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

There are people who still, fifty years after it’s release on July 1st, 1968, don’t get what all the fuss made about The Band’s debut album, Music From Big Pink, is all about. I understand; I didn’t until a whole year later. It took me that long to figure out "What the heck IS this?" I didn’t get it AT ALL (I had just turned 18, and was still a boy ;-). Here’s what some people who did had to say about it at the time of it’s release:

Al Kooper: "Music From Big Pink is an event and should be treated as one. There are people who will work their whole lives away in vain and not touch it." Eric Clapton admitted as much when, while inducting them into The Rock ’n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, said "I was relieved in a way when they ended. I no longer had to live with the fact that I was not in The Band." Eric had gone to West Saugerties, NY (the town the Big Pink house, not far from Woodstock, was located) after being played Music From Big Pink by George Harrison (whereupon Eric immediately disbanded Cream), intending to ask to join The Band. He never got up the courage, and eventually realized they neither desired nor required his services ;-).

Speaking of George Harrison, during the January 2, 1969 sessions for what became The Beatles sad Get Back/Let It Be album and film (which are painful, for me at least, to listen to and/or watch), he played a new song of his for the boys, "All Things Must Pass" (which we eventually heard on George’s debut album). The song was originally written to be performed in a country-prayer style, which George later said he had imagined as sung by Band drummer Levon Helm.

During the fade-out at the end of The Beatles live performance of "Hey Jude" filmed at Twinkerham Film Studios on September 4th, 1968 and later shown on The David Frost TV show, McCartney quotes lyrics from The Band’s "The Weight" (an indescribably great song), singing "Take a load off Fanny...".

Greil Marcus, in his 1975 book Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ’n’ Roll Music, wrote: "The richness of Big Pink is in The Band’s ability to contain endless combinations of American popular music without imitating any of them." The Band’s recordings made with Dylan in the basement of Big Pink in 1967 (now known as The Basement Tapes, The Band at the time as The Hawks) are now viewed as the genesis of what is known as Americana music. Ironic, then, that all but drummer Levon Helm are Canadians, recruited one-by one by Arkansas Rockabilly Ronnie Hawkins during his years playing clubs and bars in Canada in the late-50’s/early 60’s.

It’s hard to overstate the impact Music From Big Pink had on musicians of my generation. Everyone I knew, most especially myself, had to start all over, learning to play in the "musical" style of The Band. Gone were the Les Paul’s and Gibson SG’s into Marshall stacks, and double-kick drumsets with half-a-dozen cymbals, replaced with Telecasters into small combo amps (the Fender Deluxe Reverb a particular favorite), and 4-piece drumsets (tuned low and "thumpy", like Levon) with a couple of cymbals. Gone were the long solos and earbleed-inducing volume. In was ensemble playing, great songs, and harmony singing. Workingman’s Dead is an obvious attempt at being The Band (sabotaged by The Grateful Dead’s member’s inability to sing very well), as is Neil Young’s Harvest.

I still listen to Music From Big Pink EVERY SINGLE DAY, and have for years. Music simply does not get any better than this. There is a new, remixed and mastered (mixed by Bob Clearmountain, mastered by Bob Ludwig) release of the album by Capitol on 2-45RPM LP’s and CD, as well as a deluxe boxset with a nice book, prints of pictures taken of The Band by Elliott Landy in 1968, a Blu Ray 24/96 disc of the album, both the LP’s and CD, and a 7" 45 of The Band’s first single, "The Weight"/"I Shall Be Released". If you don’t have the album and want to, I would suggest you get the current Mobile Fidelity LP or SACD instead of this new version. I’m not yet sure about the remix.

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jafant's avatar
jafant
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Much Thanks! bdp24


Happy Listening!
tostadosunidos's avatar
tostadosunidos
1,197 posts
 
All impact and influence aside, MFBP is just a great album that never grows old for me. Whereas Hendrix sounded as if he had just stepped off a spaceship, the Band sounded as if they had just stepped out of a time machine.  The second half of the 60's was an absolutely glorious time for pop music.  I feel privileged to have experienced so much of it as it happened.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24 OP
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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!

bdp24's avatar
bdp24 OP
9,947 posts
 

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.

jriggy's avatar
jriggy
565 posts
 
“Workingman’s Dead is an obvious attempt at being The Band (sabotaged by The Grateful Dead’s member’s inability to sing very well)”

Youre flat wrong here...  blanket statements like that about the Dead never fly. 

The Dead did not try to be anyone but themselves. And they state themselves that it was the harmonizing of CSN that was brought in being friends with Stills and Crosby bringing in the knolage of the voice as an instrument; which is what helped pull them away from pure improvisation. If it was The Band, they would of done it a year and a half earlier; look at what they were doing all through ‘68 and ‘69. I think it’s safe to say they were not phased by The Band at that time. It was their own move out to Mickey’s ranch land and the new wealth of lyrics from the Jerry and Robert Hunter pairing influenced by that, not to mention the Bakersfield sound they were after, and also not to mention that is was actually more a return to their roots as a country, blues and R&B band, with Jerry and Pigpen’s roots....
 And besides that, how can you not hear any soul in the vocals on Workingman’s Dead? That reminds me of a more recent statement by Dave Grohl, rightfully complaining about all these singing comparison shows making people think they have to sing perfectly or they plain just don’t sound good or capable.

You obviously know your stuff...but the point here is watchout for confimation bias. That statement about the Dead’s vocals may be your opinion but it stops there. There was never anything ‘obvious’ about the Dead other than pure musical creativity.
Putting down something to promote or put something else on a pedestal is never a good idea :) 

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