Richard Manuel Sings "You Don't Know Me"

I saw this tour by the Band. Denver, 1983. They were back on the road minus Robbie Robertson who, back in '76, had announced that the group was through. That gave us the immortal film The Last Waltz, but it left the other guys -- Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson -- pissed off and at loose ends since all they really ever wanted to do was play, like the bar band they started out as. Not sure if they had been playing out before this tour, but this one was terrific, maybe even better than when they were playing together toward the end as the original Robbie Robertson concert stage version of the Band. This is because they had become locked into playing their repertoire of classic songs, most of which were written by Robertson. I wouldn't say that they had become staid per se, but some stretching out and having some honky-tonk fun was a missing ingredient, present by its absence, held too long in abeyance. Robbie was and is a masterful lead guitarist, but he was ably replaced on this tour by Helm's cousin from Arkansas Earl Cate, who shares the same stinging style. In terms of actual performance the most crucial thing for the Band is the nonpareil lead vocals spread across Helm, Danko, and Manuel -- and the harmonies produced when all three belt it out at once. You know how the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, and Nash had silky smooth harmonies? Not anodyne, but blended. The Band's method was for Manuel, Danko, and Helm just to sing balls-out at the same time. It takes some confidence and verve to generate that sort of ragged glory. So for the '83 tour, each would play some of their highlights from the classic repetroire and then add in some of the blues and R&B standards that make bar music so satisfying. Here, Manuel does "You Don't Know Me." The song was a staple for Ray Charles, but I defy you to identify anything derivative about Manuel's performance of it here. I'm sure he loved Ray madly, but he had his own thing. The rawness of the footage is apt. It comes in at some point after the first verse and the degraded recording quality adds a quaver to the piano that to my ears just makes it that much better. And then there's that quality, that aspect, called soul. Perhaps you have heard the "anti-racists" explaining lately that white people are a monolithic group immutably defined by a love for actuarial tables, always ascending to high office suites to exercise their greed and possessing only logic and no feelings. Just wanted to take this opportunity to point out that they are wrong.