"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".

"He was just 18 and strong and brave, but a Yankee put him in his grave..." - chokes me up every time.

@larsman ,

I also have my doubts it was fast as lightning...

@onhwy61: I don’t know if I’m the world’s biggest fan of The Band, but I’ll admit to being amongst those who are.

Speaking of which, in the latest Stereophile Newsletter (August---2nd Edition), there is a great story on and interview with mastering engineer Bob Ludwig. In the interview Bob talks about growing up listening to Classical ("I certainly love Classical music. That’s my heart.") and Jazz---though recounts buying Chuck Berry 45RPM singles, learning to play trumpet, getting into studio work, etc.

At the end of the story he is asked for some of his favorite albums of which he mastered. The first one he names is The Band’s s/t "brown" album, which he describes as "an iconic recording." The second is Led Zeppelin II.

The story ends with this: "When pressed on his absolute favorite artists, he settles on The Band." Ludwig: "The Band have always been my ultimate favorite." I'm in good company 😊 .

Let's do a thought experiment -- who from Led Zeppelin could play in The Band?  Bonham, no way.  Plant, it's a few decades early in his development.  Page, as an acoustic player he could bring a little English folkie sound to the group.  Although I'm not sure they need that.  Finally, JPJ would slot right in with Danko moving to vocals.

Who from The Band could play in LZ?  Robbie R. could and so could Garth.  I think that would be the most interesting 2 lead guitar group going.

I do somewhat similar thought experiments all the time, including with members of The Beatles. In the documentary on The Band, George Harrison states he instantly felt a kinship with Robertson, hearing in Robbie’s guitar playing an emphasis and focus on contributing to the song itself, to the entire production, rather than playing as a single instrument---the way many guitarists do.

It’s the ol’ "ensemble"-style playing I am so attracted to. That’s why many of my favorite players are studio musicians. Emitt Rhodes told me the best musician he ever worked with was Jim Gordon, a very favorite of mine as well. Another is Roger Hawkins, the drummer in The Swampers, the studio band heard on all the great recordings that came out of Muscle Shoals in the 60’s and 70’s. In an interview in Modern Drummer, Jim Keltner stated he wished he played more like Hawkins.

If you watch and listen to the finale of The Last Waltz, you see and hear poor ol’ Ringo Starr, trying to remain relevant by playing along with Levon Helm. It’s sad: his playing is SO tired, SO sluggish. There is no way he could have been the drummer in The Band.

There are two English bands whose records allow a direct comparison between the playing of three of that country’s most well known guitarists in the same "setting": The Yardbirds, and John Mayall’s Blues Breakers. Eric Clapton is heard on only some of the songs on The Yardbirds’ For Your Love album, the rest and the next two albums it was Jeff Beck. Jimmy Page is heard only on their last---and drastically weakest---album, Little Games.

John Mayall’s first three albums feature the playing of first Clapton, then Peter Green, and lastly Mick Taylor. Dave Edmunds---one of my favorite UK guitarists---was considered when The Stones were looking for a replacement for Brian Jones. I’m glad they chose instead Mick Taylor, allowing Dave to embark on his fantastic solo career. When Dave wanted a guest guitarist on one of his albums, he gave Albert Lee a call. Albert played in the bands of Emmylou Harris and The Everly Brothers for many years. He also has a number of excellent solo albums.

I better stop now: this could go on for quite some time 😉 .

@onhwy61 

Who from The Band could play in LZ?  Robbie R. could and so could Garth.

Garth -- OK -- he can play just about anything. I love The Band and I'm not a Zep fanatic by any means but RR?  Maybe you're joking? 

No joke at all.  Garth would provide instrumental texture and density to the LZ palette.  It's a role that JPJ did for them in the studio.  The original Jimmy Page concept for LZ was as a twin guitar band with Terry Reid as the vocalist, co-lead guitarist.  RR can't sing, but he rock a Strat or Les Paul with the best of them.  As an added bonus, LZ's lyrics would have been upgraded.

@onhwy61 ”John Bonham couldn’t play in The Band. No way.”  
“No way”??? How is this statement logical?  
Levon could be his typically great self, singing wonderful lead vocals, singing great backup harmony vocals, and playing a multitude of instruments.
The musical difference in the songs of The Band and songs like “Tangerine,” “Hey, Hey, What Can I Do,” “Boogie With Stu,” “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp,” “Your Time is Gonna Come,” “Black Country Woman,” “That’s the Way,” “Gallows Pole,” and “Down By the Seaside,” is minimal.  
Furthermore, each of those songs feature extremely sensitive, tasteful percussion that serves only to improve the song.  
John was an extremely sensitive and intuitive artist who simply loved music; simply loved good songs. Bludgeoning the skins was not imperative to him. It was just another thing he did. In the case of Led Zeppelin, it came in handy.  
Again, this was not imperative to John’s artistic expression, just another component that may or may not be useful depending on the song.

