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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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The best of all possible bands

April 2, 2018 by Terry Teachout

It would be an understatement to say that I don’t often sound off at length about rock and roll, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in it, and I recently made a very big exception: I’m the guest on the latest episode of Political Beats, the National Review podcast in which “Scot Bertram and Jeff Blehar ask guests from the world of politics about their musical passions.” It isn’t quite right to say that I hail from the world of politics—that’s putting it mildly—but it’s true that I’ve been writing for NR for most of my adult life, and when I was asked to talk about the Band, my favorite rock group, I couldn’t very well say no, and didn’t.

Here’s how Scot and Jeff describe the episode:

This week the gang hops on board the mystery train and takes a journey deep into the unknowable heart of America as they discuss The Band, one of the true sui generis phenomena of the rock era. The Band is a rock group that, despite their relatively short (and variable) major-label career, has called forth more profound verbiage from music and cultural critics than most other North American artists save Bob Dylan, so the gang understands that they are walking paths already trodden solidly into shape by others (hello, Greil Marcus!). Nevertheless, attention must be paid: Terry, a child of the ’50s growing up in southeast Missouri, tells the story of growing up in a non-“rock” household and suddenly becoming cognizant of the great cultural ferment playing out on the radio and on vinyl. An early ’70s purchase of the original edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide having piqued his interest, he mail-ordered The Band’s first two albums and nothing was the same after that.

The three of us did some serious talking on line last week, and the result is a lengthy episode (it runs for two and a half hours, including generous helpings of music) in which we work our way through the recorded output of the Band and express a wealth of strong opinions.

Along the way, it hit me that I’d been listening to the Band for nearly half a century—I discovered Music from Big Pink and The Band in 1971, give or take a year or two—and that I love their music as much now as I did when I was a boy. That’s staying power.

To listen online, download the podcast, or subscribe to “Political Beats,” go here.

To read more about my youthful discovery of rock, go here.

Just because: The Band appears on The Ed Sullivan Show

April 2, 2018 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAThe Band performs “Up on Cripple Creek,” written by Robbie Robertson, on The Ed Sullivan Show. This performance was originally telecast by CBS on November 2, 1969:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

Almanac: Winston Churchill on slum life

April 2, 2018 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“Fancy living in one of these streets—never seeing anything beautiful—never eating anything savoury—never saying anything clever!“

Winston Churchill, in conversation with Edward Marsh after walking through a Manchester slum (quoted in Christopher Hassall, Edward Marsh, Patron of the Arts: A Biography)

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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