RICK DANKO
''STAGE FRIGHT LIVE COLLECTION, DISC FOUR''
2015
309:06
**********
DISC ONE
01 - Java Blues 03:06
02 - Christmas Must Be Tonight 03:30
03 - My Friend 03:11
04 - Stage Fright 03:21
05 - C.C. Rider 03:42
06 - Twilight 02:43
07 - Oh Baby (Watcha Gonna Do) 02:06
08 - Jimmy Crack Corn 02:55
09 - Long Black Veil 03:59
10 - Caledonian Mission 03:12
11 - My Love 03:23
12 - The Weight 05:19
13 - Bartender Blues 02:42
14 - It Makes No Difference 04:23
15 - Mystery Train 03:50
16 - That's How I Love You 02:39
17 - When You Are Awake 03:11
18 - When I Get My Rewards 02:46
19 - Sunny Side of Life 01:55
20 - Brainwash 02:42
21 - Blaze of Glory 01:54
22 - My Baby Left Me 02:35
23 - It Makes No Difference (Reprise) 04:19
24 - Once Upon a Time 03:17
25 - What a Town 02:07
*****
DISC TWO (WITH RICHARD MANUEL)
01 - The Shape I'm In 04:47
02 - C.C. Rider 05:26
03 - It Makes No Difference 07:11
04 - Walking Blues 05:40
05 - My Baby Left Me 04:33
06 - You Don't Know Me 03:00
07 - I'm Just Your Fool 04:16
08 - Long Black Veil 05:35
09 - Chest Fever 04:32
10 - Blaze of Glory 02:38
11 - Crazy Mama 06:31
12 - Across the Great Divide 03:50
13 - Java Blues 04:50
14 - Walking by Myself 04:20
15 - Unfaithful Servant 05:40
16 - She Knows 03:18
*****
DISC THREE (TRACKS 01-12 WITH RICHARD MANUEL)
01 - Intro 00:31
02 - C.C. Rider 04:39
03 - My Love 04:46
04 - Whistle Stop 05:10
05 - Unfaithful Servant 04:10
06 - She Knows 03:40
07 - Honest I Do 03:44
08 - King Harvest 04:47
09 - It Makes No Difference 06:48
10 - Banter 00:52
11 - Chest Fever 06:13
12 - Everynight and Everyday 04:32
13 - Caledonian Mission (Live) 02:58
14 - The Weight 04:30
15 - Blaze of Glory 02:33
16 - Makes No Difference 04:26
17 - Sick and Tired 04:41
18 - Honest I Do (Alternate Version) 03:35
19 - The Shape I'm In 03:55
*****
DISC FOUR
01 - Book Faded Brown 04:14
02 - Blind Willie Mctell 06:25
03 - Stage Fright 04:59
04 - It Makes No Difference 08:07
05 - Girl Like You 05:32
06 - Twilight 04:51
07 - Long Black Veil 05:17
08 - Ophelia 06:21
09 - Crazy Mama 12:53
10 - Walkin' Blues 06:41
11 - The Shape I'm In 04:02
12 - Wheels on Fire; Book Faded Brown (Reprise)) 07:51
**********
REVIEW
By Jonathan Aird, www.americana-uk.com
Rick Danko, the bass-player and vocalist with The Band, is a textbook example of a musician who struggled once his biggest gig folded. His solo career didn't produce a big album or even a single; his writing contribution to The Band had been small so the residual sales did not net him anything like the rewards one might imagine. As time went on he paid the bills with various gigs - solo, with a band - a stage shared with Richard Manuel is captured on this limited edition four CD set - sometimes with the reformed Band (bar Robbie Robertson). He even toured with the first line-up of Ringo Starr's All Starr Band on a lucrative upmarket nostalgia circuit. Danko's performances across this box set are a mixture of songs from both the classic and reformed Band's output, some traditional folk and also a few early rock and roll titles.