“Plant, it’s a few decades early in his development.”  
Come again?  
Plant is a perfect contemporary of The Band (‘68-‘76). If that is true, and his vocals were, at best, equally good (at worst, demonstrably worse) in advanced age, how can your statement on Plant’s “development” make any sense?

I know John Bonham only from my very limited exposure to his playing on Led Zeppelin albums. I heard their debut when it came out, and found it unintentionally and almost hysterically funny, like the bar band in the movie Ghost World: Blues Hammer. The name is quite apropos, as that fake-Blues band heavy-handedly bludgeons the music to death, employing no restraint or subtlety what-so-ever. As did, imo, Led Zeppelin. And in anticipation of the possible reaction to this statement by some readers: no, I am not saying this thinking it makes me sound cool (or whatever).

But by the time Led Zeppelin I came out, I was already listening to the Blues Levon Helm had grown up listening to and then playing in The Hawks, that of it’s originators: Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Big Joe Turner, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Johnson, Freddie and Albert King, Slim Harpo, Roy Brown, Wynonie Harris, Jimmy Reed, etc. As well as the American bands that had been putting out albums of Chicago-style Blues for several years before LZ showed up: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band---whose black rhythm section Paul hired away from Howlin’ Wolf---and Charlie Musselwhite primarily.

That may not be enough to determine if Bonham could have played in The Band, but imo his bass drum technique alone would have disqualified him. Like many Rock drummers, Bonham "buried the beater." That’s what drummers call punching the felt beater of the bass drum pedal into the batter head and leaving it there, rather than letting the beater rebound off the head, which is called "feathering." Burying the beater causes the forward momentum of the music to stop and start on every down beat (the 1 and 3 in 4/4 time). I can’t get past that in the music of LZ.

Levon Helm employed feathering (as do jazz drummers), and other subtle aspects of the approach to playing the drumset (Buddy Rich "approved" of Levon’s playing 😉). Bonham may have had his strengths, but subtlety was not amongst them. Levon was also very sparing and selective in his use of the crash cymbal, a rarity in Rock music. Most Rock drummers tend to crash at the end of every measure (4 beats in 4/4 time), for no musical reason. Such cymbal crashes chop the music into separate little sections, rather than one forward-moving train. Bonham was very guilty of that musical "crime". He didn’t know which notes to leave out, overplaying---again, very common amongst the drummers in Rock bands. The Band were not a Rock band, they were a Rock ’n’ Roll band.

To hear how "sluggish" Bohham’s drumming is, listen to his opening in the LZ song "Rock ’n’ Roll", and compare it to the "crisp" drumming of Earl Palmer on Little Richard’s "Keep A-Knockin’", which is from where Bonham "borrowed" his part.

@bdp24 those songs I mentioned beg to differ.
The Band was nowhere near the aggressive musical outfit that Zep was.
Zep often played big ol’ aggressive music wherein the bludgeoning you referred to was not only appropriate but beneficial.
Given the technical proficiency, versatility, sensitivity, and tastefulness of Bonham’s drumming (the 3rd-through-8th LPs are the ones to listen to, I’d personally recommend III and Physical Graffiti, NOT the derivative, Blues Hammer 🤣 first two LPs - I love that reference, BTW 😆), it’s exceedingly difficult for me to believe he wouldn’t have brought all his creativity and subtlety to those Band songs, and/or been more than willing to “tone it down a notch” if one (or several) of the guys asked him to 😉.

One reason I cut Rock band drummers some slack---especially those at the level of Led Zeppelin---is that they are playing in very large venues, and the music has to reach all the way to the back seats. Playing "lightly" and with subtlety just doesn’t work in that scenario---it gets "lost".

There are two Rock bands whose drummers I like a lot (as well as the band’s music): AC/DC and Weezer. And wouldn’t ya know it, they are both more Rock ’n’ Roll bands that Rock ones.

One trait of Levon’s playing that I know without a doubt was beyond the understanding of Bonham is perfectly displayed in what Levon plays as his entrance into "The Weight". Robertson plays his acoustic guitar intro, after which Levon hits his floor tom on "1", rests on "2", hits his tom again on "3" and "4", then comes in on full kit on "1" of the first verse. Brilliant!

The thing is, ANY drummer can play that simple part, but no one else ever has! It sounds SO cool, and so musical. Most drummers would play something difficult to execute, to show off their chops. That would be done not in service to the song, but to their ego and pride.