Junk in the Trunk: Drive’s Daily Blog for Tuesday May 27

Each day, Rich Terfry and Radio 2 Drive wraps up your day with music and stories about the interesting things going on in the world.

NEW ON TUESDAY: Blind Melon return with a deluxe vinyl reissue of the group's self titled 1992 album.

REAR-VIEW MIRROR:

Every week, Rich Terfry looks back in our Rear-view Mirror at a great song from the good ol’ days. This week, The Band with "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."

When Robbie Robertson first traveled to the American south, he was struck by an expression he heard people use again and again: "the south will rise again."

The expression is a reference to the U.S. Civil War and implies that one day the southern United States will return to its former glory. Robertson thought it was funny the first time he heard it. But after hearing it several times, he said he was touched. He said he became aware of a subtle sadness that pervades the south.

This experience gave Robertson the spark he needed for a melody that had been haunting him. It had been in his head for some time, but he didn't know what to do with it. Now he knew he would write a song about the Civil War. When he mentioned the idea to bandmate Levon Helm, Levon insisted, as a southerner himself, that Robertson, a Canadian, do some thorough research before he sit down to write. He dragged Robertson to the library and selected some books for him saying it was important that the South, or Dixie, as it's referred to, and Confederate General Robert E. Lee be, quote, "paid all due respect."

The song Robertson wrote was about the last days of the war and the suffering the South endured.

It was recorded in the Los Angeles home of entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. with Levon Helm singing lead. Although the song wasn't a hit, it was the centerpiece of The Band's self-titled 1969 album and became one of the songs, along with "The Weight," with which the band is most identified.

After The Band's 1976 farewell concert, The Last Waltz, Levon Helm refused to ever perform the song again.

When the song it was released, it was reviewed in Rolling Stone magazine by Ralph J. Gleason who said, "nothing I have read … has brought home the overwhelming human sense of history that this song does." He went on to express what many felt when they first heard it, that he couldn't believe that it wasn't a 100 year-old folk song passed down from one generation to the next.

Here's The Band's 1969 classic, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."



Here are some other great editions of Rear-view Mirror:

Fleetwood Mac/Go Your Own Way

The Animals/House of the Rising Sun

Ian and Sylvia/Four Strong Winds

James Brown/Please Please Please

Leonard Cohen/Suzanne

The Ramones/I Wanna Be Sedated

Blue Rodeo/Try

The Guess Who/American Woman

U2/I Still Have't Found What I'm Looking For

Janis Joplin/Me and Bobby McGee

Gordon Lightfoot "If You Could Read My Mind"

The Byrds "Eight Miles High"

Simon and Garfunkel "The Sound of Silence"

Bill Haley and his Comets "Rock Around The Clock"

The Velvet Underground "I'm Waiting For The Man"

Johnny Cash "Folsom Prison Blues"

Bobby Fuller "I Fought The Law"

Big Star "September Gurls"

The Hollies "Bus Stop"

Joy Division "Love Will Tear Us Apart"

Booker T and the MGs "Green Onions"

Jimi Hendrix "Hey Joe"

Neil Young "Rockin' in the Free World"

Dolly Parton "Jolene"

The Left Banke "Walk Away Renee"

Lou Reed "Walk On The Wild Side"

James Taylor "Fire And Rain"

The Clash "Should I Stay or Should I Go"

Marvin Gaye "Sexual Healing"

Radiohead "Paranoid Android"

M.I.A. "Paper Planes"

The Animals "We Gotta Get Out of this Place"

Dusty Springfield "Son of a Preacher Man"

Screamin' Jay Hawkins "I Put A Spell On You"

Cheap Trick "Surrender"

Mott The Hoople "All the Young Dudes"

Beach Boys "Sloop John B"

Amy Winehouse "Rehab"

New York Dolls "Personality Crisis"

Modern Lovers "Roadrunner"

George Jones "He Stopped Loving Her Today"

Bruce Springsteen "Born in the USA"

The Beatles "With A Little Help From My Friends"

Rolling Stones 'Miss You'

The Coasters 'Run Red Run'

Elvis Costello, 'Alison'

James Brown, 'Hot (I Need to be loved loved loved)'

Inner Circle, 'Tenement Yard'

Ray Charles, 'I Don't Need No Doctor'

Curtis Mayfield, 'Freddy's Dead'

Gang Starr, 'Beyond Comprehension'

Bo Diddley, 'Bo Diddley'

Aretha Franklin, 'Rocksteady'

CCR, 'Have You Ever Seen the Rain'

Howlin' Wolf, 'Smokestack Lightning'

Bobby Womack, 'Across 110th Street'

Roy Orbison, 'In Dreams'

Foggy Hogtown Boys, 'Man of Constant Sorrow'

Pink Floyd, 'Wish You Were Here'

Neil Young, 'Cortez The Killer'

Bob Dylan, 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'

Little Eva, 'Loco-Motion'

Elvis Costello, 'Watching the Detectives'

Jimmy Cliff, 'The Harder They Come'

The Verve, 'Bittersweet Symphony'

Roberta Flack, 'Killing Me Softly with his Song'

R.E.M., 'Radio Free Europe'

Radiohead, 'No Surprises'

Led Zeppelin, 'Ramble On'

Glen Campbell, 'Wichita Lineman'

Rolling Stones, 'Beast of Burden'

John Cougar Mellencamp, 'Pink Houses'

JUNK IN THE TRUNK:

Shortest rainstorm in history: 

Winter's last hurrah: 

Itchy animals: 

RICH'S PICK: "El Paso" by Marty Robbins:

MARK'S PICK: Walter Becker "Down at the Bottom"