50 Years Later: Revisiting The Band’s Allen Toussaint Horn Helmed Live LP ‘Rock Of Ages’

It didn’t take hindsight of a half-century to perceive The Band’s live album as one of the highlights of the storied group’s career. Perhaps that’s at least in part because it followed the desultory Cahoots in the sequence of album releases. But it’s also true the quintet’s stellar playing and singing over four late December nights at the Academy of Music, augmented by ‘the best horn men in New York City,’ resulted in a collection that stands as a singular piece of work on its own terms and one of the pinnacles of contemporary rock of the era. 

Much of the impact of the performances derive from the horn arrangements of Allen Toussaint. The final product of his efforts, the brilliant reinvention of a crowd-pleasing selection of songs from earlier in The Band’s career, is all the more miraculous considering the circumstances: in a snow-surrounded cabin in upstate New York, the ever-so-game New Orleans icon did rewrites of the charts lost in transit en route by air from the Crescent City. 

But that aside, the first impression Rock of Ages delivers is what accomplished vocalists are drummer Levon Helm, pianist Richard Manuel, and bassist Rick Danko. Alone and together, even at their most hushed on “King Harvest (Has Surely Come),” these men found nuances in melody and lyrics even the composers of the songs themselves might not have imagined. And “Stage Fright,” much like “The Shape I’m In,” turns into high drama as sung by the latter, like his counterpart on the second tune, a native of Canada as are all his bandmates except Arkansan Helm.

The complementary nature of the singing is no greater than that of the musicianship though. Well-developed as are the instrumental styles of Danko and Helm, they never collide when in motion on uptempo cuts like the kickoff “Don’t Do It.” Likewise, the panoply of sounds keyboardist Garth Hudson coaxes from his bank of devices: he is uncanny in his skill at finding spaces to fill within the arrangements without ever intruding into his comrades’ playing. Or the action of the horn section, for that matter, on “Across The Great Divide.” 

Nor does he get in the way of Manuel’s earthy, rich piano during, for instance, “Caledonia Mission.” Both keyboardists are as self-disciplined as Robbie Robertson on his solos: during the aforementioned Holland/Dozier Holland opener, for example, he never overplays in his unique and economical style of guitar playing. It’s simple to hear why Dylan once referred to him as a ‘mathematical guitar genius.’ 

The choices of material from the epochal group’s first four studio albums trace the roots of this music in just as vivid a fashion, if not more so than the literal-minded, show-business presentation of the final show by this original lineup, 1976’s The Last Waltz. From the joyous ribaldry of “Strawberry Wine” (released on a latter reissue) to the foreboding of “Unfaithful Servant,” the soul of the playing here matches its precision.  

Over and above Hudson’s kaleidoscopic spotlight, dubbed “The Genetic Method,” the man whose bandmates called ‘Honey Boy’ blows a lusty sax solo that renders moot the self-conscious air permeating “The W.S.Walcott Medicine Show.” Likewise, the horns of Howard Johnson, Snooky Young, Joe Farrell, Earl McIntyre, and J.D. Parron conjure the unsettling mystery of “Chest Fever” as fully and completely as the euphoric irreverence of “(I Don’t Want To) Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes.”

In a running order markedly different from the actual shows, the Band’s double vinyl LP featured some of, but not all of, the best material by this iconic group. As with both “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and “Life Is A Carnival,” the integration of Toussaint’s complement of woodwinds and brass accentuates the rock, blues, country, soul, and folk roots of these one-time road warriors of Ronnie Hawkins and Dylan (who referred to them as ‘gallant knights’ based on their shared experiences during the tumultuous world tour of 1966).

In fact, as much as the now-mythic initial pair of Band studio albums stand as respective encyclopedias of these various genres, these stylistic threads appear in a new light on Rock of Ages. It’s a stark contrast to the overly conventional Stage Fright in those terms alone, but the core fivesome’s performances also radiate the extraordinary camaraderie that permeates Music From Big Pink and The Band (also known as ‘The Brown Album’ due to the color scheme of the cover). The subtle, intuitive nature of their interplay is actually a far cry from the anonymity that afflicted their musicianship as it evolved through the 1974 reunion tour with the Nobel Laureate, then on to that aforementioned famous final performance in this five-man configuration.

While there is hardly any question Rock Of Ages is one of the greatest concert albums of its (any?) time, there’s also no disputing it hasn’t been done justice since its original release in the late summer of 1972. An apt all-around comparison point is The Allman Brothers Band’s At Fillmore East: that correspondingly seminal live release also went through a few different iterations prior to its definitive rendering in the form of the six-CD The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings. Similarly, various collections of these concert takes of The Band have been released many times, with significant changes to the tracklist, running order, and mix (the sound quality of which varies accordingly and is oddly superior in its depth on the first and third editions). 

As part of the ongoing (and somewhat erratic) series of expanded reissue packages of the original discography, the aforementioned expanded and remastered two-disc edition appeared in 2001, with the original album on one disc, and an additional ten tracks on a second, including the four songs with Bob Dylan from his overly off-the-cuff guest appearance on the final night of New Year’s Eve. 2005’s A Musical History contains nine cuts from the Big Apple performance, its release indirectly setting the stage for the 2013 metamorphosis of Rock Of Ages into Live At The Academy of Music 1971: despite the somewhat muddled crossover from the original package into the two and five-disc reissues, this set further begs the question of the inevitable release of the entire run of shows.

A practical drawback in that regard, however, is the fact that arrangements and performances are fairly static even as setlists vary only to a nominal degree. These factors did not, however, impede the release of additional material from Little Feat’s Waiting For Columbus tour, and, given the comparably passionate fan devotion, such a comprehensive release is hardly out of the question. 

Then there’s the position  Rock of Ages holds in the history of this legendary unit. The project only temporarily rescued the group from the doldrums that ultimately afflicted an otherwise well-intentioned album of covers, Moondog Matinee, and it was more than two more years hence before they produced Northern Lights-Southern Cross in their own Shangri-La studios in California. 

Their sixth studio album does contain virtually all those attributes that distinguished The Band’s work at its pinnacle(s). But, with half-century hindsight, it’s the very immediacy of the music on the live album that reinforces how appropriate are the timeless implications of its title.

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