Testimony
Page 52
“Rick said somebody’s coming by soon with a delivery,” I told him. “Thought he would have been here by now.”
John smiled. “Where’s Rick? I like him. I gotta talk to Rick.”
About a half hour later the delivery still hadn’t arrived, and John said he couldn’t wait anymore. He asked me under his breath if I could loan him thirty-five bucks for a taxi and a snack. I gave him the money and he thanked me and took off.
Five minutes later, there was a knock on the door. It was Rick’s deliveryman, and standing right behind him, smiling, was Belushi. They came in and the guy handed Rick a paper packet. Rick poured out a little bit of coke on the dresser and John said, “Come on, Rick, don’t be shy,” and Rick poured out a bunch more, laughing. John honked up half of it and said, “I’ll keep the money you loaned me for the taxi, but I don’t think I’ll be needing a snack anymore.”
Lorne decided we would do two songs back to back, and after a commercial we would do a third song. He suggested we could close the show with one more. Before we came to New York we had cut a version of “Georgia on My Mind” at Shangri-La that Richard sang beautifully. After the last few years of Richard Nixon’s turmoil and then Gerald Ford, our old friend Governor Jimmy Carter felt like a refreshing choice for president, even from the point of view of Canadians like us. We decided to close the show with “Georgia” as a way of offering our best wishes to the governor for the election taking place in only three days.
On Saturday night, everybody was jacked for the live show. This was the third time Buck had hosted, and he looked cool and on his game. The Band were the only newcomers here, and we were definitely feeling some nerves. The energy in the air was explosive—one skit after the other, like clockwork, until John Belushi accidentally cut Buck Henry’s head while playing a sword-wielding samurai. Everybody stopped breathing for a moment. After the skit they put a bandage on Buck’s forehead. Lorne was not happy with this and Belushi felt terrible. Through the rest of the show, as a running gag, the entire cast wore bandages on their foreheads.
When Buck introduced the Band, he mentioned our upcoming final concert. I think the end of that show was unlike anything they’ve done since, with the upcoming election and the song “Georgia on my Mind,” with the Band’s live performances coming to a close, with it being Chevy Chase’s last show, and with Buck and his bandaged head. What an experience. We were told later that people watched our performance in a sad and beautiful light. I tried to express my appreciation to Lorne and the gang, but the after party had a bit of a quieter feel to it: everyone knew Buck’s injury could have been a lot worse.
We had sent a message to Jimmy Carter that we were doing “Georgia” for him on the show. He won the presidency that week and sent back a thank-you note. I asked him for a copy of the photo we had taken together in 1974 at the governor’s mansion, posing in front of the painting of George Washington. To have a copy of that shot, with the now-president of the United States, arms stuck in our T-shirts like George in the painting—that would have been so great. But the response from his office was “No such photo exists.” Just shows you shouldn’t wait until somebody is president to ask for the funny picture you took with him.
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When I got back to LA, Marty told me László Kovács had decided it was too much work for him to be director of photography on both New York, New York and The Last Waltz. He said he would be happy to be one of the cameramen, though. Marty asked Michael Chapman, his DP on Taxi Driver, to take over The Last Waltz. Michael was in, but he was concerned that the thirty-five-millimeter Panavision cameras weren’t designed to run continuously for hours. We’d have to figure out how to reload film and change batteries during the shoot, and because this hadn’t been done before, he didn’t know if the cameras would overheat. Everything was up in the air, but we had to go for it to find out whether this was a disaster in the making.
