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The Unfaithful Servant
"The Unfaithful Servant" or "Unfaithful Servant" is a song written by Robbie Robertson that was first released by The Band on their 1969 album '' The Band''. It was also released as the B-side of the group's "Rag Mama Rag" single. It has also appeared on several of the Band's live and compilation albums. Lyrics and music The lyrics of "The Unfaithful Servant" concern a servant who offended the mistress of the house and is being sent away. The singer offers sympathy to the servant. The identity of the singer is ambiguous. According to Jason Schneider, the singer is a "conscientious friend coming to the aid" of the former servant but according to Nick DeRiso it could be a "master bidding goodbye to his hand maiden after an embarrassing affair is revealed." As with other songs on ''The Band'', the characters seems to be from the Southern United States. Music critic Barney Hoskyns described the setting as a Southern household from a Tennessee Williams play. David Hatch and St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bass Guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length, and typically four to six strings or courses. Since the mid-1950s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music. The four-string bass is usually tuned the same as the double bass, which corresponds to pitches one octave lower than the four lowest-pitched strings of a guitar (typically E, A, D, and G). It is played primarily with the fingers or thumb, or with a pick. To be heard at normal performance volumes, electric basses require external amplification. Terminology According to the ''New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', an "Electric bass guitar sa Guitar, usually with four heavy strings tuned E1'–A1'–D2–G2." It also defines ''bass'' as "Bass (iv). A contraction of Double bass ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King Harvest (Has Surely Come)
"King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" is a song by The Band, which originally appeared as the final track on their second album, '' The Band''. The song is credited solely to guitarist Robbie Robertson, although drummer/singer Levon Helm claimed that "King Harvest" was a group effort. It is sung in the first person from the point of view of a poverty-stricken farmer who, with increasing desperation, details the misfortune which has befallen him: there was no rain and his crops died, his barn burned down, he has ended up on skid row. A labor union organizer appears, promising to improve things, and the narrator tells his new associates, "I'm a union man, now, all the way", but, perhaps ashamed of his homelessness begs them to "just don't judge me by my shoes." Some sources speculate the events depicted in the song are a reference to the organizing drives of the communist-affiliated Trade Union Unity League, which created share-cropper unions from 1928 to 1935, throughout the U.S. Sout ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" is a song written by Robbie Robertson and originally recorded by the Canadian-American roots rock group the Band in 1969 and released on their eponymous second album. Levon Helm provided the lead vocals. The song is a first-person narrative relating the economic and social distress experienced by the protagonist, a poor white Southerner, during the last year of the American Civil War, when George Stoneman was raiding southwest Virginia. The song appeared at number 245 on ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. Joan Baez's version peaked at #3 on the Hot 100 on 2 October 1971; it did likewise on the ''Cashbox'' Top 100 chart. However, on the ''Record World'' Top Singles chart for the week of September 25, 1971, the Baez single hit #1 for one week. Creation and recordings The song was written by Robbie Robertson, who spent about eight months working on it. Robertson said he had the music to the song in his h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Weight
"The Weight" is a song by the Canadian-American group the Band that was released as a single in 1968 and on the group's debut album '' Music from Big Pink''. It was their first release under this name, after their previous releases as Canadian Squires and Levon and the Hawks. Written by Band member Robbie Robertson, the song is about a visitor's experiences in a town mentioned in the lyric's first line as Nazareth. "The Weight" has significantly influenced American popular music, having been listed as No. 41 on ''Rolling Stone''s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time published in 2004. Pitchfork Media named it the 13th best song of the Sixties, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame named it one of the 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. PBS, which broadcast performances of the song in '' Ramble at the Ryman'' (2011), '' Austin City Limits'' (2012), and ''Quick Hits'' (2012), describes it as "a masterpiece of Biblical allusions, enigmatic lines and iconic characters" and notes its en ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his adventurous lifestyle and public image brought him admiration from later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature. He published seven novels, six short-story collections, and two nonfiction works. Three of his novels, four short-story collections, and three nonfiction works were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature. Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he was a reporter for a few months for ''The Kansas City Star'' before leaving for the Italian Front (World War I), Italian Front to enlist as an ambulance driver in World War I. In 1918, he was se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of his life. A Nobel Prize laureate, Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers of American literature and is considered the greatest writer of Southern literature. Born in New Albany, Mississippi, Faulkner's family moved to Oxford, Mississippi when he was a young child. With the outbreak of World War I, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force but did not serve in combat. Returning to Oxford, he attended the University of Mississippi for three semesters before dropping out. He moved to New Orleans, where he wrote his first novel '' Soldiers' Pay'' (1925). He went back to Oxford and wrote ''Sartoris'' (1927), his first work set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. In 1929, he published '' The Sound and the Fury''. The following year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Producer (music)
