For a member of a successful band/group to go on to have a successful solo career is very rare. A group benefits from the members’ combined talents, no one of them having enough talent on his own to make for a solo career. After The Beatles changed the world, bands/groups were expected to write, sing, and play---three separate talents. Before them, the best songwriters did just that---only. The best singers did that---only. The best players did that---only. In the group dynamic, you didn’t necessarily get all three.
Along comes The Band. Not only were they as good as any group around, but their individual talents were as good as any of the professionals doing only one of the above. Richard Manuel was as good a singer as any solo artist, Levon Helm as good a drummer as the guys in the L.A., New York, Memphis, and Nashville studios, Rick Danko a brilliant bass player, Robbie Robertson a very tasteful song-part guitar player, and Garth Hudson maybe the best keyboardist in the history of Rock ’n’ Roll.
After hearing Levon’s drumming, Ringo sounded flat-footed (compare his playing in The Last Waltz to that of Levon’s). After hearing Richard Manuel sing, John Lennon sounded weak and thin, McCartney lacking gravitas. Paul sounded almost like an average bass player after hearing Rick Danko’s inventive style. Rick Danko, a farm boy from Canada, was as good as the best in the world---James Jamerson, Motown’s bass player. By the time of the Band’s debut, The Beatles writing had lost it’s "magic". For me, anyway.
The Band had raised the bar so high, they were so brilliant in every way, that I now found the mediocrity in most other groups to be killing my interest in them. I now looked for songs written by the "best" songwriters, singing by the best singers, and playing by the best musicians (by that I mean those who were the best ensemble players, not virtuosos). Funny, for me it was now back to how it was before The Beatles. They had changed everything---no more producer putting a singer in a studio to record a song written by a pro writer and played by studio musicians. Except now, it was the vision of the solo songwriter/singer, not the producer, I was interested in.
And so it has remained all these years. I seek out music by the best songwriters, sung in the "best" way (best having nothing to do with range, pitch control, etc.), and accompanied by the best musicians. All my current music acquisitions are albums by solo artists, not groups. My favorite songwriters are rarely a member of a group/band, my favorite singers rarely in a group/band. If the songwriter and/or singer in a group was a "better" writer or singer, he wouldn’t need to be in a group. Ironically, all the result of The Band---the ultimate group!
