By DAN ARMONAITIS
Josh Daniel is bringing to Spartanburg a special concert that “should be played loud,” to borrow a phrase that appears on screen at the beginning of an acclaimed film that the Charlotte, N.C.-based musician has watched numerous times over the years.
With the help of a star-studded lineup of Hub City musicians, Daniel aims to recreate some of the musical magic of “The Last Waltz” during a special pre-Thanksgiving concert to be held Wednesday, Nov. 27 at The FR8yard in downtown Spartanburg.
“The Last Waltz,” of course, was the farewell concert by the legendary rock group known simply as The Band. Presented on Thanksgiving night 1976 at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, it was made famous through a documentary film of the same name that was directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Martin Scorsese.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” said Daniel, a singer-guitarist who recently joined the regionally popular roots-rock outfit Big Daddy Love. “It’s amazing that there can be a three-hour show where the audience knows 90 percent of the words. I was just telling somebody the other day how powerful it is when we play ‘I Shall Be Released.’ We bring the whole house down, and the entire crowd sings together.
“You just don’t get that at a show this size, typically. Sometimes you get it at an arena show for U2 or something, but to have it happen at a show like this at a smaller place, it’s a really cool feeling.”
Daniel has been presenting a tribute to The Band’s “The Last Waltz” on Thanksgiving weekend in Charlotte for the past eight years. He’ll still do that Friday night at The Visulite Theatre, but he wanted to expand it this year to include a concert the night before Thanksgiving in Spartanburg.
As was the case with such musical luminaries as Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, The Staple Singers, Neil Young and so many more in the original concert, a rotating cast of special guests will appear on stage throughout the night. Among them are Spartanburg favorites Tim Bethea, Scott Cox, Abbey Elmore, Gregory Hodges, TJ Jeter, Brandy Lindsey, Rich Proctor, Jamison Smith, Drew Spencer, Drew Story, Tad Taylor and Zach Thigpen.
“The core band will be some of my buddies from (Charlotte),” Daniel said. “And the idea is to have a ‘Last Waltz’ kind of thing where everybody comes in and out, sits in and sings and plays, and just has a good time.”
Although Wednesday’s concert will represent the first time he’s played with most of the musicians on stage, Daniel said he has no doubt that it will be a big success.
“I haven’t spent a whole lot of time in Spartanburg, for whatever reason, although I’ve played all over the United States,” Daniel said. “But I hope that this is something that can bring us all together. I know there are some really good players there, so I’m looking forward to it.
“And I just think, more so than any other band, The Band can bring together people from different groups to play these songs, because we’ve all watched the movie so many times and we’ve listened to these records so many times. I mean, there’s no better stuff to do than some Bob Dylan and Neil Young and some Band and Van Morrison. These songs are just staples of our musical DNA.”
Daniel said it’s hard to pick a favorite tune from “The Last Waltz.”
“It’s kind of like having children. They’re all so good,” he said. “But I would say this year I’m really into playing ‘Caravan,’ the Van Morrison song. I’ve never done that one before. We try to change it up every year and do some different stuff, so that one’s been really fun.”
Daniel said his former band, The New Familiars, had the opportunity to play with Levon Helm, an alumnus of The Band, in 2010, and that he had gotten to see him perform a few other times as well.
“When he passed away (in 2012 at age 71), we decided ‘let’s do a tribute to Levon,’ and that turned into The Band’s ‘The Last Waltz,'” Daniel said. “We were just going to do it as a one-off, and it just turned into so much fun that we’ve been doing it ever since.”
Concertgoers to the show at The FR8yard can expect to hear such genre-bending classics from The Band’s farewell as “Up on Cripple Creek,” “The Weight,” “It Makes No Difference,” “Atlantic City,” “Ophelia,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Long Black Veil” and “Quinn the Eskimo.”
“For me, The Band is definitely up there with The Beatles and The (Grateful) Dead as far as the top influences of all-time,” Daniel said. “Just the way that they were able to switch back and forth with different people singing and switching instruments, that speaks to the spirit of music as a community type of thing.
“These guys really encompassed that community feeling, and I think that’s what makes what we’re doing a really cool thing to bring, especially during the Thanksgiving season. … We’ve been doing this for almost 10 years, and we hope we can keep it going not only in Charlotte but to start a new tradition in Spartanburg as well.”