POSTED BY MARTIN KICH

As musicians and other performing artists cope with the abrupt interruption of their professional lives, clips of bands and orchestras performing together while apart have become, delightfully, much more commonplace.

But this video, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the recording of The Band’s signature song, “The Weight,” was released last September, well ahead of the pandemic. It features and fuses singers and musicians literally from every corner of the world, and its message seems to me to be very timely, especially communicated as it is here, as people attempt to celebrate Passover and Easter in the midst of a pandemic.

When Levon Helm passed away in 2012, a group of musicians commemorated him on stage at the Americana Music Awards by performing “The Weight.” Although technologically less dazzling than the remote collaboration, this performance may be even more spiritually moving.

Lastly, no performance of the song may be more spiritually moving than that included in The Last Waltz, Martin Scorsese’s documentary about The Band’s final concert. Levon Helm’s singular rendering of the lyrics is very movingly paired with the soulful voices of the Staples.

https://youtu.be/ccJTFXvkXkA

Wishing everyone at least a few moments of peace each day–whether you are dealing with terrible personal tragedy, a deep sense of communal tragedy, profound professional burdens, a severe sense of interruption or dislocation, or simply a recurring sense of unsettling uncertainty (which is not really all that simple).