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“ Who Don't Care If The Money's No Good?”: Authenticity and The Band

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 35; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03007766.2011.624344

1740-1712

Henry Adam Svec,

Cinema and Media Studies

Abstract This article explores how The Band's complicated relationship to divergent notions of authenticity has grounded the means by which Robbie Robertson is marked off from the rest of the group across the history of their star discourse. The author also considers the recent resurgence of The Last Waltz by examining the ways in which the film's performances, and texts about them, engage with what Andrew Wernick has called "promotional culture," ultimately suggesting that it is the profound tension between the group's and Robertson's conflicting styles of authenticity that is a source of The Band's persisting popularity. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Dr. Keir Keightley, who supervised the independent study that has led to this article, and who generously commented on an early draft. As well, an earlier version of a portion of this article was presented at the IASPM-Canada Conference at the University of Regina (2010), and I thank attendees and co-panelists for their valuable questions and comments. Notes [1] The tangential introduction is perhaps justifiable: one of the songs on the Drive-By Truckers' record in question, called "Danko/Manuel," is about The Band. [2] On the history of the meaning of authenticity in the West, Lionel Trilling's Trilling, Lionel. 1971. Sincerity and Authenticity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP. Print [Google Scholar] Sincerity and Authenticity has been invaluable to the current exploration, as has Charles Guignon's more recent On Being Authentic. [3] According to Sennett, "moeurs can be rendered in modern English as a cross of manners, morals, and beliefs" (116). [4] Interestingly, a Melody Maker article from 1971 even claims that the album was recorded at Big Pink (Williams Williams, Richard. "The Band: A Melody Maker Band Breakdown." Melody Maker, 29 May 1971. Print [Google Scholar]). In fact, although they lived in Big Pink during the writing of the record's songs, they were recorded in a studio in New York City (Bowman Bowman, Rob. "Life is a Carnival." Goldmine 26 Jul. 1991. Print [Google Scholar]). [5] The first line of the song is "Virgil Caine is my name," which immediately frames the vocal performance as theatrical (his name is Levon), despite the fact that the song has tended to be read as an enunciation of Helm's own worldview/sensibility. Robertson, well aware of the interpretive strategies of Romantic rock culture, insisted that Helm sing all the songs written from the point of view of Southerners (see Helm). [6] See Barker and Taylor Barker, Hugh and Taylor, Yuval. 2007. Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music, New York: W.W. Norton. Print [Google Scholar] for an excellent and accessible exploration of the distinction between authenticity and "faking it" in popular music. [7] Helm, on the other hand, claims that he refused to participate in the overdubs, further framing his performance as an immediate, communicative event that has not been tainted by aura-destroying technologies or commodities (see Helm). [8] See Alison Hearn Hearn, Alison. 'Meat, Mask, Burden': Probing the Contours of the Branded Self. Journal of Consumer Culture, 8(2)197–217. Print[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] for a fuller development of the concept of self-branding as labor. [9] See also Charles Taylor Taylor, Charles. 1991. The Ethics of Authenticity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP. Print [Google Scholar] for a provocative defense of the concept of authenticity.