at this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
St. Pete Catalyst: You were in The Band longer than the original Band was together. That\u2019s a long stretch.<\/p>\n
Jim Weider: It was a long stretch. It was a rough and tumble ride!<\/p>\n
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How did you end up joining them back in 1985?<\/p>\n
I was working in Atlanta in a studio, and I had moved back to Woodstock. I played with Robbie Dupree \u2013 he had a hit out at the time \u2013 and after that I started working with the Levon Helm Band. Levon\u2019s All-Stars, around \u201983 or so. Then Rick came back, and it was just me and Levon and Rick, then it kind of morphed into The Band as people from The Band moved back.<\/p>\n
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So it was Levon who said \u2018Let\u2019s just put The Band back together?\u2019<\/p>\n
He was getting back into playing around the area, and first Rick, then Garth, then Richard moved back. I had a country band and they would all sit in. As they moved back, there was an offer to eventually go out on the road (as The Band) with Crosby, Stills & Nash.<\/p>\n
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You\u2019re a musician, a creative entity in your own right. Did you think \u2018They just want me to be the Robbie and play all his licks\u2019?<\/p>\n
They never put any laws down. They were pretty open. I would intro all the tunes, the classic intros that Robbie wrote, like the beginning of \u201cIt Makes No Difference\u201d or \u201cThe Weight\u201d or \u201cUp on Cripple Creek.\u201d But as far as soloing, I never had any \u2026 it was \u2018just do your thing.\u2019<\/p>\n
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Richard took his life after a gig in Florida in 1986. Was he in such bad shape at that point that you almost saw it coming?<\/p>\n
No, we didn\u2019t see that coming. Nobody does. But he was drinking heavy that night. He said \u2018I\u2019m sorry, guys.\u2019 And Levon said \u2018Eh, don\u2019t worry about it. Let\u2019s get through the gig. It\u2019s all good.\u2019 He was battling alcoholic demons, you know?<\/p>\n
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When did The Band, so called, cease to exist?<\/p>\n
When Rick died, in December 1999, that was the end of it. I went off and did my own records. Then Levon had gotten sick too, with throat cancer, then we all went our ways for a while there. Till I ended up working with him again, in his band, later on.<\/p>\n
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The Barbara Walters question: What\u2019s the enduring appeal of this music?<\/p>\n
The songs are so strong. The songs have a life of their own. \u201cThe Weight\u201d is such a classic piece of American music. And of course we\u2019ve got a couple of albums out, just to continue in that genre. Keep that genre going.<\/p>\n
Because there\u2019s not a lot of groups that are doing this kind of music, and this band is so strong, with five singers and harmony \u2013 it really understands how to play that groove that The Band had. Which is a real Woodstock sound. It was developed here, a combination of all different kinds of music, from R&B to blues to rockabilly to country. It\u2019s got its own kind of mountain sound. So that\u2019s the appeal.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All five members of The Band, the pioneering Canadian\/American group of musicians who backed Bob Dylan and almost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-124564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-st-pete","9":"tag-st-pete-headlines","10":"tag-st-pete-news","11":"tag-st-petersburg","12":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","13":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}