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

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.