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GOT LIVE IF YOU WANT IT - PART 4 (RICHARD MANUEL)

July 28, 2009 – 4:10 am

He started with three songs on Music From Big Pink but ended his songwriting with too many bottles of Grand Marnier. Although he cleaned up in 1980, The Band by then was no longer a creative force.

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RICHARD MANUEL (1943-1986)
The Getaway 1985 [no label, 2CD]
Live at The Getaway, Saugerties, New York, December 7, 1985. A very good, close to the mic, audience recording. Stereo.

He was indisputably the voice of The Band. Richard Manuel sang either falsetto or a sweet baritone. I Shall Be Released is his greatest recorded moment in falsetto.

This rare recording is of a solo concert and at this show the versatile Manuel (who plays piano, harmonica, drums, saxophone, organ) accompanied himself on piano. He plays the full range of the music that influenced him as well as the music he made with The Band. Many are covers like Share Your Love, Grow Too Old, two of Ray Charles’ songs and, of course, his cover of Bob Dylan’s I Shall Be Released.

Although he sounds friendly and banters with the small audience, the songs selected are anything but happy. Manuel is documented in various books and interviews to be a habitual alcoholic. He can be seen drunk while jamming with Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Janis Joplin in the film Festival Express, a documentary of the concert tour of Canada on board a train.

Manuel started with his star shining. He was an enigmatic singer with two singing voices and is well remembered for many of The Band’s favorite songs - The Weight, Across The Great Divide, King Harvest and The Shape I’m In. But as he became increasingly intoxicated he couldn’t write and despite Robbie Robertson’s cajoling, Manuel hardly wrote after Stage Fright.

It’s history that The Band disbanded at Robertson’s persuasion with The Last Waltz, despite their reluctance. By 1983, they reformed without Robertson and Manuel was by all accounts rehabilitated. So it was a shock when after a concert at the Cheek To Cheek Lounge in Orlando, Florida, Manuel retired to his room and hanged himself.

Now all you vigilantes wanna make a move,
Maybe they won’t, you know I sure hope they don’t.
For whether this rumor proves true or false,
You can forgive or you can regret,
But he will never ever forget.
(lyrics from The Rumour)

When Manuel sings “you don’t know the shape I’m in” he was right. After his untimely death just three months after this show on March 4, his bandmates who had been with him for the better part of the evening were clueless that Manuel was suicidal.

From wikipedia: “On March 4, 1986, after a gig at the Cheek to Cheek Lounge outside Orlando, in Winter Park, Florida, Manuel committed suicide. He had seemed to be in relatively good ’spirits’ but ominously thanked Hudson for ‘twenty-five years of incredible music’. The Band returned to the Quality Inn, down the block from the Cheek to Cheek Lounge, and Manuel talked with Levon Helm about music, film, etc., in Helm’s room. According to Helm, at around 2:30 Manuel said he needed to get something from his room. Upon returning to his motel room, it is believed that he finished one last bottle of Grand Marnier before hanging himself. Manuel’s wife Arlie - drug addled herself at the time - discovered his body along with the depleted bottle and a small amount of cocaine the following morning. He was buried a week later in his hometown of Stratford, Ontario.”

At this show, Richard Manuel sings a traditional tune, I’m Just A Country Boy, that the Band to my knowledge has never recorded:

I’m never gonna kiss the ruby lips
Of the sweetest girl in town
No I’m never gonna ask her if she’d marry me
Cos I know she’ll turn me down…

‘Cause I’m just a country boy
Money, money have I none
Oh but I’ve got that silver in the stars
And gold in the morning sun
I have gold in the morning sun

It’s been said he could not appreciate that The Band was no longer playing stadiums and large halls but sidelined to playing lounges. It seems Manuel did leave with regret but the music he and The Band left behind will always be loved.

This show contains several tunes seldom played live by The Band and although this is an audience recording, it’s recorded close and is clear. It’s well worth a listen.
- The Savage Hippo

Note: Click on the highlighted tracks to download the MP3s (these are high quality MP3s - sample rate of 192 kbps). As far as we can ascertain, these tracks have never been officially released on CD.

Due to the size of some of the files, please be very patient when downloading the tracks. It could be that the server was very busy. Please try again later. Kindly email us at [email protected] if you encounter persistent problems downloading the files.

Disc 1
Track 101. Share Your Love (With Me) - a version was released by The Band on Moondog Matinee (5.5MB)
Track 102. Grow Too Old (Fats Domino/Bobby Charles) (6.5MB)
Track 103. Georgia On My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael) (3.7MB)
Track 104. Instrumental (Richard Manuel) (5.1MB)
Track 105. Chest Fever (7.3MB)
Track 106. The Rumour (from The Band’s Stage Fright) (8.3MB)
Track 107. Across The Great Divide (5.0MB)
Track 108. She Knows (Originally a Bread song then covered by Ray Charles on 1978’s Love & Peace) (5.0MB)
Track 109. I Shall Be Released (5.9MB)
Track 110. The Shape I’m In (5.8MB)
Track 111. You Don’t Know Me (Eddy Arnold) (4.5MB)

Disc 2
Track 201. King Harvest (Has Surely Come) (5.7MB)
Track 202. Instrumental (Richard Manuel) (6.4MB)
Track 203. I’m Just A Country Boy (Traditional also covered by Susan Reed, George McCurn and Sam Cooke) (6.5MB)
Track 204. Miss Otis Regrets (Cole Porter) (6.0MB)
Track 205. Crazy Mama (JJ Cale) (12.8MB - visit the html page to download the track)
Track 206. Hard Times (Ray Charles) (6.6MB)
Track 207. The Weight (9.2MB)

There is a commercial release of a show months earlier at the same venue, The Getaway. This album, Whispering Pines, is a proper soundboard recording and initially limited to a Japanese release in 2002. It features the show from October 12, 1985. A Canadian reissue arrived in 2005. This show is a full band show with Rick Danko, Jim Weider and Sredni Vollmer. It does not contain the songs The Rumour or I’m Just A Country Boy. Buy it here.