This naturally leads to a certain level of repetition - there are three versions of “C.C. Rider” and “Long Black Veil” for example , and fully six versions of “It makes no difference”. However, the different line-ups and venues make these quite distinct - the Disc 4 version of “Long Black Veil” has, quite oddly, some of "the night before Christmas" stitched into it – presumably it was that time of year. Amongst the very familiar there are some less so - an excellent and atmospheric reading of Dylan's "Blind Willie McTell" and an idiosyncratic telling of his "Wheel's on fire". There are also some awkward moments - the audience's nervous laughter caught on "Jimmy crack corn" shows just how unexpected its appearance on the set list must have seemed - although really this American folk song actually fits quite well alongside many of The Band’s songs.
The first CD of this set is a solo performance, just the classic singer-songwriter arrangement of a voice and an acoustic guitar, with, perhaps not that surprisingly, the bass notes emphasized on a series of minimalistic song arrangements quite at odds with the fulsome arrangements The Band used on the original versions of many of these songs. Rick Danko isn't in the greatest vocal shape here - there's some real strain in delivering the higher lines like "and the sun don't shine anymore...and the rains fall down on my door" from “It Makes No Difference” which cracks and loses the tune. Fortunately there was a considerable improvement for the material with Richard Manuel that makes up CD2 and most of CD3 - the blending of those two voices also pulling these electric versions much closer to the sound of The Band: there's some real magic in the interplay of Rick and Richard through the sets presented here. The remainder of CD3 and onto CD4 is a mix of solo performance and a series of band recordings - whether all with the same band is not clear. A number of these have some energetic piano accompaniment, and this brings songs like “Ophelia” to life.
All four CDs have been mastered from soundboard recordings - and whilst these have been cleaned up they haven't been overly edited - so there's every bit of banter, song introductions, fluffed verses and do-overs as well as the occasional longish languishing empty silence. There are, though, few indications that Rick Danko resented his reduced status - at one point he asks a girl to stop playing her guitar at the back of the hall, another time he comments on a venue "so, this is a book store", but it all seems good natured. There is one long sales pitch for his CDs on the merchandise stall which seemingly presages the very album know under review as Rick suggests that the concert may end up on a live album. In all “Stage Fright – Live Collection” adds up to a thorough presentation of Rick Danko's life post The Band proper, warts and all. It is quite fascinating, but probably something more to dip into than to listen to solidly for a few hours. This music though influenced just about everyone we tend to think of as Americana - the blend of roots, rock and visionary, sometimes impenetrable, lyrics - and so it is more than worth a listen. For big fans of The Band it's doubtless essential.
**********
BIOGRAPHY/AMG
Bruce Eder
Rick Danko was - and will forever be known as - one of the three singing members of the Band, as well as their bassist. Their principal lead singer on the first album, he was second of the members to join the group back in its days backing Ronnie Hawkins, and the second of its members to pass away.
He was born Richard Clare Danko on December 29, 1942, in Greens Corner, Ontario, Canada, near the town of Simcoe. The latter is in a part of Ontario populated by a large number of families descended from expatriate Southerners from the United States, and the echoes of Southern culture ran through the music and language in the area, with a special emphasis on country music. Danko's whole family played or sang, and he was playing banjo for his classmates as early as the first grade. As a boy, he listened to Hank Williams, among other country artists of the late '40s and early '50s, in addition to gospel and R&B, with Sam Cooke and Fats Domino both strong influences during his teen years. He gave up school to go into music full-time when he was in his mid-teens, and made the jump to the big time - relatively speaking - by joining Hawkins' backing band, the Hawks, at age 17. Guitarist Robbie Robertson was already a member of a couple of years' standing at that point, and Danko was initially the group's rhythm guitarist, but he soon learned to play bass and switched to the four-string instrument. He not only mastered the electric bass but also the upright acoustic bass, and became an amazingly accomplished player on both instruments at a very young age.
