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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.

bdp24
bdp24's avatar
bdp24 OP
10,201 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
566 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 :) 

bdp24's avatar
bdp24 OP
10,201 posts
 

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.

jriggy's avatar
jriggy
566 posts
 
Well, like I said, you certainly know your stuff, more than me —and obviously prefer vocal perfection. The Dead have never been in the running for ‘best’ vocals on any album comparison ever. And they’ll tell you straight up they were never top notch singers, so the comparison is an odd one to me. Like comparing a $200 steak dinner to my personal best home grilled steak dinner party for friends. But youre right, I’ll take the human and imperfect raw improvisational creatively over a perfectly composed show every time. I’m one of the ones that senses a loss of something within perfection, and am catigoricly into instrumentation over vocals, so I am not hard on people for using their own god given voice to bring their art to others...  

There are also many time in the history of music —and art in general— where artist simultaneously reach up into the great-creative-collective in the sky, without knowledge or influence of the other. Picasso and Braque is an interesting example, as well as some blues, metal and even punk examples of the collective consciousness.

Anyway, good read and good stuff here. I just disagree with using the Dead as a vocals comparison (to anybody—lol), and they’ve always been honest and forthcoming about their influences. 

ranjan
35 posts
 
I had the pleasure of seeing The Band in a small night club in Jacksonville, Fla. in the early 90s while they were promoting the “Jericho” album. Robbie was no longer with the group and obviously Richard had passed. I can recall standing 20 feet from Levon while he sang “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and Rick Danko when he sang “Stagefright”. I’m still in awe that I was able to be so close to legends that I grew up listening to. The Band was something very special. Their music still put a big smile on my face.
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