Evangeline (1976) – The Band (ft. Emmylou Harris)

“It was a piece of America that was just more musical. I have no idea why but when I first went there when I was sixteen years old and I first got off the bus in Arkansas, it hit me right away. It smelled. You could smell the music. The air you could taste it, you could hear everything. Right away I said, I get it.”
– Robbie Robertson interview Classic Albums in 1997

I adore today’s featured track Evangeline as I do the whole Last Waltz package. I presumed it was a traditional southern standard, but this song was written by The Band’s enigmatic lead guitarist and primary songwriter Robbie Robertson and he was still finishing it during Thanksgiving of 1976 as his old band-mates were gathering one last time in San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom.

Evangeline didn’t find it’s home that night amongst the rock n rollers who filled the stage. It would be later when Robertson was mixing the live recording of The Last Waltz when someone remembered they had invited a young country singer to perform with them that past Thanksgiving, but she hadn’t been able to make it. The song Emmylou Harris was suppose to sing was Evangeline and when she finally did sing it as a duet with The Band it found its way home by becoming an instant southern classic.

The song tells the poignant story of a woman named Evangeline Bellefontaine, who waits in vain for her lover Gabriel, lost to the treacherous waters of the Mississippi River. It is inspired by the epic poem Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Evangeline was to blend the rich storytelling traditions of American folklore with the roots rock essence of The Band. Robbie Robertson sought to craft a song that felt both ancient and immediate, with a tale as old as time yet resonant with contemporary listeners.

She stands on the banks of the mighty Mississippi
Alone in the pale moonlight
Waitin’ for a man, a riverboat gambler
Said that he’d return tonight

They used to waltz on the banks of the mighty Mississippi
Lovin’ the whole night through
He was a riverboat gambler off to make a killin’
And bring it on back to you

Evangeline, Evangeline
Curses the soul of the Mississippi queen
That pulled her man away (Read the remainder here)

Levon Helm described the scene at The Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, home of the last ever performance of The Band, when the drummer wrote in his book The Wheel’s on Fire, “It was a madhouse backstage. Jerry Brown, governor of California, wanted to shake hands with us. We had to rehearse a new song called “Evangeline” that Robbie had written only the night before, because we had to perform it during the last part of the show for the sake of film continuity. In fact, the piece was still unfinished, and Robertson and [The Band’s producer and arranger] John Simon were huddled in a corner, frantically trying to figure out an arrangement we could play without rehearsal. Then we managed to play, “Evangeline” in a sort of country two-step, reading the lyrics off of cue cards held behind the cameras, but the lack of rehearsal really told the story.”

Robbie Robertson talked about Evangeline in an interview with Musician Magazine’s Joshua Baer, when The Band’s musical leader said, “I’d written Evangeline as part of The Last Waltz Suite. We did it in the concert and we did some of the other things from the suite at the concert too. But when we were done, it’s like all of these artists represented an element of popular music in their own right. Emmylou Harris was fresh and kind of represented a new school of the country music thing and also she’s very photogenic. She has a great relationship with the camera.”

Emmylou Harris also ended up releasing Evangeline as the title song on her 1981 album.

References:
1. Evangeline – The Real Mr. Heartache
2. How Emmylou Harris and The Band transformed “Evangeline”, Robbie Robertson’s Last Waltz gem, into an instant southern classic – Don’t Forget the Songs

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“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand