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.