We started to set up rehearsals at Shangri-La with some of the guest artists, trying to run over a couple of songs with anybody on our list who might be in our part of the world. Joni Mitchell stopped by and we took on the challenge of figuring out some of her chord changes. We rehearsed very briefly the song Neil Diamond and I had written for Beautiful Noise. Neil Young decided he wanted to do a full-on Canadian connection with his song choices, so we ran over Ian & Sylvia’s “Four Strong Winds” and his song “Helpless,” with its references to our homeland. Van Morrison was in and out of town, and we decided to do his song “Caravan.” I had an idea for another tune we could do with him, “Tura Lura Lural,” an Irish lullaby. When I told him, he laughed and thought I was crazy. “Sure,” he said, “and then we can go right into ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.’ ” So I picked up a guitar, we stepped into one of the bedrooms at Shangri-La, and I sang him a slow, gospel-feeling version of “Tura Lura” with some rare traditional lyrics. The song was in waltz time, something like Ray Charles’s “Drown in My Own Tears,” written by our friend Henry Glover (whom I then asked to do a horn arrangement for it). Van looked a touch watery-eyed when I finished my version of the song, but maybe he just had a bit of hay fever.
When Bob came by Shangri-La, he thought we should do a couple of tunes from Planet Waves, like “Hazel” and “Forever Young,” or maybe one of the tracks we used to do when we first hooked up, like “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down” or “I Don’t Believe You.” We played through a few songs once and left it at that. Afterward we had a little coffee and a snack in the kitchen at Shangri-La, and Bob asked, “What’s this filming business everybody’s talking about for the concert?”
“We’re trying to figure out how to document this event,” I told him. “We started out with black-and-white video cameras, then a couple sixteen-millimeter cameras. Then four super-sixteen. Now we’re talking about five or six thirty-five-millimeter cameras with Martin Scorsese directing. Nothing like this has ever been attempted before.”
Bob stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray full of butts and said he was already making a movie from the Rolling Thunder Revue tour and didn’t know if he wanted to be in two movies. I wasn’t surprised about his hesitancy. He was never one to commit.
I said, “Well, they’re just going to film the show, and if you don’t like your part, we won’t use it. Although, how can we not have you be a part of the Band’s story?”
Steve Prince called me and said, “László has invited his fellow Hungarian master DP, Vilmos Zsigmond, to be one of the cameramen. Michael Chapman and Marty have also secured Fred Schuler, Bobby Byrne, Michael Watkins, and David Myers—the best handheld guy.”
Later that night, while I was writing a new song, a Cajun waltz called “Evangeline,” the phone rang. It was Marty, speaking in a low voice: “Hey, Rob. Yeah, it’s pretty crazy over here. You know, we’re making a movie without a finished script. Anyway, I spoke to Boris Leven, my production designer, about The Last Waltz, and he said he’d help us out. That’s good. He needs to take a look at Winterland, so he’ll go up there and we’ll see what he suggests.”
I kept sending Marty lyrics of the songs I knew we were going to play so he could make his notes. The problem was that some of our guest artists wouldn’t be rehearsing with us until we got to San Francisco a day or two before the show. With these folks we wouldn’t know what we were going to play until we met up. But what could you do? Last-Minute Productions for The Last Waltz.
At the beginning of November, I took a quick trip up to San Francisco with Jon Taplin and some of our movie people to meet with Bill Graham and look over the venue. Winterland had been an old skating rink (hence the name) and was looking pretty funky these days. Bill was concerned about the appearance of the facade of the upper balcony and thought he would need five thousand dollars out of the budget to fix it. My head was in a whole other space with staging and logistical issues, so I coined the phrase, joking with Bill, “Fuck the facade!” He showed me how the tables for the Thanksgiving dinner would be set up and how they would ship in the food. He sugge
sted having a waltz orchestra during the dinner, so people could get up and dance if they felt inclined. I said, “If we can afford it, I like that idea.”
Bill smiled. “Done.”
As they checked the place out, Michael Chapman and Steve Prince noted that the floor at Winterland had “give” to it. With the audience moving around and dancing, this would make the cameras unsteady. Jon Taplin knew this would be a major problem for Marty and asked Chapman what to do about the floor. He said, “It’s going to take some construction, so I’ll have to figure it out.”
Bill said he hoped the cameras wouldn’t obstruct the view of people in the audience. “We’re making a movie here,” said Steve. “That’s our priority.”
“The crowd is my priority,” Bill answered. “After the artists, of course.”
