ProSoundNews reports Robertson will be honored tonight at convention in LA:
- The Vision Is Sound: Robbie Robertson Embraces The Unconventional When Robbie Robertson visits this year's AES Convention to receive the Les Paul Award (to be presented to him by musician/producer Daniel Lanois) during the TEC Awards on Monday evening, he will be honored, in part, for the enduring, monumental work he did during his years with The Band. While there is much to be said for and about the content of that work - the alternative vision of America it offered during a time of heated domestic battles over the Vietnam War and a generational conflict over values and morality - The Band's legend is built on music, musicianship and soundscapes, with no one element capable of being separated from the other without diminishing the whole.
To achieve that magical alchemy, The Band, with the brilliant John Simon [see below] and then Robertson himself at the helm in the studio, went back to the roots of great recording, particularly great rock 'n' roll recording, and, to put it as simply as possible, ditched the clock. The viability of that approach was unassailable as far as Robertson and his Band mates were concerned, because the records that had most influenced them, particularly those that had been recorded at Sam Phillips's Sun Studio in Memphis, had been done off the clock, and had lost none of their captivating allure. Years later, post-Band, Robertson found his own vision being summoned by another generation's standard bearer.
"About 12 years ago, I went to Dublin and did some recording with U2 on a couple of tracks for a record of mine," Robertson recalled in an exclusive interview with The Daily. "They had set up in a big living room in a house, and when I went in there, they were all like, 'Look familiar?' They believed in that, and really wanted to set up their own atmosphere. People completely understand it and believe it now. On my last record, I did stuff in a big fancy studio, and I recorded a whole song in a guy’s bedroom in London. He had a little gear in there. One recording sounds absolutely as good as the other."
It was during the informal jam sessions with Bob Dylan, later released (well, first as bootlegs, but finally as a legitimate album) as The Basement Tapes, that Robertson discovered the value of embracing the unconventional during the recording process. The Basement Tapes were recorded in a house off the beaten path in rural Saugerties, NY, where the signal paths were good enough and the mood was conducive to an inspired journey into the roots of American folk and blues. There wasn't a clock in sight.
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