The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

[emike123]

I have been thinking about this tune for some time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnS9M03F-fA

..and always wondered if Robert E Lee was ever in Tennessee during the war.

Turns out he wasn't, but The Robert E Lee they are referring to was the Monarch of the Mississippi:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Lee_(steamboat)

And in this version of the ballad Joan Baez takes some artistic license and replaces "Stoneman's Cavalry"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stoneman

... with the words "so much cavalry"

I was going to post this as a poll question with a prize, but decided instead to solicit input on the lyrics and background of this tune.  If someone blows our collective mind with additional insights, they can get the token prize (a Model T bushing???) instead.

[Dave the plumber]

   This classic Americana song was written and recorded back in the day by The Band, and Ms Joan Baez was just covering it in that video posted.
      I used to hang out some with Levon Helm, the drummer for The Band who sang the song originally when it became a monster 'anthem' hit for them. I'm sure we talked about the song in our late night revelry - but I was too stoned back then to remember much about it now !! 

[emike123]

I agree and think The Band's version is way better, but they did have an orchestra behind them.  I have The Last Waltz on vinyl in my attic, but here it is for the forumites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOi0tC00Luc

Plumber, we always knew you marched to the beat of a different "drummer," and your confirmation wins the prize from my perspective.  We'll try to get Pete to autograph the bushing for you...

[jonpatterson]

Mike

Perhaps Joan Baez was a student of CW history (yea, right) and pondered as you did if Gen. Lee had been in TN. So upon learning he wasn't she chose to try and right this wrong and changed the lyrics.

I think you will find that when written by Robbie Robertson of The Band, the lyric's wording was "there goes Robert E. Lee". It wasn't until Joan Baez recorded it in 1971 "replete with lyrical errors" did the General become the steam boat with her addition (sometimes) of "the" before "Robert E. Lee". As Producer/Engineer John Simon commented on her change, "that's just sloppy".

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct06/articles/classictrac ks_1006.htm

[Dave the plumber]

 Mike, back then we were all stoned, Levon included, I'm sure a lot of guys reading my post chuckled to themselves !!
        And Jon,   Robbie has credit for the song, yet it was definitely a full band collaborative effort to write it and produce it. He has the writing credit for all the band songs. Back then when they were all living, writing and breathing together, they were a band of brothers, money was rolling and credit was given to Robbie because someone had to have their name on it, and he was less stoned then the rest 'em.
 Then when they went their separate ways, lo and behold, Robbie was getting the checks and not sharing. Fucker.  They actually had to have bake sale fundraisers for Garth so he could keep his place in upstate NY. Levon claimed bankruptcy, Richard hung himself in a lo- life hotel room, and Rick did drugs until he OD'ed.
     Levon was so pissed at Robbie for what he did to the rest of them after The Band,  when his best friend Rick died, Robbie flew in from the 'coast', got the spotlight at the funeral and Levon sat across the street in a Chineese restaurant with his daughter watching while they held the service in Woodstock , he didn't want to be in the same room, or church, with Robbie.     Sad events.........
    But on his deathbed, Robbie again flew in from the coast to try to make amends with Levon. And if you knew Levon, in the graciousness of his monster heart, he let Robbie into his hospital room and they talked alone for over an hour. He died two days later......
    By the way, Levon was the only one in the band from the US, Arkansas in fact. All that Cripple Creek Americana music was made by Canadians !!
        sorry for the long post that most of you don't give a hoot about - but now you know the rest of the story

[misipirelichtr]

Dave, this is one of the most interesting posts I 've read in quite a while.  Great stories and thanks for sharing.  I'd hope you feel free to add more here.  I did know Levon Helm was from Arkansas - somewhere I say an interview where he talked about how his Arkansas roots influenced his music - but did not know the rest.

[ETEX]

Dave, great story. Thanks for sharing it with the forum.

[Dave the plumber]

