photo from http://www.michaelshrieve.com/gallery.html#
Young Drummer Michael Shrieve
OPEN-HEARTEDNESS
Michael Shrieve’s internet page opens to this statement:
MUSIC PROMPTS US TO RESPOND WITH OPEN-HEARTEDNESS INSTEAD OF JUDGMENT. IT USHERS US TO A HIGHER PLACE FROM WHERE WE CAN SEE BEYOND DISTRACTIONS TO WHAT IS TRUE AND GOOD AND LASTING. IF MUSICIANS ACCEPT THIS RESPONSIBILITY, THEY CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.
Such a view is not surprising from someone who has spent a lifetime with open-hearted music.
Young Drummer Michael Shrieve
Young, not youngest Shrieve
When guests enter first part of the Main Gallery in the museum at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts they are surrounded by some of the 400,000 people who sat on the field at that historic event.
Above guests is a movie showing with commentary pieces of the festival. While Michael Shrieve does his iconic drum solo with Santana, Country Joe McDonald exclaims, “17!” referring to Shrieve’s age. On Saturday 16 August 1969, Michael Shrieve was young, but not that young.
Shrieve was born on July 6, 1949. He had just turned 20. We can forgive McDonald. By early Saturday, it was already a long weekend.
Interestingly, even Shrieve’s internet site gets it wrong. It states, “ As the original drummer for Santana, Michael – at age nineteen – was the youngest performer at Woodstock.”
Wrong twice as Sha Na Na’s Henry Gross, born on April 1, 1951 and 18 that August was likely the youngest performer.
And CSN & Y’s bassist Greg Reevesmay actually have been younger, but there’s a mystery there.
Ah well. Such is Woodstock Haze.
Young Drummer Michael Shrieve
Santana
During a performance at the Fillmore Auditorium, Shrieve came to the attention of Santana’s manager. A short time later Shrieve joined the band and became a mainstay. His jazz background helped develop a sound already influenced by the band Latin percussion component.
The aforementioned drum solo at Woodstock, it’s inclusion on the album as well as the movie put Michael Shrieve forever into the 1960s’ musical picture.
photo from http://www.michaelshrieve.com/gallery.html#
Young Drummer Michael Shrieve
Michael Shrieve
Shrive at the Monument at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts (photo from Shrieve’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/michaelshrieve
Shrieve remained with the Santana band until 1974 and has continued to be active since. He has released several of his own albums and collaborated with or sat in with dozens of other albums.
He occasionally rejoined the Santana band which continued to undergo various personnel changes throughout the years.
The American summer of 1963 was typical in many ways. For some, that was fine. Schools closed. Summer vacation. Ice cream. Iced tea. Pools. Beaches. Tanning. Bikinis. Bulging muscles.
For others, typical was not fine. The status quo meant field work. Starvation. Mistreatment. Jim Crow terrorism. The denial of an education and the right to vote.
The struggle for civil rights continued and folk singer Bob Dylan often wrote songs about the downtrodden. His Times They Are a’Changin’ album had a plethora of such songs: “The Times They Are a’Changin’,” “Ballad of Hollis Brown,” “With God on Our Side,” and “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.”
Only a Pawn In Their Game
Dirty work
It would be difficult to pick the most powerful one among them, but it was in July 1963 that Dylan first sang “Only a Pawn in Their Game.” Writing about the June 12, 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers might be an obvious contemporary theme, but pointing out that the assassin was doing the work of the White Establishment, that the White Establishment also kept poor whites poor, and that the White Establishment used the poor whites to do its dirty work? Such a realization is why the song remains so powerful.
As Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz said in a 2013 NPR interview: “The whole point is, the killer is guilty, yes, but he’s not the person to blame, There’s rather a much larger system that’s out there, and that’s what the song is really about.”
To write any more about Dylan’s lyrics is superfluous. His own lyrics say more than any essay:
Only a Pawn In Their Game
A bullet…
A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood A finger fired the trigger to his name A handle hid out in the dark A hand set the spark Two eyes took the aim Behind a man’s brain But he can’t be blamed He’s only a pawn in their game
A South politician preaches to the poor white man “You got more than the blacks, don’t complain. You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain. And the Negro’s name Is used it is plain For the politician’s gain As he rises to fame And the poor white remains On the caboose of the train But it ain’t him to blame He’s only a pawn in their game
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid And the marshals and cops get the same But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool He’s taught in his school From the start by the rule That the laws are with him To protect his white skin To keep up his hate So he never thinks straight ’Bout the shape that he’s in But it ain’t him to blame He’s only a pawn in their game
From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks And the hoofbeats pound in his brain And he’s taught how to walk in a pack Shoot in the back With his fist in a clinch To hang and to lynch To hide ’neath the hood To kill with no pain Like a dog on a chain He ain’t got no name But it ain’t him to blame He’s only a pawn in their game.
Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught They lowered him down as a king But when the shadowy sun sets on the one That fired the gun He’ll see by his grave On the stone that remains Carved next to his name His epitaph plain: Only a pawn in their game
Jaime Royal “Robbie” Robertson was born on July 5th in Toronto, Canada. His father from Toronto; his mother, of Mohawk descent, born and raised on the Six Nations Reservation. At an early age, Robbie begins learning guitar from relatives during his summer visits to the reservation. (photo & text from Robertson site)
A lucky few are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Apparently, James Royal “Robbie”Robertson was born with a guitar in his hands.
James Royal Robbie Robertson
Early on before Dylan…
Like many (most?) lifelong rock musicians, Robbie Robertson began playing in local bands in his mid-teens. By the time he was 18 he, along with Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson) was a part of Ronnie Hawkins’s band, Hawkins and the Hawks.
In 1961, Robbie Robertson and his mates became the Canadian Squires and released “Uh Uh Uh” with “Leave Me Alone” on the B-side. Robertson is credited for writing both.
James Royal Robbie Robertson
Enter Dylan
1965 was a turning point in rock and roll. Around for a decade already, the nonetheless “new” genre of Rock split with some headed in a new direction.
Why?
Bob Dylan had decided to stop working on Maggie’s farm and go electric. For his band, Dylan recruited Robertson who was quickly followed by the rest of the Squires. They toured with Dylan and then near Dylan’s in Woodstock, NY.
Their pink house was at 56 Parnassus Lane in nearby West Saugerties, NY. They set up a recording studio in its basement and played innumerable hours working on their music together. Dylan frequently stopped by and his famous Basement Tapes came out of this time.
Dylan’s band became The Band and Music From Big Pink became their first album. Al Kooper, in his Rolling Stone magazine review of the album, wrote in Rolling Stone magazine in August 1968, “I have chosen my album for 1968. Music from Big Pink is an event and should be treated as one.”
James Royal Robbie Robertson
The Band
Rolling Stone magazine carried a lot of weight and the fact that the well-respected Al Kooper endorsed it so enthusiastically was a double-barrel boost.
Robbie Robertson, the person who the record credits with doing most of the Band’s composing, became a star along with the rest of the Band.
James Royal Robbie Robertson
Woodstock Music and Art Fair
If the reclusive Bob Dylan wasn’t available for Woodstock Ventures get together in Bethel, NY, then getting the newly anointed Band there was nearly as good.
There style differed from most other bands surrounding them that weekend in general and that Sunday in particular. It is easy to forget how oddly “unrock” their style of rock was.
In concert the Band and Robertson were as tight and proficient as any ever was. Those basement hours paid many dividends.
James Royal Robbie Robertson
Fame
In 1969, they released their second album, The Band. In 1970, Time magazine put Robertson and the Band on its front cover with the caption “The New Sound of Country Rock.” 1970 saw their third album, Stage Fright. Cahoots in 1971. Rock of Ages in 1972.
They toured and they partied. They partied and they toured.
James Royal Robbie Robertson
Last Waltz
By 1976, only eight years after the release of Big Pink, Robertson and the other members took a break. They billed it as the Last Waltz and threw a party filmed and recorded by filmmaker friend Martin Scorsese. A who’s who of friends and musicians participated, including Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan.
James Royal Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson
It has been more than 40 years since the Band’s last waltz. The Band, always without Robertson, got together occasionally to record and tour.
Robertson continued to record as well as acting (eg. the 1980 Carny).
James Royal Robbie Robertson
Film scores
He has often contributed to film scores particularly working with Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull, King of Comedy, Color of Money, Casino, Gangs of New York, Ladder 49, Shelter Island, The Wolf of Wall Street)
In November 2016, Robertson released his large memoir, Testimony. (NYT review)
Death
On August 2, 2023 Robertson’s management company confirmed the musician’s death. “Robbie was surrounded by his family at the time of his death, including his wife, Janet, his ex-wife, Dominique, her partner Nicholas, and his children Alexandra, Sebastian, Delphine, and Delphine’s partner Kenny,” his longtime manager Jared Levine said in a statement. “In lieu of flowers, the family…asked that donations be made to the Six Nations of the Grand River to support the building of their new cultural center.”
Martin Scorsese: ““Robbie Robertson was one of my closest friends, a constant in my life and my work. I could always go to him as a confidante. A collaborator. An advisor. I tried to be the same for him.
“Long before we ever met, his music played a central role in my life — me and millions and millions of other people all over this world. The Band’s music, and Robbie’s own later solo music, seemed to come from the deepest place at the heart of this continent, its traditions and tragedies and joys. It goes without saying that he was a giant, that his effect on the art form was profound and lasting. There’s never enough time with anyone you love. And I loved Robbie.” [Rolling Stone article]
