Album(s) That Took The Longest To Come Around To

As I have previously recounted on several occasions, I was mystified by The Band's 1968 debut album Music From Big Pink when it was released. I was completely in the throes of my love for the likes of Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Sure, I still liked my Beatles, Byrds, and Buffalo Springfield albums, but that music seemed like the past to me.

It wasn't until I saw and heard The New Buffalo Springfield (only drummer Dewey Martin remaining from the original lineup) live the following year that I finally "got" The Band. Overnight Cream and Hendrix were the past, and The Band were leading us out of the darkness. Or as Eric Clapton put it: "Music had been heading in the wrong direction for a long time, and when I heard Music From Big Pink I thought 'Someone has finally done it right.'" He disbanded Cream, and traveled to West Saugerties, New York (the location of the Big Pink house) to try and get The Band to let him join. Naw Eric, we got it covered 😊.

I was the same way with The Band. I took a class in college called Introduction To Film. Basically learning to be a film critic. Well, one of the required viewings (in a theatre, big screen) was “The Last Waltz”. This was the mid-80s and I knew nothing about The Band, and didn’t like the film at all, but loving music and music history I felt an obligation to learn about them and try to “get it”.  The first CD I ever bought was Big Pink. It still didn’t resonate, but I started researching them and it just all came together. They were different and truly a band of brothers (until they weren’t). They’re approach to everything was fascinating.

For me I guess mostly it's CDs, but for the purposes of this thread that might be okay?

There are several I am pretty sure, but at the moment I cannot think of most of them.

Back when I was in the Air Force in around '79 I made friends with this guy from NJ who was always playing something by Springsteen.  I mostly tolerated it but didn't get most of it.  That would meet the LP criteria (AND 8-track) if there is that criteria.  But when I got a CD player in '89 Darkness On The Edge Of Town was one of the very first CDs I bought anyway. But I didn't come around to it until the early 2000s.

I've been auditioning/breaking in a new pair of speakers and I am coming up on 90 hours, and to get there I've been playing a lot of CDs from my truly vast collection that I thought might be interesting when I bought them but for whatever reason they didn't grab me at the time so they may have been played once or twice and that was it.

Rosanne Cash's Ten Song Demo from I think around '95 was one of those, and the other night it really blew me away how good it is.  The same for Kiki Dee's (of Don't Go Breaking My Heart fame with Elton John)  live Naked Songs CD from about, I think, the same time period.  Sounds wonderful!  She actually does an acoustic version of Don't Go Breaking My Heart (but I wouldn't put that as the best work on the CD) and a real nice cover of Joni Mitchell's Carey.  

. . . Holly Cole Trio It Happened One Night released in ’96(?) and I know that I bought it in the ’90s, but I didn’t listen to it closely enough to realize how good it is until ’18 or ’19.

Same with Patricia Barber/Cafe Blue . . . I bought the red book HDCD version not long after it’s release (’94?) for her cover of Ode To Billy Joe but I never really listened to it and started digging it until ’18 or ’19 . . . and I’d say the same also goes for Patricia Barber/Companion.

The Man Comes Around (Johnny Cash) I bought after its release (’02?) and I am sure I played it a couple of times, but it was basically gathering cobwebs until two or three days ago (the same session I listed to Rosanne Cash/Ten Song Demo) and it was, "Wow! Good stuff!"

It’s not been that way with everything I am pulling out of mothballs . . . I played Cowboy Junkies/Open tonight, and it left me pretty cold and clueless.

I can count the number of recordings that I’ve "learned" to appreciate on the fingers of one hand. It’s extremely rare that revisiting music I didn’t enjoy the first time changes my mind.

As to The Band, the brown album is one of my all time favorites. Never did understand the appeal of Big Pink. Nor do I understand the need to champion The Band by declaring other artists inferior. The Band’s music speaks for itself. I certainly don’t regard EC as some ultimate arbiter of taste, given that so much of his output has been mediocre at best.

When I’m in the mood for Cream, The Band won’t scratch that itch and vice versa.

I like apples AND oranges.