50 years on---the brilliance of The Band and their astounding debut album.

And Richard, richopp! He was the first of the three to pass away, at his own hand (suicide by hanging). A truly great, great singer (Eric Clapton is in awe of his voice), and very interesting drummer. Few know it, but he plays drums on about half the songs on the brown album. And he plays piano as part of the rhythm section, not like Elton John and Billy Joel, etc.

But it’s not just us old guys who appreciate The Band. There’s a whole underground appreciation society amongst the hipper younger musicians, songwriters, and singers. There have been live shows in both Portland, Oregon and Los Angeles of local bands performing either all Band songs, or songs from The Last Waltz. And I hear The Band in my favorite older musicians; Lucinda Williams Country Blues is full of The Band, as is the music made by Buddy Miller, John Hiatt, Richard Thompson, many others. Nick Lowe has said his original band (he was a member of Brinsley Schwartz) were trying to be The Band, and admitted they fell far short ;-).

I could talk for hours about The Band, and have. Levon Helm is a musical giant in my book, and I’m not alone in that sentiment. Here’s part of his great story:

Levon grew up in Helena, Arkansas, the same town in which blues harmonica-great Sonny Boy Williamson lived. In the mid-1950’s Sonny Boy often performed on the local radio station’s live afternoon show. Levon, then in High School, would go to the station after school and situate himself in a corner of the studio, watching and listening to the Negro band. He got himself a snare drum, learned his rudiments, and started playing dances around town (how musicians started out in those days).

Ronnie Hawkins was a local Rockabilly singer who had had some success, and when he lost his drummer (whose wife had insisted he get a real job) he approached Levon about joining his back-up band, The Hawks. Hawkins had already been up to Canada, where the clubs, bars, dancehalls, etc,. were paying American bands real well. Levon was rarin’ to go, but his family insisted he finish High School first. No one in Levon’s family ever had! This was farming country; people stayed in school long enough to learn the 3 R’s, then went to work picking cotton or whatever.

Hawkins decided to hang around for the few months left in Levon’s education, then Ronnie, Levon, and the rest of The Hawks headed North. Up in Canada, every so often one of The Hawks would leave the band, and Ronnie would hire a replacement from the local talent pool. Those replacements included Robbie Robertson (guitar), Rick Danko (bass), Richard Manuel (piano), and Garth Hudson (organ, sax), hired one by one. Levon had been happy to be a hired sideman, but now thought this version of The Hawks---later to be renamed The Band---were ready to go out on their own. And that they did.

They traveled down into the States, playing all across the South, the Midwest, and up and down the Eastern seaboard, at every honky-tonk, bar, nightclub, and dancehall that had live entertainment. In 1965 they had a week off, so took a trip to Helena, to look up Sonny Boy, whom they heard had just returned from a tour of The UK and Europe. They drove into town, and saw Sonny Boy walking down a street in his suit and bowler hat. Levon reminded him of their meeting at the radio station years ago, and introduced the other Hawks to him. They decided to head to a nearby soul food restaurant, where they ate, drank, and talked. Some cops showed up, asked the young white men what they were doing hanging around with Negroes, and told them to get outta town. In 1965, segregation was alive and well in Arkansas. The Hawks made arrangements to meet Sonny Boy the next day, where he and they got down to playing some music. For hours.

Sonny Boy was stunned by this white band’s knowledge of and abilities at playing Blues music, and he and they discussed them going on the road with him as his backing band. The asked about his UK/European tour, and the local back-up bands the tour promoter had provided him with. He said of the bands: "They wanna play the Blues SO bad. And that’s just how they play it". One of those bands was The Yardbirds, whose guitarist at the time was Eric Clapton ;-).

Before they were to go on the road with Sonny Boy, The Hawks received a call from Sonny Boy’s people, telling them he had passed away. Later that year they received a call from Bob Dylan’s manager, making them the same offer. The rest is history. By the time they started recording Music From Big Pink in January of 1968, The Band had been playing together longer than had The Beatles, who were beginning their slow death. Playing together for eight before getting a major-label deal had turned them into the best Rock ’n’ Roll Band in the world. They will NEVER be equaled.

jafant, the album was released on the 1st, and on that day I Googled the deluxe boxset (which contains a 2-LP 45 RPM set, a single CD, a Blu Ray-24/96 disc, a 7" 45 single of The Band’s first single "The Weight"/"I Shall Be Released", a set of prints of pics taken of The Band by Elliott Landy for the original release in 1968, and a book) and found it at a few places (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the Hi-Fi LP sellers) for around the set’s $124.95 list price. The Band’s website was selling it for $150, and was already sold out! My LRS in Portland (Millennium Music) showed only one copy had come in, and was already gone.

