"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".

@therandyman: One cool thing about the video is that when Robbie is performing the song on piano, you can better hear the song's great chord progressions, and the sophisticated voicing of the chords. Majestic!

........at the expense of sounding disrespectful at this time so close to Robbie Robertson's passing ; I still have a tough time thinking about how Robbie maneuvered all of the copyright / royalties to himself. It was well known that when this was being done the rest of the Band members where having a great time of it and Robbie felt that he needed to take control of the business portion of the Band. I can understand somebody doing that if the rest of the members were out of control and he felt he needed to step in. However, from what I read he took all of the music copyrights and placed it under his name or control. The rest of the Band suffered some financial hardships as a result of this change in the ownership and copyrights of their own music. Now, if someone else here knows more on this or if I am wrong ( which I do not think that I am ) please let me know. 

I still recall hearing the Band's Brown album for the first time as I was a junior in High School and it was the 70's .......I initially didn't like it or even better yet ; I didn't understand it. It was many years when I went back to listen to the Band's music and I was older and much more mature, I finally got it. They were really were a great Band with a sound that has never really to this day been duplicated. RIP Robby and thank you for some great memories.....       

@garebear: Your understanding of the royalty question is mine as well. I think Robbie’s comment of "I did what I had to do" is very revealing of the nature of his related actions.

Band producer John Simon (he did their first two albums) has told the story of how he himself was tricked out of future royalties by Robertson and Capitol Records. Robertson approached Simon about working on the Last Waltz horn arrangements, and Simon told him he hadn’t received a royalty check from sales of those first two albums in a long time. Robertson told him he would talk to Capitol Records about that situation. Robbie got back to him, telling him that if he agreed to sign away his rights to any future royalties from sales of the two Band albums, Capitol would send him a check for the royalties already owed him, and would give him a percentage of the profits from the Last Waltz film. Robertson told Simon they were all gonna get rich from the album and movie.

What Robertson knew but didn’t tell Simon, was that he (Simon) and the Band members other than himself would not see any money until all the production costs of making the film were recouped. Robertson alone of the members of The Band and John Simon was in on the money paid out BEFORE the production costs were recouped (he was an associate producer of the Last Waltz film).

It is said Simon and the Band members other than Robertson never made a dime from the movie, while Robertson did himself get very rich. And Simon---having believed what Robertson told him---did indeed sign away all future royalties in exchange for profits from the movie, which were zero. And Simon has never again received a royalty check from Capitol Records.

Shame on you, Robbie Robertson.

Other fun facts about The Last Waltz:

- Ever wonder why Neil Diamond---clearly out-of-place---was included in the roster of artists? Robertson had produced his latest album. Shameless self-promotion.

- The rehearsal for the show was running long, and Robertson asked Levon to tell Muddy Waters they were going to have to ask him to not do his segment (which is one of the highlights of the concert). Levon’s reaction was "If Muddy’s out, so am I."

This post and the one above should make obvious why Levon held Robbie in the contempt he did.

I thought Jerry Garcia (the Jerry Garcia Band) covered this tune very well on several occasions. Of course, the Grateful Dead covered some of The Band's other songs as well. I think I wore out the cassette tape I had recorded two of Robbie Robertson's solo albums on. Good artist, good song writer. R.I.P.