By Jim Morrison
In Patrick Higgins’ memory, he saw the iconic film, “The Last Waltz,” in downtown Washington, D.C.’s Warner Theatre on a big screen with an impressive sound system.
“We were teenagers,” he says, “so likely we were somewhat stoned.”
At the time, he was a big Neil Young fan learning how to play guitar to tunes from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. When Joni Mitchell was silhouetted on the screen behind him during a song, he admired director Martin Scorcese’s creativity. Dylan didn’t do much for him. But when Eric Clapton started playing “Further On Up the Road” with Robbie Robertson and they seamlessly worked through a broken string on Clapton’s guitar, he remembers thinking “I wish I could get to that level of ability.”
When Neil Diamond took the stage for one song, “Dry Your Eyes,” he had an epiphany. To him Diamond was a Vegas guy. But the ballad broke him. “I was almost brought to tears,” he recalls. “I was like holy cow. I learned then that I should be so close-minded.”
Along with his friends, he was shocked The Band was ending live performances. “We couldn’t believe, like, why are they stopping? Why is it the last waltz?” he asked.
After the movie, he figures they went to the Capitol. ‘The big fun thing to do late at night in D.C. back then was going to blow a joint on the steps of the Capitol just as a big middle finger to the man, right?” he said.
Now, 46 years after the documentary’s release, Higgins and his mates in Last Fair Deal, a Grateful Dead tribute band with a large local following, are bringing back that feeling with “The Last Fair Waltz,” a night of tunes from the documentary featuring a long list of local musicians at Elevation 27 on Nov. 26. Among the performers who will join the party are Anthony Rosano, Celeste Kellogg, Bennett Walker Wales, Jesse Chong, Paul Johnson, Cody Christian, Bernie Lee, Jason Bruner, and Mark Dunn.
Higgins has his fellow band member, Kyle Folsom, to thank for the idea. Folsom had been thinking of doing a Last Waltz tribute around Thanksgiving for years, but never sealed the deal. “The logistics of organizing something like this was kind of a nightmare, you know, trying to organize a bunch of musicians and to get, you know, names that are big enough to come out and actually add something to it,” Folsom said.
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He would wait until October to think about it and then it was too late. “I just kind of blew it for a long time,” he added. But this year he was talking to Higgins and Sherri Linn from Last Fair Deal and it clicked. “We can just be the band, the backing band. Why didn’t I think of that before? I don’t know. I was trying to have a whole different band playing everything. So, it just kind of clicked this year.”
Higgins and Folsom approached Bill Reid at Elevation 27 with the idea, and he readily added his support and helped start recruiting musicians. Rosano was the first to say yes.
The film included 28 songs with The Band taking the lead on its classics and backing Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Paul Butterfield, Muddy Waters, Dr. John, Emmylou Harris, Dylan, Young, Diamond, and Clapton. The setlist features The Band’s “Up on Cripple Creek,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Stage Fright,” “The Shape I’m In,” and “The Weight” with The Staple Singers. But it also showcased cuts from guests including Mitchell’s “Coyote,” Morrison’s “Caravan,” Young’s “Helpless,” and Butterfield’s “Mystery Train.”
Higgins said they will do most of those and were parceling them out to the appropriate players. Rosano will do the blues set. Kellogg and Linn will play the Joni Mitchell role. “The idea is to give everybody, all the guests, at least a couple of songs each,” Higgins said.
Last Fair Deal has been rehearsing on the weekends leading up to the show, then has the two days prior at Elevation to work with guests.
“What I really think is going to be cool is that doing it this way is not necessarily about the person that we have doing this song doing it just how they did it in the show, but add their own element to it especially since we’re not really getting a ton of rehearsal, so it’s gonna be like, all right, that’s how we’re doing it,” Folsom added.
Folsom remembers his father being a fan of The Band. He was about nine when he first saw the movie. “We had ‘The Last Waltz’ on VHS tape,” he said, “and I would watch it all the time. It’s just one of those things I grew up with.”
“The songs alone are fantastic, but they fact they were, like, hey, we’re breaking up so let’s just get all these legends to come out and play with us,” he added. “Just a good way to go out for them. I’ve always loved the idea it wasn’t just about The Band.”
Jim Morrison has been a freelance writer since 1990. His stories have appeared in Smithsonian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wired, and many other outlets. He won the 2021 Excellence in Reporting award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors and was a finalist for best feature story in the 2021 Covering Climate Now Awards administered by the Columbia Journalism Review. Prior to freelancing, he was a staff writer at The Virginian-Pilot. He lives in Norfolk. Contact him at [email protected].
