Impressions were just as present. We ran over “Yazoo Street Scandal” with Levon singing, down and dirty.
Richard played a song that he thought could be sung by Rick, Levon
, and him. Passing around the vocals like a basketball seemed to be at the core of what our sound could be. The song Richard was writing honestly reflected a stage in the Hawks’ development. He sang out, “We can talk about it now, it’s the same old riddle, only starting from the middle.”
I loved watching Levon take in the carefree looseness of us laying down songs like “I’m Your Teenage Prayer” or “Crash on the Levee.” He very quickly adapted. Some of the songs, like “Minstrel Boy” or “Sign on the Cross,” never got the chance to be fully baked, but I underlined a few of those titles with Bob to look at later. They were worth finishing or revisiting, but songs were flying by so quickly that you couldn’t hardly slow that train down.
At home, Dominique laid out blankets and towels for our cats, who were having kittens in every closet. I was so lost in the creative process at Big Pink that I responded as if we grew cats on trees around here. Just have to bring on the milk, right? But when Dominique said she had to go to Montreal for a week, that’s when it finally hit me—we now had ten cats, and one of them was pregnant.
I was also building up quite a pile of classic movie scripts to read. Every time someone was headed into the city, I’d ask them to go to the Gotham Book Mart and grab some for me. I kept a list of movies: Yojimbo, The Seven Samurai, Simon of the Desert. Slowly, reading all these screenplays began to influence my songwriting. I was finally able to unlock the storehouse of images in the attic of my memory, all the characters and stories I’d absorbed from the time I was sixteen and arrived in the holy land of rock ’n’ roll down south—at that age, everything pours into your mind in such rich color and detail. Between finally having a clubhouse and what I gathered from these scripts, I was able to tap into this imaginative, thematic material in my own writing.
Upstairs in the workroom across from my bedroom on Larsen Lane, I sat with a little typewriter, a pen and legal pad, and a Martin D-28 guitar that said NAZARETH, PENNSYLVANIA on the label inside the sound hole. I revisited memories and characters from my southern exposure and put them into a Luis Buñuel surreal setting. One of the themes that really stuck with me from Buñuel’s films, like Viridiana, was the impossibility of sainthood—no good deed goes unpunished. I wrote “The Weight” in one sitting that night.
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