Danko was part of the split with Hawkins when the group broke away from their former employer, and he was along for the ride when they got picked up as Bob Dylan's backing band, and for the switch in name from the Hawks to the Band. And when they emerged to fame in their own right in 1968, it was as equals -- initially, at least, no member was more or less prominent than any other in terms of their sound; this changed somewhat as Robbie Robertson (also their in-house songwriter) began receiving greater exposure, but in the beginning and for the first few years, everyone had an equal part and was equally important in the eyes of the public. Danko's bass work was distinctive enough, but along with Levon Helm and Richard Manuel, he was also one of the three singing members of the group, and his lead vocals were all over their debut album, Music from Big Pink. But Danko was badly injured in an automobile accident soon after that album's release -- people write about Dylan's motorcycle accident from this era, but relatively few realize that the man who sang lead on most of Music from Big Pink broke his neck and back in nine places, and spent months in traction recovering. He was back for their second album, The Band, and he became one of the most memorable new vocalists in rock during this period, his performances on songs such as "When You Awake," "The Unfaithful Servant," and "It Makes No Difference" among the most searingly beautiful in '60s and '70s rock.
The group got through its prime years with some shifts in emphasis and changes in its dynamics -- Manuel and Helm became much more visible as singers after the debut album, and Robertson had what amounted to a lock on the songwriting as well; and eventually, amid the stresses of touring and performing, recording and meeting the obligations of their record label, all of the members decided it was time to move on to develop identities separate from the group. In 1977, less than a year after the Band played what was supposed to be its farewell concert, Danko was signed to Arista Records, and his self-titled debut solo album appeared in 1978, unfortunately a little too close to the release of the Band's swan song, The Last Waltz, as a movie and LP set. Danko got good reviews from those critics who could devote the time and space to it, but the Band's release eclipsed any chance he had to find an audience as a solo artist, and by 1980, Danko was without a recording contract. He subsequently rejoined Helm, Manuel, and keyboardist Garth Hudson in a re-formed version of the Band (sans Robbie Robertson) for a tour, which yielded a superb concert video (released on laser disc as well). It was to be the last time that the four members would work together -- in early March of 1986, pianist/singer Richard Manuel, succumbing to years of struggling with alcohol and drug problems, committed suicide.
Danko re-emerged in the mid-'80s in various musical ensembles and combinations, with other ex-Band members (including a film appearance with Helm, Hudson, and Manuel in the movie Man Outside), as well as working with Paul Butterfield and Jorma Kaukonen, among others. He and Helm became part of ex-Beatle Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band, and he also participated in such live events as the Roger Waters concert presentation of The Wall in Berlin, and -- with his fellow ex-members -- was part of a Band reunion in the Bob Dylan 30th-anniversary tribute concert at Madison Square Garden.
For all of this activity, Danko was not -- and had not been for some time -- a well man. He'd shown signs of having an addictive personality fairly early in his post-Ronnie Hawkins career, and as was later revealed, the car accident in 1968 had exacerbated a precarious psychotic condition. And although he'd kept matters under control, there was a price to be paid in terms of his health. Meanwhile, he kept busy musically, joining with American '60s folkie Eric Andersen and Norwegian singer/songwriter Jonas Fjeld for a project that was released as Danko/Fjeld/Andersen in 1993. That same year, he was part of the re-formed Band's Jericho album, a critical success that was followed three years later by High on the Hog. A year after that came Ridin' on the Blinds, a follow-up to Danko/Fjeld/Andersen, and in 1998 came the Band's Jubilation; it would be the last time that the three active original members worked together on a Band project. Danko toured occasionally during this period, but his physical condition made it difficult for him to go on the road; his weight increased dramatically as his health declined, and he was nowhere near his best at some shows. He was also arrested for an attempt to smuggle heroin into Japan, and during the trial he revealed that he had become addicted to the drug while seeking a relief from the constant pain he'd been in since the car accident in 1968.
Yet on a good night, or at a good recording session, he could still surprise fans by recapturing much of his past glory. His live album Rick Danko in Concert, recorded at two 1997 shows, is everything one could wish for in a live performance from the man, vocally and instrumentally; and Live on Breeze Hill, although more uneven, cut with the Band's Garth Hudson, has its transcendent and near-transcendent moments, most notably Danko's performance on "Crazy Mama," and even the band standards come off OK. A brief tour in late 1999 proved him closer to the end than anyone wanted to think -- on December 10, 1999, just under three weeks before what would have been his 56th birthday, Rick Danko died in his sleep of heart failure.
