And this week, Garth Hudson, keyboard player, and the last surviving member, of the Band went to the great rehearsal room in the sky.

This Bob Dylan song, from their first album Music From Big Pink, was also the B-side to The Weight, so I know it well.

The Band: I Shall Be Released

Eric Garth Hudson: 2/8/1937 – 21/1/2025. So it goes.

Another week, another sad death. This time Robbie Robertson, singer, songwriter and guitarist for The Band. Coming to fame as Bob Dylan’s backing band they found success on their own after releasing their first LP Music Fom Big Pink.

For me Robertson’s masterpiece will always be The Weight which I posted about here and have already featured their UK hits Up on Cripple Creek and Rag Mama Rag. In retrospect surprisingly, these were their only UK hits.

This is another of Robbie’s compositions for The Band. (From 1971.)

The Band:The Shape I’m In

Jaime Royal (Robbie) Robertson: 5/7/1943 – 9/8/2023. So it goes.

Last week saw the death of Levon Helm, one time drummer and singer with The Band, who were much more than Bob Dylan’s one-time backing band.

I’ve already posted the Band’s version of The Weight, their second biggest UK hit. Their biggest, curiously, was Rag Mama Rag.

Levon took lead vocal on this one, though.

The Band: Up on Cripple Creek

Levon Helm: 26/5/1940-19/4/2012. So it goes.

Just to show that, even putting Bob Dylan to one side, the 1960s were not a singer/songwriter desert.

Tim Hardin: How Can We Hang On To A Dream?

Hardin wrote a lot of good songs including:

Reason To Believe, better known perhaps for Rod Stewart’s version.

If I Were A Carpenter a hit for The Four Tops

and The Lady Came From Baltimore (loads of people.)

Donovan suffered a lot of criticism mostly because, as a singer songwriter in the folk/pop vein, he wasn’t Bob Dylan (whom it was said he was trying to emulate.) But who – apart from Dylan – was?

OK, he was maybe a bit soft centred but Donovan still did some good stuff like Sunshine Superman, Season Of The Witch, Hurdy Gurdy Man.

And in Atlantis he contrived what must be the only use of the word antediluvian in a pop song (except of course he speaks it.)

It wasn’t a big hit in the UK or US – it came at a time when his career was waning – but it did make No. 2 in Germany and No. 1 in Switzerland.

Donovan: Atlantis

I know some people swear by Dylan (hello Alastair) but I was never much into him. I usually thought that interpretations of his songs were better than his originals principally because his singing voice is not to my taste.

This therefore is, to my mind, the definitive version of All Along The Watchtower. (It beats U2’s into a cocked hat, for sure.)

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: All Along The Watchtower