When some people dislike a certain musician or playing style, they simply don’t listen to that music if they can help it—the rock ‘n’ roll gang that once tried convincing Bob Dylan’s bandmates to kick him out preferred to go to the source to find their solutions. From the fall of 1965 to the spring of 1966, Dylan performed with the Band, which included Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Robbie Robertson, Richard Manuel, and Levon Helm.
Videos by American Songwriter
In that short window of time, Dylan and the Band faced criticism on a global scale as they toured the United States and the United Kingdom. On the latter leg of their tour, the Band found themselves in conversation with a group of British anti-Dylan rock lovers.
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Gang Make Their Case To Robbie Robertson
Bob Dylan’s tenure with the Band coincided with his highly divisive transition to electric music. Folkies felt like Dylan abandoned him. Rockers felt like Dylan was stepping on their toes. Suddenly, Dylan had transformed into the musical enigma we know him to be today. If anyone hoped to define him as an easily categorized Woody Guthrie type, their hopes were dashed at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Criticism of this musical evolution rippled across the pond all the way to the U.K., as the Band’s Robbie Robertson detailed in a May 1971 interview with Melody Maker.
“When we came over [to the U.K.] for the first time, with Bob, a bunch of people came by the hotel—a bunch of rough-looking characters,” Robertson recalled. “I don’t know what you call them. But they were into pure rock ‘n’ roll. They didn’t like Bob’s music at all. They liked Ronnie Hawkins’ music. And they were giving me this whole story about giving up this Bob Dylan s*** and getting back to the real meat of things. They were very sincere, actually.”
The well-intentioned rock ‘n’ rollers were worried that what Bob Dylan was doing would pollute the Band’s creative integrity. For folk-loving fans of early Dylan, they worried the opposite. In his memoir This Wheel’s On Fire, drummer Levon Helm recalled the wave of boos Dylan and the Band received while on their 1965-1966 tour. “People out front were yelling, ‘Get rid of the band!’ Backstage, people were coming up to Bob and saying—right in front of us sometimes—‘Look, Bobby, these bums are killing you. They’re destroying your career. You’re gettin’ murdered out there. Why do you wanna pollute the purity of your thing with this dirty, vulgar rock and roll?
The Pushback Against Bob Dylan Started Affecting The Band
Bob Dylan was no small name by the time he went on tour with the band in the mid-1960s. He was a bona fide folk legend. People should have been clamoring to shower him and his colleagues with praise. But Dylan’s transition to electric rifled the feathers of folk and rock communities. Unfortunately for the Band, they found themselves facing just as much criticism. The pushback affected them so heavily that by the time the rock ‘n’ roll gang in England made their case to Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm had already left, unable to handle the arduous dynamic of being Dylan’s backing band.
“We were seriously booed during a two-night stand at the Back Bay Theater in Boston,” Helm wrote in his memoir. “That’s when it started to get to me. I’d been raised to believe that music was supposed to make people smile and want to party. Here was all this hostility coming back at us.” Helm recalled Richard Manuel sensing the drummer was about to quit before he did. Robertson resisted Helm’s departure and tried to convince him to stay, but to no avail. “It just ain’t my ambition to be anybody’s drummer,” Helm told him.
“Robbie asked where I was going, and I told him I didn’t exactly know, but that they could always find me by calling J.D., my dad down in Springdale, Arkansas. And that was it,” Helm wrote.
Photo by Bettmann/Getty Images
Leave a Reply
Only members can comment. Become a member. Already a member? Log in.