Robbie Robertson
Photo: VH1

The 1978 Martin Scorsese documentary of the Band's 1976 farewell concert, "The Last Waltz," has long been considered one of the best rock films ever made. Now Band guitarist/songwriter (and film producer) Robbie Robertson hopes to make it even better.

Robertson is adding interviews of himself (done by Scorsese) to the movie's DVD release. He's remixing "The Last Waltz" in Surround Sound and contemplating adding such footage as a scene of himself writing the film's theme music.

Robertson is also cleaning up the audio for a re-released soundtrack, having never been pleased by the original.

"I was happy with the movie's sound but I was never happy with the album because I couldn't do it myself," he said last week. "The movie was so demanding that I told somebody I worked with, 'While I'm mixing the movie, you can engineer and mix the record,' and it just wasn't done properly." The remastered soundtrack will likely feature additional songs with Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Muddy Waters and Van Morrison.

"A lot of stuff we didn't use on the record because it was already three albums long," Robertson said. "But now some amazing things from rehearsals are gonna make the package really terrific." Robertson originally wanted the "The Last Waltz" re-release to come out by Thanksgiving to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the concert. But because of the digital editing and remastering that remain, the package won't be out until at least next spring, he said.

Aside from "The Last Waltz," Robertson is working on a new Band box set to replace the out-of-print 1994 three-disc, 56-track collection Across the Great Divide, which also displeases him.

"I didn't like the way it was laid out. It was uninteresting," he grumbled. "And the record company couldn't find the masters of a lot of things, so they just took them off secondary places. The integrity in what should have been done with the thing wasn't taken care of properly." The new Band box should be available by 2002 and will include material Capitol Records unearthed while assembling the recently released Band reissues. "The people there that specialize in lost tapes started finding all these outtakes and alternative takes I don't even remember doing," Robertson said. "The more material they found, the more I thought to myself, 'Now I want to do the definitive Band collection with lots of surprises and things I didn't even know existed.'"

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• Robbie Robertson

Rick Danko, bassist and a vocalist for the legendary group The Band, died at his home in Woodstock, New York on Friday morning, the day after Danko celebrated his 56th birthday.

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December 8 [10:00 EDT] -- Robbie Robertson, the 54 year old former leader of Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame inductees The Band, will be releasing "Contact from the Underworld of Red Boy," featuring dance experts including Howie B, best known for his work on U2's "Pop."

Marius de Vries, the genius behind last year's "Romeo & Juliet" soundtrack also appears on the album, as do Nellee Hooper (U2) and Tim Drummond (Bomb the Bass), according to the L.A. Times.

Robertson has been at work more or less continuously since the Band broke up in the 70's. Besides various solo releases, he composed the score to Martin Scorsese's brilliant Raging Bull, and also worked on Scorcese's King of Comedy, The Color Of Money and others. His 1987 solo debut included guest appearances from the members of U2, Peter Gabriel, Daniel Lanois, Ivan Neville and Gil Evans and more and spawned the hits "Somewhere Down the Crazy River" and "Broken Arrow." And he has also served as the performance coordinator for the annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies.

In 1994 Robbie Robertson teamed with a native group for the much heralded musical companion to a documentary called The Native Americans. "Contact from the Underworld of Red Boy" is a follow up to that effort, reportedly combining the roots music with modern rock. The album is tentatively scheduled for a March release.

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• Howie B

July 25 [16:00 EDT] -- Rick Danko, a vocalist and guitarist for the classic rock group, The Band, received a suspended prison sentence from a Japanese court on Friday for smuggling heroin into Japan.

According to Reuters, Danko had been arrested in May while he was on a five-concert tour of Japan. Police had found 1.25 grams of heroin hidden in a magazine sent to him by a courier from the United States.

The judge dismissed Danko's claim that his wife mistakenly sent him heroin when he asked her to send him some medication for a cold.

Danko's two-and-a-half-year sentence was suspended for five years.

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