All summer, Europe 1 looks back on the artists who played the Woodstock revolution at this iconic festival in 1969. In this thirteenth episode, Jean-François Pérès is interested in The Band, incarnation of rural and authentic America in the middle of the hippie wave.

STORY

There was a before, there was an after. Fifty years ago, the Woodstock wave swept the world. Europe 1 makes you relive, at the time of the festivals of the summer, the history of this revolution, not only by what it brought, but also by those which incarnated it. Today, The Band.

Mormon look and veteran experience

This Sunday, August 17, 1969, more than 23 hours, the musicians who go on the scene of Woodstock have something to surprise. It's primarily a question of look. With their felt hats, their heavy cotton shirts, their black leather vests, their beards or their mustaches, the five friends of the American-Canadian band The Band seem to have escaped from the previous century. At the time of colorful dresses, endless guitar solos and swollen egos, they embody rural and authentic North America.

It's also a matter of experience. Most have already had more than a decade of near-daily gigs behind them, which contrasts with Woodstock's kids. Ten years along the border between the United States and Canada, first serving a rockabilly singer, Ronnie Hawkins, then a guy named Bob Dylan, who one day wanted to electrify his repertoire and the chose, not to say elected.

Mix of blues, folk and country

This evening of August 17, The Band ("the band"), which found this name at once humble and pretentious, plays The Weight. A piece ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful ever recorded.

For some blatant legal reasons, this superb song does not appear in the Woodstock documentary, nor on the records that will summarize the festival. However, that night, The Band offers the 400,000 spectators an exceptional concert, quintessence of their unique style. A mix of blues, folk, country, a music that will soon be called "Americana". The performance is filmed by a young assistant cameraman, named Martin Scorsese, who will come out so stunned that his personal story will now be linked to that of the group.

The Band is then shrouded in a sort of mysterious prestige, reinforced by its status as a backband of the icon Bob Dylan. The latter will be Arlésienne Woodstock: expected as the messiah on stage or in the public, especially since he lives nearby, it will never appear, later explaining having had no desire to mingle to this crowd of hippies who regularly invaded his house.

Five men and a pink house

That of The Band, next door, was very quiet. Inside, the five members of the group: Levon Helm, drummer, the first historically, Robbie Robertson, Canadian guitarist, who will quickly become the leader, Rick Danko, bassist, Richard Manuel, pianist and the very bearded Garth Hudson, organist and the musical consciousness of the group.

Arrived in this corner of the countryside at the invitation of Bob Dylan a few months earlier, they rent one of the most legendary huts in the history of rock, with pink walls that will earn him the nickname "Big Pink". In the basement, one repeats tirelessly, even to abuse illicit substances. Ten months will be needed to give birth to the first album, the aptly named Music From Big Pink, whose cover is painted by Dylan himself. This record is not only a public and critical success, but it will have a huge and unexpected influence on stars. Eric Clapton or George Harrison will see in The Band a new way forward, a return to the roots of music.

Behind the success, dissensions

The second album, soberly titled The Band, pushes the nail with its wooded cover and his group photo in black and white. It comes right after Woodstock and contains a pearl, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. An evocation of the Civil War, when the beaten and hungry Southerners lived their last moments.

In January 1970, the group made the front page of Time. These are the first of their kind since the Beatles to be honored by the prestigious magazine. But The Band, as mormon as its appearance, is nonetheless a formation of its time, which hides under its velvet costumes and its confederate beards addictions to alcohol and heroin. Robbie Robertson, one of the few to escape, is becoming more and more authoritarian. Said to defend the group, Lemon Helm accuses the guitarist (apparently wrongly) to monopolize the rights of the songs.

A farewell tour immortalized by Scorsese

Unequal albums are linked, concerts too. In 1974, a last recorded studio album with Bob Dylan, Planet Waves, is published without much success. Two years later, exhausted and somewhat upset by the turn of events, Robertson sets up a farewell tour. A genius idea: on November 25, 1976, at the Winterland in San Francisco, to celebrate Thanksgiving, the 5,000 spectators are offered turkey, but also and especially caviar. An evening that will go down in history.

There are Ronnie Hawkins, Bob Dylan, the two mentors, but also Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, the two Canadian friends, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and bluesman Muddy Waters. A dream cast, immortalized by Martin Scorsese. The loop is complete and the result considered one of, if not the greatest rock film, The Last Waltz . A striking summary of these eight years that have changed the face of contemporary music. When you know the virtuosity of the members of the group, Stage Fright astonishes as much as it delights.

After a last album released in 1977, the original formation separates. Robertson moved to Los Angeles and soon worked for Hollywood or his friend Martin Scorsese. Meanwhile, his former comrades fall in second or even third division, playing in rooms increasingly unworthy, ensuring the first parties for groups who owe them everything.

Swan song

In 1986, the most beautiful and most fragile voice of The Band goes out. Richard Manuel commits suicide after a concert in Florida, at the age of 42. There will be a swan song in the 1990s, with three studio albums dispensable. But when Rick Danko died in 1999 of a heart attack, the survivors prefer to stay there.

They are now only two, the now revered Garth Hudson, 82, and Robbie Robertson, 76. Witnesses of one of the most amazing adventures of American music, which still fascinates today. A documentary film about Robertson's life and The Band, " Once We Were Brothers", will be screened on September 5th at the opening of the prestigious Toronto Film Festival, the home town of the guitarist. Where it all started in the late 1950s.

Find all the other episodes of our series "Woodstock, 50 years later":

> Episode 1: The origins of the most iconic festivals

> Episode 2: Richie Havens, the story of a fate that topples

> Episode 3: Tim Hardin, dubbed by Bob Dylan, destroyed by drugs

> Episode 4: Joan Baez, the consciousness of a generation

> Episode 5: Santana, and the legend was created

> Episode 6: Canned Heat, as long as the blues live

> Episode 7: Creedence Clearwater Revival, the essential casting error

> Episode 8: Janis Joplin, the pearl of the sixties

> Episode 9: Sly and the Family Stone, downtown funk

> Episode 10: The Who, the rebirth in Woodstock

> Episode 11: Jefferson Airplane, the group of origins

> Episode 12: Joe Coker, English soul and blues