The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Youtube.com Music Video ^ | 01/01/1971 | Joan Baez

[bigbob]

I’ve listened to The Band’s version much more, and Levon sort of hesitates when he sings the line, “there goes..uh..Robert E Lee” so to my ear it’s like he subvocalized “the” in there.

Here’s a live version and he sings it the same way:
https://youtu.be/jREUrbGGrgM

No idea whether he knew it should refer to the river boat or not.

[Gary from Dayton]

“ Patriots need to sing this on January 20, 2024 when Trump takes back the Nation and drive the Liberals into camps.”

If Trump wins and is sworn in I’ll sing this song on stage in a Speedo with nipple tassels.

[crusty old prospector]

Promises, promises.

[enumerated]

The Band did it ten times better.

[bigbob]

Robbie wrote the song for Levon, after visiting his family and knowing he would be the perfect one to sing it. Baez did a cover version.

[Fiji Hill]

The German version of 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," which was a big hit in the German-speaking world, is totally different from the English-language version. A girl recounts how her boyfriend starts taking psychotropic drugs, saying that they enable him to see "an ocean of lights and colors," and he invites her to join him on his "trips."

Her attempts to dissuade him from using drugs go for nought, and he is increasingly hooked. He finally announces, "I can see heaven" as his girlfriend calls for him to come back--and then he succumbs to an overdose. All that remains are the flowers on his grave as his girlfriend's world collapses.

Am Tag als Conny Kramer Starb (the day Conny Kramer died)--Juliane Werding (1972)

[Enterprise]

Those were the days. The left loved the South and despised the North. Now, the left loves the North, and despises the South.

[enumerated]

Yeah, I’m 71 - played keyboards in cover bands all my life since the 8th grade - still doing it.. somewhat.

[imardmd1]

I listened to it again. Trained vocal artists use a cyclical variation of the voice on sustained tones of the melody to enhance the presentation: of the pitch of intonation, vibrato one might term a lilt; of the volume only, the tremolo, which you have well described as a quiver.

When I played this video back again. it was clear that Baez was unmistakably employing tremolo, not the much sweeter vibrato. Either style of variation can also be achieved with a wind instrument, but only vibrato with a viol-type instrument; neither with a fretted guitar/mandolin or piano.

Personally, I do not find tremolo a pleasant rendering of a melody, and would never train one to us it in place of vibrato as the customary rendering of sustained tones.