As we were leaving the building, Bill cornered me. “I want my crew, all the people working on this event, to be in tune with your vision. Is there a movie we should watch to inspire us for what you have in mind?”
I didn’t know how to respond for a second. At first I thought maybe Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes. Then I opted for Jean Cocteau’s The Blood of a Poet. Bill shook my hand and thanked me as we left. I had no idea what his crew would get out of that extremely bizarre film, but it sounded good.
With ten days left to go Emmett Grogan got in touch, asking if he could put together a poetry reading by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, and other San Francisco poets for the show, maybe during intermission. Then Marty found out that production on New York, New York was going to take a break the week of Thanksgiving—the producer was going to Europe and they needed to get some scenes rewritten. Phew! This was the opportunity we needed for Marty, Boris Leven, and Michael Chapman to go to Winterland and prep the shoot. But when they got there a few days later, Jon Taplin called me sounding concerned: Bill Graham was being very uncooperative. He was saying he didn’t want cameras here and didn’t want cable running there. Marty got on the phone and was adamant. “We have to secure the setups for the three cameras on the floor, or they’ll be shaking all over the place.”
I asked, “How do you secure the cameras so they won’t move around on that cushiony floor?”
“We’re going to have to drill through the floor,” he said, “cut it open and send down stabilizing poles to the solid ground.”
“You’re going to have to call Bill,” Jon told me. “I’ve tried to talk to him, but he’s being very tough and won’t listen.”
I called Bill immediately and told him, in no uncertain terms, that if he didn’t agree to everything Marty Scorsese wanted for his filming, I’d pull the plug. “I will cancel this whole event, here and now.”
Bill started to explain about the film blocking the view of the fans, and I said, “Bill, stop. Do I have your word on your complete and full cooperation? That you will not interfere in any way with this film production?”
“Mr. Robertson,” he said, “you have my word and my complete cooperation. In fact, I’ve even paid for the ‘fucking facade’ out of my own pocket.” I laughed and thanked him.
I had asked Marty at one of our earlier meetings if we could not have those red and green and blue lights you saw in every rock-concert documentary. “Could we do something much more theatrical with backlighting and amber footlights and spotlights, like in MGM musicals?” I needn’t have mentioned it. Marty was already on that page.
Boris Leven, our production designer, was a special man with a special talent. He thought of brilliant design ideas for The Last Waltz, but most of them our modest budget couldn’t afford. Then he stopped and said, “San Francisco. What do they have here? Of course! The San Francisco Opera.” He got access to their storage facility and came upon the set for Verdi’s La Traviata, and some elegant chandeliers. “This is what we need,” he said. Marty thought this completely original for a rock concert, especially one called The Last Waltz. They made arrangements for the set to be shipped in while they built a backlight cyc behind the set for different effects and moods. Michael Chapman and Marty were going over the lyrics and shooting script, imagining lights and shadows. They argued about whether my song “The Weight” was Protestant or Catholic, and I couldn’t dispute either one of their colorful visions. But I didn’t want to confuse things by reminding them of my Jewish and Native heritage.
I talked with Levon, Garth, Richard, and Rick individually about this abstract experiment we were embarking on. Each of the guys, in his own way, expressed to me how he emotionally embraced this finality, this new beginning. We needed to close one door to open another—to die, to be reborn. None of us truly understood where we were headed, but we knew change was inevitable.
When Levon and I got together for a one-on-one, he said in a quiet, brotherly tone, “I know you can’t take going out there on the road and us not being on our game, and Lord, neither can I. Maybe if we can have one last stand, it will give us a good look at tomorrow. I’m ready to give it my best shot, so you can damn well count on me.”
Between rehearsals at Shangri-La, Rick pulled me into a side room and urged, “Let’s get the boys together and size up whether we’re ready to come out full force for this Last Waltz.”
When we did, Garth said, “This is an opportunity to do what no band I can think of has ever done before. I think we should give it all we’ve got.”
Richard swore to us, “I will not let you down.” I looked at Rich with every hope and belief that he would sure as hell stand by his word. Thanks to Rick, this meeting made me feel almost bulletproof, like we could go out there and take on the fucking world.
So we got on an airplane to San Francisco and never looked back.
At the beginning of the week of Thanksgiving, we checked in to the Miyako Hotel in San Francisco. My suite had a Japanese bath in the middle of the living room, but the first thing my eyes searched for was a corner where I could continue writing. There were two songs I hoped to finish in time for the concert—“Evangeline” and “The Last Waltz Theme.” I put my guitar by a desk and chair, as far away from the entrance to the room as I could. Playing music—writing—can be a self-conscious feeling in hotel rooms. Am I going to bother anyone? Is anyone going to bother me? Am I going to be too loud? Even more so in this Japanese-themed environment, where some of the areas were separated by what looked like rice-paper sliding doors.
I had purchased a classic original sunburst Stratocaster with no tremolo bar, so that it would stay in tune better. For this occasion, I decided to have my red ’59 Strat dipped in bronze like baby shoes. I hadn’t taken into account how much heavier it would make the guitar, but it looked and sounded phenomenal.
Our first order of business in San Francisco was to set up a rehearsal schedule with all the guest artists as they got to town. When possible, we would run over songs on the stage at Winterland, but ongoing work on the set, the cyc, the tracks for the cameras, and all the lights often made that impossible. As a backup plan, we had the banquet rooms at two hotels blocked out, with spare equipment floating back and forth.
Larry Samuels, Rock Brynner, and I went to the hall early to see how Marty and the crew were making out. It looked like they were building a city inside this old, weathered skating facility, sawing, hammering, and cutting away, with Bill Graham going with the flow to the best of his ability. Boris Leven showed me where the chandeliers above the stage would go, and mentioned offhandedly that these particular ones had been used in the movie Gone with the Wind. I had been a little unsure about the concept of chandeliers, but that fact seemed to make them perfectly appropriate.
Marty was in high spirits seeing this monster come together. You would never believe that in this run-down neighborhood where Winterland was located, they were building one of the most elegant sets ever seen in rock ’n’ roll. “They might as well burn this place to the ground when we’re done here,” Steve Prince remarked. “And there’s a possibility we might take care of that for them, because the electric current
in this place can’t handle all the lighting that’s going up.”
Michael Chapman nodded. “They’re bringing in backup generators.”
Rock looked at me, shaking his head as if to say, This is a disaster waiting to happen. Jon Taplin was so overwhelmed dealing with the needs of the production that he didn’t have time to consider looming catastrophes.
Bill Graham showed me where and how the white-clothed dining tables would be set up. It would look like Rock ’n’ Roll’s Last Supper. Michael Chapman and Marty were having the carpenters build a big scaffold toward the back of the hall for Vilmos Zsigmond’s Panavision camera, which would be filming the master shot of the stage.
When we checked out the backstage and dressing rooms, Bill was anxious to show me what they had put together from the inspiration they’d gleaned from The Blood of a Poet. He had the biggest grin on his face as he escorted me into one of the rooms. The walls were covered with plastic noses. A tape played sniffing sounds in the background, and a table in the middle of the room was covered with glass mirrors, razor blades, straws, and other coke-related paraphernalia. He was delighted with his take on Jean Cocteau’s surrealism. I found it a bit too “on the nose” and embarrassing, but I acted like he had really come away with a vision.
Our rehearsal schedule looked intense and nearly impossible to pull off. All we could do was put our heads down and charge forward. The guys and I congregated in the banquet room of the hotel with Muddy Waters; his piano man, Pinetop Perkins; and guitarist Bob Margolin. Trying to choose what songs to do with Muddy was like visiting a musical candy store. We ran over “Got My Mojo Workin’ ” and my old fave, “Forty Days and Forty Nights.” Soon as we kicked into “Mannish Boy,” though, we set the room on fire. It felt like a powder keg getting ready to blow. Levon and Muddy had done some recording together up at Levon’s place in Woodstock, where they cut a version of Louis Jordan’s old classic “Caldonia.” Muddy wanted to do that one, which featured a special vocal interplay between him and Pinetop.