**********
WIKIPEDIA
**********
BIOGRAPHY/THE BAND
**********
TO THE TOP
********************
''STAGE FRIGHT LIVE COLLECTION, DISC FOUR''
2015
309:06
**********
DISC ONE
01 - Java Blues 03:06
02 - Christmas Must Be Tonight 03:30
03 - My Friend 03:11
04 - Stage Fright 03:21
05 - C.C. Rider 03:42
06 - Twilight 02:43
07 - Oh Baby (Watcha Gonna Do) 02:06
08 - Jimmy Crack Corn 02:55
09 - Long Black Veil 03:59
10 - Caledonian Mission 03:12
11 - My Love 03:23
12 - The Weight 05:19
13 - Bartender Blues 02:42
14 - It Makes No Difference 04:23
15 - Mystery Train 03:50
16 - That's How I Love You 02:39
17 - When You Are Awake 03:11
18 - When I Get My Rewards 02:46
19 - Sunny Side of Life 01:55
20 - Brainwash 02:42
21 - Blaze of Glory 01:54
22 - My Baby Left Me 02:35
23 - It Makes No Difference (Reprise) 04:19
24 - Once Upon a Time 03:17
25 - What a Town 02:07
*****
DISC TWO (WITH RICHARD MANUEL)
01 - The Shape I'm In 04:47
02 - C.C. Rider 05:26
03 - It Makes No Difference 07:11
04 - Walking Blues 05:40
05 - My Baby Left Me 04:33
06 - You Don't Know Me 03:00
07 - I'm Just Your Fool 04:16
08 - Long Black Veil 05:35
09 - Chest Fever 04:32
10 - Blaze of Glory 02:38
11 - Crazy Mama 06:31
12 - Across the Great Divide 03:50
13 - Java Blues 04:50
14 - Walking by Myself 04:20
15 - Unfaithful Servant 05:40
16 - She Knows 03:18
*****
DISC THREE (TRACKS 01-12 WITH RICHARD MANUEL)
01 - Intro 00:31
02 - C.C. Rider 04:39
03 - My Love 04:46
04 - Whistle Stop 05:10
05 - Unfaithful Servant 04:10
06 - She Knows 03:40
07 - Honest I Do 03:44
08 - King Harvest 04:47
09 - It Makes No Difference 06:48
10 - Banter 00:52
11 - Chest Fever 06:13
12 - Everynight and Everyday 04:32
13 - Caledonian Mission (Live) 02:58
14 - The Weight 04:30
15 - Blaze of Glory 02:33
16 - Makes No Difference 04:26
17 - Sick and Tired 04:41
18 - Honest I Do (Alternate Version) 03:35
19 - The Shape I'm In 03:55
*****
DISC FOUR
01 - Book Faded Brown 04:14
02 - Blind Willie Mctell 06:25
03 - Stage Fright 04:59
04 - It Makes No Difference 08:07
05 - Girl Like You 05:32
06 - Twilight 04:51
07 - Long Black Veil 05:17
08 - Ophelia 06:21
09 - Crazy Mama 12:53
10 - Walkin' Blues 06:41
11 - The Shape I'm In 04:02
12 - Wheels on Fire; Book Faded Brown (Reprise)) 07:51
**********
REVIEW
By Jonathan Aird, www.americana-uk.com
Rick Danko, the bass-player and vocalist with The Band, is a textbook example of a musician who struggled once his biggest gig folded. His solo career didn't produce a big album or even a single; his writing contribution to The Band had been small so the residual sales did not net him anything like the rewards one might imagine. As time went on he paid the bills with various gigs - solo, with a band - a stage shared with Richard Manuel is captured on this limited edition four CD set - sometimes with the reformed Band (bar Robbie Robertson). He even toured with the first line-up of Ringo Starr's All Starr Band on a lucrative upmarket nostalgia circuit. Danko's performances across this box set are a mixture of songs from both the classic and reformed Band's output, some traditional folk and also a few early rock and roll titles.
