Springsteen and Clapton on their favorite, heh, band.

In my mid teens I was a huge Dylan fan and saw a "Dylan and The Hawks" (the Band without Levon Helm for that tour anyway) show in Honolulu in 1966...whew...it was the first time anybody had played that arena (called the Honolulu International Center or HIC back then) with their own sound system (on their way to Australia I think) consisting of piles of Altec A7s, and the first time I'd seen Leslie speaker cabinets. An hour or so of Bob killing it solo, followed by him and the Hawks just loud and really powerfully putting on one of the best shows possible...utterly life transforming for my 15 year old self. Big Pink was like something carved out of wood and at the time was also purely amazing, and I basically wore out my first copy the Brown Album and listen to it still. I bought the boxed set reissue/remix thing last year and the vinyl in that set is maybe the cleanest and best sounding vinyl album I own...highly recommended. I saw the Band again in 1972 or so, and later versions without Robbie a couple of times much later. My favorite band through the 70s was the original Little Feat who, for my tastes and that of most fellow musicians I knew back then, were the hottest live band at the time.

So done with "the Boss"....and I’m from NJ. He’s so consumed with saying all the "correct things" for all the "right people" he’s liable to "shill" for anything provided he continues to get undeserved rave reviews and exposure for all the crap album’s he’s made post 1983’s Nebraska ("Bruce’s latest is his most groundbreaking"..... "his new album harkens back to Born to Run".......). For an achingly long time, it has seemed to me that most of the Boss’s utterances are purely to build up his "indy cred" for the decision making class simply so that they have more influence through him with his Boomer demographic........not taking anything away from the Band or their great record but the Band’s whole history of musical integrity, seems to me, to be the antithesis of the "Boss" and his highly massaged and inauthentic image (see inexplicably feted Bon Jovi who help covers political messaging with the Gen X demographic).

Of course The Band influenced many other bands, but they really did nothing to influence the predominant move toward Psychedelia at the time like the Byrds, Jefferson Airplane and Jimi Hendrix of course.
Other bands that were amazing and mostly forgotten may not have impressed their peers, but left a lasting impression on their fans. In that vein, I was just listening to the first Seatrain disc, which is amazing from beginning to end. I'm sure some would have a field day just trying to figure out which artists influenced their music. 

Yeah @roxy54, I think of The Band (and others like them) as the counter-Counter Culture ;-). The movement they were spearheading was definitely swimming against the tide, and was almost on a cult level. Though their albums did actually sell pretty well, the masses were far more into Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and soon Black Sabbath, ELP and all the other UK Prog bands.

But your inclusion of The Byrds in the Psychedelia movement is a coupla years behind their timeline. In '68 they were actually a big part of the move into Country, their landmark Sweetheart Of The Rodeo album coming out that year. About as far from Psych as one can get! 

The Seatrain album I like most is the second, s/t one. It contains my favorite version of the Lowell George Song "I'm Willin'". Speaking of them, just earlier today I picked up Peter Rowan's album The First Wippoorwill on Sugar Hill (the great Bluegrass label).

I wonder why Clapton never tried to join The Band after Robbie dropped out? It would have been an interesting experiment and might have given the rest of the guys a much higher profile. Maybe he felt they were too far gone or felt that Robbie was the songwriter and the driving force?