Ric and Robbie: A Tale of Two Leaders

The only similarity the Cars and the Band seem to share is that both groups had five members. Yet, each band had a similar storyline. Both groups released killer-no-filler first albums that ranked among the great debut LPs. The two bands lasted ten years with their original line-up.

The Band released seven albums, while the Cars unleashed six albums. The most technically gifted musicians in both groups played the keyboards, among other instruments.

The Band’s Garth Hudson, who studied classical music at the Ontario Conservatory of Music, was also a skilled accordionist and sax player. The Cars’ Greg Hawkes, who attended Boston’s Berklee College of Music, could expertly man the flute, sax, and clarinet.

Before the bands settled on a name, they proposed monikers that sounded like inside jokes. The Band’s Richard Manuel suggested they should be called “Chocolate Subway” or “Marshmallow Overcoat,” while Levon Helm wanted to hear them introduced with, “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it for the Honkies!”

Before the Cars’ debut sold six million copies, no record label wanted to sign them as “Cap’n Swing.”

As the esprit de corps tailed off in both bands, so did the quality of their music, thanks to the dreaded “P” word: publishing.

In the Band’s case, the first fracturing of the group could be traced to their first tour backing Bob Dylan. Robbie Robertson, perhaps wanting to have Dylan’s genius rub off, seemed to be stuck to his boss. This caused his bandmates to mockingly call him “Barnacle Man.” Unfortunately, the group’s publishing money was mostly stuck in Robertson’s bank account, which stuck in the craw of his bandmates.

Helm’s bitter feud with Robertson began after their second album. In Levon’s autobiography, This Wheel’s On Fire, he noted, “Robbie and I were as close as brothers. Since we were teenagers, we banded against everything and anyone that got in our way. All that changed overnight. When The Band came out, we were surprised by the songwriting credits. In those days, we didn’t realize that song publishing–more than touring or selling records–was the secret source of the real money in the music business. I discovered I was credited with writing half of “Jemima Surrender.” Richard [Manuel] was a co-writer on three songs. Rick [Danko] and Garth went uncredited. Robbie Robertson was credited on all twelve songs. Someone had pencil-whipped us.”

Danko concurred: “A lot of those songs were Levon’s stories, without a doubt. And as far as the music, yeah, it was very much a collaborative effort on those first two albums. So there was a little greed on Robbie’s part there. A lot of greed, actually.”

David Clayton-Thomas of Blood, Sweat and Tears recalled, “The Band I knew both in Woodstock and Toronto—total collaboration. Everybody got in a room, and they hashed out the songs.” But the Band’s tour manager, Jon Taplin, disagreed with Robertson’s dissenters. “Robbie wrote the songs. He got up every morning and worked on writing. I saw it. And it wasn’t because he wanted to hog it; it was because nobody else was doing it. There was no need for this myth that they all got screwed by Robbie.”

But whenever the group worked in a recording studio, the effects of drink and drugs took a toll on both the music and Robertson’s patience. In Sandra Tooze’s great biography, Levon, Robbie stated, “It started very early on—way before the Stage Fright sessions—and it never went away. As a result, making records became very painful.”

The group’s producer, John Simon, was familiar with Levon’s griping. “For all his Southern charm, Levon could really hold a grudge. Sometimes I joked with him that he was mostly still pissed about the outcome of the Civil War.”

In 1978, two months after the Band released The Last Waltz, the Cars landed on the charts and stayed in the top 200 for a stunning 139 weeks. But within two years, four of the Cars had the same grievances that the Band had about their own lead songwriter.

Like Robertson, Ric Ocasek felt that since he made all of the demos, he should get all of the publishing money. In Bill Janovitz’s excellent The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told biography, guitarist Elliot Easton recalled, “The demos he brought to us were extremely skeletal. What the band brought to them – the different motifs and grooves and hooks – was the meat that hung on those bones.”

Hawkes commented on Ocasek’s decision to keep the publishing rights to himself. “He could’ve made the inequality a little bit more equal. If you’re arranging, you’re coming up with the parts. You’re in effect composing parts to go with the song.”

Hawkes recollected that Ric verbally gave him the impression that he’d receive co-producer credit on their Door to Door album. Easton said, “When the record came out, Greg’s credit wasn’t on it, and he started crying. That’s how hurt he was and how betrayed he felt. He was the tightest with Ric in the band. He’s the only one who got a co-write.”

Easton summed up Ric’s control freak ways. “A large component of Ric’s personality was insecurity. It was like he believed someone was trying to take something from him.” Ocasek’s wife, Paulina Porizkova, told it like it was. “I don’t think he treated anybody with a great amount of respect.”

But without Ric and Robertson’s demos, their bandmates might have wound up toiling in anonymity. If each member of the Band ever took a look in a mirror, they might’ve realized they made much better music when they worked as a unit.

In 1991, Geffen Records found out why Robertson’s microphone was turned off during The Last Waltz, when the guitarist’s album, Storyville, sold dismally.

In an attempt to boost sales, the label proposed that The Band reunite for a tour and an album. Danko was not interested because, “After the first two Band albums, it really wasn’t a band anymore. We were on somebody’s ego trip. Success can be a very strange thing. It can rear its head like an ugly beast.”

-Mark Daponte

Photo Composite: Ric Ocasek/Robbie Robertson (both public domain)