R-e/p: When did he get together with The Band for this album?
RF: I’m not exactly sure but I know they had started rehearsing for the tour before we began recording. They only knew two of the songs on the album before coming in. The balance of the songs on the album they never heard until they were right here in the studio.
R-e/p: It appears The Band are pretty good musicians.
RF: They’re really something. And it’s got such character the music sounds like it’s all arranged. Bob would just run it down, and they’d play it once. Then they’d come in to the control room and listen. That’s another thing that really astounded me.
Nobody was saying, “You ought to be doing this” or “You ought to be playing that.” They just all came in and listened to hear what they should do, and then they’d go out into the studio. That would usually be the take, or the one following. That was pretty much the way it went.
R-e/p: Were the takes run straight through from the top?
RF: Yeah. Almost all of them were complete. The other thing was, if that wasn’t the take, they’d do a few more. Sometimes, they would change the arrangements from take to take because it was still so fresh. Then they’d choose the one that felt best.
R-e/p: How many days did it take to do all the recording?
RF: They initially came in on Friday, November 2, to get set up and to get a feel for the studio. We did use one song that we recorded that day. They cut three or four things for the album on Monday. Just came in and knocked them off.
Then on Tuesday they cut about four more things, and we used about three of them. We took two days off. Then they came in Friday and we cut the balance of the album that day.
R-e/p: So you really cut most of what you used in about three days.
RF: Yeah. Then we were assembling on Saturday, the next day, and Bob, myself, Nat Jeffrey (assistant engineer on Planet Waves) and Bob’s friend were here. We put together the master reels.
Then around noon, Bob said, “I’ve got a song I want to record later,” and I said fine. He said, “I’m not ready right now. I’ll ‘tell you when.” We were doing what we were doing, and all of a sudden he came up and said, “Let’s record.” So he went out in the studio, and that was “Wedding Song,” the cut that ends the album.