This naturally leads to a certain level of repetition - there are three versions of “C.C. Rider” and “Long Black Veil” for example , and fully six versions of “It makes no difference”. However, the different line-ups and venues make these quite distinct - the Disc 4 version of “Long Black Veil” has, quite oddly, some of "the night before Christmas" stitched into it – presumably it was that time of year. Amongst the very familiar there are some less so - an excellent and atmospheric reading of Dylan's "Blind Willie McTell" and an idiosyncratic telling of his "Wheel's on fire". There are also some awkward moments - the audience's nervous laughter caught on "Jimmy crack corn" shows just how unexpected its appearance on the set list must have seemed - although really this American folk song actually fits quite well alongside many of The Band’s songs.
The first CD of this set is a solo performance, just the classic singer-songwriter arrangement of a voice and an acoustic guitar, with, perhaps not that surprisingly, the bass notes emphasized on a series of minimalistic song arrangements quite at odds with the fulsome arrangements The Band used on the original versions of many of these songs. Rick Danko isn't in the greatest vocal shape here - there's some real strain in delivering the higher lines like "and the sun don't shine anymore...and the rains fall down on my door" from “It Makes No Difference” which cracks and loses the tune. Fortunately there was a considerable improvement for the material with Richard Manuel that makes up CD2 and most of CD3 - the blending of those two voices also pulling these electric versions much closer to the sound of The Band: there's some real magic in the interplay of Rick and Richard through the sets presented here. The remainder of CD3 and onto CD4 is a mix of solo performance and a series of band recordings - whether all with the same band is not clear. A number of these have some energetic piano accompaniment, and this brings songs like “Ophelia” to life.
All four CDs have been mastered from soundboard recordings - and whilst these have been cleaned up they haven't been overly edited - so there's every bit of banter, song introductions, fluffed verses and do-overs as well as the occasional longish languishing empty silence. There are, though, few indications that Rick Danko resented his reduced status - at one point he asks a girl to stop playing her guitar at the back of the hall, another time he comments on a venue "so, this is a book store", but it all seems good natured. There is one long sales pitch for his CDs on the merchandise stall which seemingly presages the very album know under review as Rick suggests that the concert may end up on a live album. In all “Stage Fright – Live Collection” adds up to a thorough presentation of Rick Danko's life post The Band proper, warts and all. It is quite fascinating, but probably something more to dip into than to listen to solidly for a few hours. This music though influenced just about everyone we tend to think of as Americana - the blend of roots, rock and visionary, sometimes impenetrable, lyrics - and so it is more than worth a listen. For big fans of The Band it's doubtless essential.
**********
BIOGRAPHY/AMG
Bruce Eder
Rick Danko was - and will forever be known as - one of the three singing members of the Band, as well as their bassist. Their principal lead singer on the first album, he was second of the members to join the group back in its days backing Ronnie Hawkins, and the second of its members to pass away.
He was born Richard Clare Danko on December 29, 1942, in Greens Corner, Ontario, Canada, near the town of Simcoe. The latter is in a part of Ontario populated by a large number of families descended from expatriate Southerners from the United States, and the echoes of Southern culture ran through the music and language in the area, with a special emphasis on country music. Danko's whole family played or sang, and he was playing banjo for his classmates as early as the first grade. As a boy, he listened to Hank Williams, among other country artists of the late '40s and early '50s, in addition to gospel and R&B, with Sam Cooke and Fats Domino both strong influences during his teen years. He gave up school to go into music full-time when he was in his mid-teens, and made the jump to the big time - relatively speaking - by joining Hawkins' backing band, the Hawks, at age 17. Guitarist Robbie Robertson was already a member of a couple of years' standing at that point, and Danko was initially the group's rhythm guitarist, but he soon learned to play bass and switched to the four-string instrument. He not only mastered the electric bass but also the upright acoustic bass, and became an amazingly accomplished player on both instruments at a very young age.
Danko was part of the split with Hawkins when the group broke away from their former employer, and he was along for the ride when they got picked up as Bob Dylan's backing band, and for the switch in name from the Hawks to the Band. And when they emerged to fame in their own right in 1968, it was as equals -- initially, at least, no member was more or less prominent than any other in terms of their sound; this changed somewhat as Robbie Robertson (also their in-house songwriter) began receiving greater exposure, but in the beginning and for the first few years, everyone had an equal part and was equally important in the eyes of the public. Danko's bass work was distinctive enough, but along with Levon Helm and Richard Manuel, he was also one of the three singing members of the group, and his lead vocals were all over their debut album, Music from Big Pink. But Danko was badly injured in an automobile accident soon after that album's release -- people write about Dylan's motorcycle accident from this era, but relatively few realize that the man who sang lead on most of Music from Big Pink broke his neck and back in nine places, and spent months in traction recovering. He was back for their second album, The Band, and he became one of the most memorable new vocalists in rock during this period, his performances on songs such as "When You Awake," "The Unfaithful Servant," and "It Makes No Difference" among the most searingly beautiful in '60s and '70s rock.
The group got through its prime years with some shifts in emphasis and changes in its dynamics -- Manuel and Helm became much more visible as singers after the debut album, and Robertson had what amounted to a lock on the songwriting as well; and eventually, amid the stresses of touring and performing, recording and meeting the obligations of their record label, all of the members decided it was time to move on to develop identities separate from the group. In 1977, less than a year after the Band played what was supposed to be its farewell concert, Danko was signed to Arista Records, and his self-titled debut solo album appeared in 1978, unfortunately a little too close to the release of the Band's swan song, The Last Waltz, as a movie and LP set. Danko got good reviews from those critics who could devote the time and space to it, but the Band's release eclipsed any chance he had to find an audience as a solo artist, and by 1980, Danko was without a recording contract. He subsequently rejoined Helm, Manuel, and keyboardist Garth Hudson in a re-formed version of the Band (sans Robbie Robertson) for a tour, which yielded a superb concert video (released on laser disc as well). It was to be the last time that the four members would work together -- in early March of 1986, pianist/singer Richard Manuel, succumbing to years of struggling with alcohol and drug problems, committed suicide.
Danko re-emerged in the mid-'80s in various musical ensembles and combinations, with other ex-Band members (including a film appearance with Helm, Hudson, and Manuel in the movie Man Outside), as well as working with Paul Butterfield and Jorma Kaukonen, among others. He and Helm became part of ex-Beatle Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band, and he also participated in such live events as the Roger Waters concert presentation of The Wall in Berlin, and -- with his fellow ex-members -- was part of a Band reunion in the Bob Dylan 30th-anniversary tribute concert at Madison Square Garden.
For all of this activity, Danko was not -- and had not been for some time -- a well man. He'd shown signs of having an addictive personality fairly early in his post-Ronnie Hawkins career, and as was later revealed, the car accident in 1968 had exacerbated a precarious psychotic condition. And although he'd kept matters under control, there was a price to be paid in terms of his health. Meanwhile, he kept busy musically, joining with American '60s folkie Eric Andersen and Norwegian singer/songwriter Jonas Fjeld for a project that was released as Danko/Fjeld/Andersen in 1993. That same year, he was part of the re-formed Band's Jericho album, a critical success that was followed three years later by High on the Hog. A year after that came Ridin' on the Blinds, a follow-up to Danko/Fjeld/Andersen, and in 1998 came the Band's Jubilation; it would be the last time that the three active original members worked together on a Band project. Danko toured occasionally during this period, but his physical condition made it difficult for him to go on the road; his weight increased dramatically as his health declined, and he was nowhere near his best at some shows. He was also arrested for an attempt to smuggle heroin into Japan, and during the trial he revealed that he had become addicted to the drug while seeking a relief from the constant pain he'd been in since the car accident in 1968.
Yet on a good night, or at a good recording session, he could still surprise fans by recapturing much of his past glory. His live album Rick Danko in Concert, recorded at two 1997 shows, is everything one could wish for in a live performance from the man, vocally and instrumentally; and Live on Breeze Hill, although more uneven, cut with the Band's Garth Hudson, has its transcendent and near-transcendent moments, most notably Danko's performance on "Crazy Mama," and even the band standards come off OK. A brief tour in late 1999 proved him closer to the end than anyone wanted to think -- on December 10, 1999, just under three weeks before what would have been his 56th birthday, Rick Danko died in his sleep of heart failure.
**********
WIKIPEDIA
**********
BIOGRAPHY/THE BAND
**********
TO THE TOP
********************
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