 well, since you asked [sorta ] -          when The Band was backing Bob Dylan, a few of the guys were  living in a house in Woodstock , NY. They had a recording studio set up in the basement for The Band and Dylan. They were working on their own music then too. And according to Levon's book, This Wheel's On Fire, they kept a typewriter and pads sitting there. And ALL of them would jot down lines in songs and add this and that so they had a lot of material to work with, and it was a true collaborative effort. No one person wrote any of it.
    Yes, Robbie was the 'pretty frontman' and spokesman for the band, and yes he was an excellent guitarist, and he did write some great parts of some of the greatest songs, and some great lyrics were added by him as well. But Garth was the schooled and classically trained musician that they all said was the true master of the Bands sounds.
     But in all reality, like Led Zeppelin or the Stones, it was just a perfect blending of an incredibly talented handful of guys who made some of the best music of the 60's and 70's. Hence the incredible turnout of rock's highest royality to join them when they did their final show on a Thanksgiving night  [ which Mike posted a video of] ,  called The Last Waltz  [ google it, or watch the whole movie Martin Scorsessee made, or buy the album ]
      And for the record, I never met Robbie. I saw the band play, but didn;''t meet the others until a year or two after they broke up. Robbie works for Spielbergs' DreamWorks as a studio soundtrack musician now. He has released a few of his own albums, which I own, but they are not even close in sound or up to par with anything The Band did together.
    And as a trivia note ; at the beginning of this post, I talked about the Band recording in the basement of the house in Woodstock ; well they released their first album called appropriately titled  ' the basement tapes' which is a classic. And the house was [ and still is  ] painted pink, so they named another  album ' music from the big pink'.   Like I said - stoned and they didn't have to reach too far for those titles !!

[pipedreamer65]

Chris Hartley, in his book Stoneman's Raid, 1865 makes a really big deal about how this song was influenced by the destruction of the raid.  Other than the reference to Stoneman tearing up the tracks, I failed to see much distinction in relation to Stoneman's 1865 raid through western NC and VA.  Really fine book though if you like cavalry operations.  Not so sure about the song, lol.... its ok I guess.

[emike123]

Thanks Pipe.  I think they had been out smoking with David when they made up that bit about lee being in TN.  Actually, this post serves as a bump, but I did just have a pink house album song pop up on my Spotify playlist and I had forgot that "Atlantic City" was another find tune from The Band.

Also, in the spirit of North Carolina, I am going back now to my TV to watch Duke (my alma mater) v. Syracuse.  Have two family members at the game but I just get to watch it on TV from up here in the frozen Northland.  Go Duke, beat them invaders....

[CarlS]

I see that Duke managed to take out those NY invaders 66-60.  Nice win for Duke to beat the #1 ranked team by more than a buzzer beater.

[emike123]

Yes Carl, a good win and crazy ending watching Syracuse's coach blow any chances they had in the final stretch by getting the heave for a double T epic meltdown for the ages. 

Boeheim must've been hanging around this fellow older distinguished Syracuse alum and picked up some of his tricks for entertaining us at his own expense:



Wiki says:

Biden then entered Syracuse University College of Law...During his first year there, he was accused of having plagiarized 5 of 15 pages of a law review article. Biden said it was inadvertent due to his not knowing the proper rules of citation, and he was permitted to retake the course after receiving an 'F' grade, which was subsequently dropped from his record.  He received his Juris Doctor in 1968, graduating 76th of 85 in his class.

Some lessons he learned up there:

"Look, John's last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number-one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S, jobs." --Joe Biden, Athens, Ohio, Oct. 15, 2008

"If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there's still a 30% chance we're going to get it wrong." --Joe Biden, speaking to members of the House Democratic caucus who were gathered in Williamsburg, Va., for their annual retreat, Feb. 6, 2009

"Folks, I can tell you I've known eight presidents, three of them intimately." --Joe Biden, Aug. 22, 2012

"Stand up, Chuck, let 'em see ya." –-Joe Biden, to Missouri state Sen. Chuck Graham, who is in a wheelchair, Columbia, Missouri, Sept. 12, 2008

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened." –Joe Biden, apparently unaware that FDR wasn't president when the stock market crashed in 1929 and that only experimental TV sets were in use at that time, interview with Katie Couric, Sept. 22, 2008

"You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.... I'm not joking." --Joe Biden, in a private remark to an Indian-American man caught on C-SPAN, June, 2006

"A successful dump!" --Joe Biden, explaining his whereabouts (dropping deadwood at the dump) to the reporters outside his home, Wilmington, Del., Aug. 20, 2008


 

[pipedreamer65]

Yes Boeheim screwed the pooch at the end.  They still could have won.  Good game.  Love the Biden quotes.  LOL

[Lamar]

Yes Boeheim screwed the pooch ...

Talking about screwing the pooch - here's a recent story about a co-ed at Mike's alma mater...

http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2023001075_dukepornxml.html

Mike - say it ain't so!

[emike123]

She sounds like an adorable person.  Being from the Great State of Lyndon LaRouche, you may have a problem with her being a Libertarian, but I have no problem with that 

Now if you wanted to give back as good as I gave, your overworked and underpaid paralegals should've done better research and helped you frame a rebuttal that mentioned another of your honorable peers with Juris Doctor degrees, Lamar.  That would be Richard M. Nixon, Esq., Duke Law Class of 1937.  I think I would trade him for Biden, or better yet they could be on the ACC First Alumni Team of Embarassments to the Bar.