I looked a little harder, and found it listed for $65.64 with free shipping on Walmart’s website, of all places! It showed only two copies in stock, and though I thought "This is too good to be true", I went ahead and bought it. It showed up four days later. It’s factory sealed, and I have no idea why Walmart decided to sell it so cheap. Who knows if they’ll ever get it back in? It’s probably essential only for Band completists, the 2-LP or single CD enough for most. Or the current Mobile Fidelity LP or SACD maybe even better, depending on how one feels about the new mix and mastering of the 50th Anniversary release.

A couple of nights ago I wrote a whole, long, very complete and detailed discussion of the recording of both Music From Big Pink and the 2nd Band album (the "brown"), including an explanation of the reason for the huge difference in sound character between the two albums, a subject broached a few days ago by slaw. The treatise took me QUITE a while to compose, and when I clicked on the "Post Your Response" button the AudiogoN system asked me to prove I wasn’t a computer by hitting another button. When I did, my post disappeared. Ay carumba! I haven’t had the energy to try again; plus, I’m not sure anyone other than I finds the subject all that interesting.

Agree completely tostadosunidos. Discussing an album can leave out the absolute joy it brings. I still laugh out loud at some of the things I hear The Band play and sing on MFBP. In the book included in the MFBP boxset, there is a reprint of a review of the album from the time of it’s release, in which the writer describes The Band as looking like they came out of the 19th Century. While the British bands were dressing up in stage costumes with lots of ruffles, silk, and satin, here come these mountain men in old suits and hats, very Appalachian. The Band’s music already sounded ancient when it was brand new, while Hendrix sounded brand new. It’s funny to me that Hendrix now sounds dated, Music From Big Pink still fresh. But then, I like timelessness, not timeliness ;-).

The greatness of the music of the 60’s should include the first half of the decade. Bob Dylan started in 1962, as did Brian Wilson (okay, The Beach Boys) and The Beatles. And there was also the work of Phil Spector and his girl groups, all the great Pop coming out of the songwriting of the Brill Building and Motown Records, as well as the R & B of Atlantic, Stax, and other Southern/rural music. Then there was Roy Orbison, the Surf guitarists and groups, Paul Revere & The Raiders (laugh if you want, but give a fresh listen to "Just Like Me", a KILLER song!) and The Kingsmen of the Pacific Northwest, and Chuck Berry and The Everly Brothers, who were still making great music. The pre-British Invasion 1960’s music is unjustly maligned!

The Band were not all alone in their musical direction. There was an entire underground counter-Counter-Culture taking place, rejecting the psychedelic style and substance that was in style in 1967-68 for a more "organic" music. Bob Dylan turned his back on the anti-authoritarian movement he was largely responsible for creating earlier in the decade, and his December 1967 album John Wesley Harding, his first since Blonde On Blonde, was a complete musical about-face. A very quiet, rural-sounding album (recorded in Nashville) featuring mostly acoustic guitar, electric bass, drums, and pedal steel, with lyrics containing Biblical references, it stood in stark contrast to the bombast taking place in Rock. I had NO idea what to make of it. Until I "got" Music From Big Pink, that is.

There was also the new, very Country version of the Byrds, new member Gram Parsons taking David Crosby’s place and essentially leadership of the group in 1967. Gram was brought in by Byrd’s bassist Chris Hillman, who knew him from their Bluegrass days in New England. Everybody I knew had their Sweethearts Of The Rodeo album, and loved it. Parson’s and Hillman left The Byrds after that album, starting the hugely-influential Flying Burrito Brothers.

Buffalo Springfield had a hit right out of the gate, with the classic "For What It’s Worth" single. Member Neil Young was, like The Band, a Canadian, and was extremely impressed by them. As I have said previously, his Harvest album is obviously his response to The Band’s brown album.

Then there was Dan Hicks, who almost openly mocked the overblown music that was most popular in the Rock world. Great songwriter, much more clever than Frank Zappa, another satirist who mocked Rock and the Hippies who were it’s audience.

There were lots more great underground-level artists working in the field planted by Dylan and The Band, but there were also hugely popular artists emerging who were making more "musical" music. Jackson Browne, Carole King, James Taylor, people like that. The whole singer/songwriter thing, which is not really the same as The Band and their ilk. Still, better than some more 10-minute guitar solo bands ;-) .

You may notice that the music being made by the people I’m talking about is very much Country and Folk Music-influenced, or even derived. The music being made by most bands in 1967-68 had become more Blues-based. The Band very much had Blues roots, but that wasn’t very obvious on Music From Big Pink. Whereas most bands were playing music in which the Country element in Rock 'n' Roll (Elvis, Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, all hillbillies who played Country before Rock 'n' Roll) had been completely eliminated, The Band put it back in.

Good post jriggy. I read Jerry or Bob say it was CSN’s harmonizing that prompted them to start trying to sing. And I know Jerry played banjo in Folk/Bluegrass bands around Stanford University in Palo Alto (whose Frat houses my High School garage band played at in 1967-8. My introduction to the joys and danger of alcohol ;-). However, the songs and playing on Workingman’s Dead show no non-vocal CSN influence, but a lot of The Band’s. Listen to the two, back-to-back. It’s obvious. As does Neil Young’s Harvest, the only album of his that sounds as it does. Have you carefully watched Neil’s face and body language as he is brought up on stage at The Last Waltz? And what he says about The Band at that moment? Look for the "white substance" in his nostrils---he’s loaded to the gills!

As to my opinion of The Dead’s singing.....I thought Pig Pen’s vocals fit their music pretty well when I saw them live in The Panhandle at Golden Gate Park in the Summer of ’67 (top THAT ;-). He did most the singing, though I think Jerry sings on "The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)", a cool song. They were a VERY different band on their 1967 debut album, almost proto-punk in a way. They moved into extended jamming on their 1968 2nd and 1969 3rd albums, the one’s of theirs’ I actually kinda like. So I was not prepared for Workingman’s Dead in 1970. You know they toured across Canada in 1970 with The Band (as documented in the documentary Festival Express) and others, right? Coincidence?

Back to Jerry and Bob’s singing. We’ll have to agree to disagree. I played and recorded with a songwriter who had perfect pitch, and I’m afraid he drilled harmony and counterpoint singing into my brain. I can’t STAND even slightly flat singing, and their singing is far more than slightly flat. It’s just SO sour. You can’t hear that? As for soul, sorry mate, my standards are pretty high in that regard. Ray Charles, Solomon Burke, Big Joe Turner, Wilson Pickett, and, yes, The Band’s Richard Manuel sing soulfully. Jerry and Bob sound like boys to me, not men. They are constantly straining to reach notes, and lots of words are sung as if they are running out of breath. They are simply not very talented singers.

Fair enough, brother! Just to be clear, it’s not vocal perfection I hear in The Band. They aren’t note perfect like CSN (whose harmonies I find too "pretty", a little prissy. I think it may be Graham Nash’s fault ;-), being kind of loose and sloppy, but intentionally so. And I wasn’t holding the singing of The Band up as a standard to which I expected The Dead (or anyone else) to equal. The point I was trying to make (unsuccessfully, perhaps) was that the type of music found on Workingman’s Dead requires a certain level of vocal ability to pull off successfully, and that The Dead did not possess that ability. There abilities were of a different sort, and what The Dead did well nobody else has come close, an accomplishment few bands can claim.

I apologize for the angst my comments caused you. I do suffer from an unfortunate and unactractive proclivity to become somewhat dogmatic when I pontificate on a subject of great importance to me, which The Band, as you may have surmised, is to me. And, if this paragraph is any indication, from pretentiousness ;-) .

Could be slaw. I don’t imagine RR would own two studios, but it’s possible. If it’s located in Malibu, I’m sure it is. My favorite studio in L.A. is Ocean Way, where Ry Cooder records. GREAT sounding albums come out of there, including John Hiatt’s Bring The Family. I haven’t recorded there---it’s WAY above my pay grade ;-) .

I did track in the old RCA studio in Hollywood, in the huge room The Stones recorded "Satisfaction" in, and in which Sinatra recorded. It has a hardwood floor and adjustable walls, a very "live" sounding room. I overdubbed some percussion and vocals to an existing recording, engineered by Tchad Blake (Los Lobos, Elvis Costello, Richard Thompson, T Bone Burnett, many others). Very cool guy, and a great engineer.

@n80, I feel I should tell you Music From Big Pink sounds like no other album you have ever heard, and some find it takes quite a few playings for it to "reveal" itself. I myself didn't understand it for about a year after it's release, not getting into it until after the 2nd s/t ("brown") album had won me over. The 2nd is more assessable, doesn't sound as "odd" (in comparison to other bands/groups) as does MFBP. So try and find a clean copy of the 2nd Band album as well---you may, as do many, like it more than the first.

I'm guessing the $60 copy you saw was the desirable pressing that was mastered by Bob (Robert) Ludwig, identified by his RL initials scratched into the dead wax near the LP's paper label. If you like MFBP enough to justify more than one copy, Mobile Fidelity has an excellent version available on LP and SACD, the same with the 2nd album.