A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure. Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as Composer: Shaping the Sounds of Popular Music'' (Cambridge, MA & London, UK: MIT Press, 2005). Richard James Burgess, ''The History of Music Production'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014)pp 12–13Allan Watson, ''Cultural Production in and Beyond the Recording Studio'' (New York: Routledge, 2015)pp 25–27 The record producer, or simply the producer, is likened to film director and art director. The executive producer, on the other hand, enables the recording project through entrepreneurship, and an audio engineer operates the technology. Varying by project, the producer may or may not choose all of the artists. If employing only synthesized or sampled instrumentation, the producer may be the sole artist. Conversely, some artis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soprano Saxophone
The soprano saxophone is a higher-register variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument invented in the 1840s. The soprano is the third-smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists (from smallest to largest) of the soprillo, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, contrabass saxophone and tubax. Soprano saxophones are the smallest and thus highest-pitched saxophone in common use. The instrument A transposing instrument pitched in the key of B, modern soprano saxophones with a high F key have a range from concert A3 to E6 (written low B to high F) and are therefore pitched one octave above the tenor saxophone. There is also a soprano saxophone pitched in C, which is uncommon; most examples were produced in America in the 1920s. The soprano has all the keys of other saxophone models (with the exception of the low A on some baritones and altos). Soprano saxophones were originally keyed from low B to high E, but a low B mechanism was patented in 188 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Garth Hudson
Eric "Garth" Hudson (born August 2, 1937) is a Canadian multi-instrumentalist best known as the keyboardist and occasional saxophonist for rock group the Band, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. He was a principal architect of the group's sound, described as "the most brilliant organist in the rock world" by '' Keyboard'' magazine. With the deaths of Richard Manuel in 1986, Rick Danko in 1999, and Levon Helm in 2012, Hudson is one of only two living original members of the Band, with the other being Robbie Robertson. A master of the Lowrey organ, Hudson's other primary instruments are piano, accordion, electronic keyboards, and saxophones ( alto, tenor, soprano, baritone, bass). He has been a much-in-demand and respected session musician, performing with dozens of artists, including Elton John, who has cited him as an early influence. Biography Early life Hudson was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. His parents, Fred James Hud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Manuel
Richard George Manuel (April 3, 1943 – March 4, 1986) was a Canadian singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter, best known as a pianist and one of three lead singers in The Band, for which he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Manuel's singing alternated between a soul-influenced baritone that drew frequent comparisons to Ray Charles and a delicate falsetto. Though The Band had three vocalists sharing lead and harmony parts, Manuel was sometimes seen as the group's primary vocalist. Biography Early life and career Manuel was born in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. His father, Ed, was a mechanic employed at a Chrysler dealership, and his mother was a schoolteacher. He was raised with his three brothers, and the four sang in the church choir. Manuel took piano lessons beginning when he was nine, and enjoyed playing piano and rehearsing with friends at home. Some of his childhood influences were Ray Charles, Bobby Bland, Jimmy Reed and Oti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Levon Helm
Mark Lavon "Levon" Helm (May 26, 1940 – April 19, 2012) was an American musician who achieved fame as the drummer and one of the three lead vocalists for the Band, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Helm was known for his deeply soulful, country-accented voice, multi-instrumental ability, and creative drumming style, highlighted on many of the Band's recordings, such as "The Weight", " Up on Cripple Creek", and " The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". Helm also had a successful career as a film actor, appearing as Loretta Lynn's father in '' Coal Miner's Daughter'' (1980), as Chuck Yeager's friend and colleague Captain Jack Ridley in '' The Right Stuff'' (1983), as a Tennessee firearms expert in '' Shooter'' (2007), and as General John Bell Hood in ''In the Electric Mist'' (2009). In 1998, Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer which caused him to lose his singing voice. After treatment, his cancer eventually went into remission, and h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
