The first live music I saw and heard (apart form my first concert in the Summer of ’64: The Beach Boys at The San Jose Civic Auditorium, with Brian Wilson still playing bass and singing lots of falsetto parts) was in the wake of the British Invasion. Like every other town in America, there was a group practicing in a garage on every suburban street in the Santa Clara Valley starting in late’64/early ’65.
That Spring and Summer, those San Jose garage bands started playing out, and I saw them all: The Chocolate Watchband, People, The Syndicate Of Sound, The Trolls/Stained Glass (they changed their name when they went from a quartet to a trio), The Jaguars, The Otherside, dozens of others. When I saw The Beatles at The Cow Palace in S. San Francisco that Summer, I was slightly underwhelmed and disappointed.
We all got heavily into The Yardbirds, Kinks, Stones, Animals, Manfred Mann, etc., the harder, Bluesier British bands. Then the debut Paul Butterfield Blues Band album came out, and the bar had been raised. The American musicians in Paul’s band were much more authentic Blues players than the Brits (and Paul had Howlin’ Wolf’s drummer and bass player!).
But then Fresh Cream and Are You Experienced appeared, and our little teenage minds were blown. Cream lead us to John Mayall’s first (we had learned after the fact that Clapton was the guitarist on the album), then his second (with Peter Green taking Clapton’s place), which was even better. When we learned The Stumble was originally done by some guy named Freddie King, we headed backwards, to discover the sources.
By that time Bill Graham had started putting on shows at a big old cavernous ballroom in the "Negro" section of San Francisco, the Fillmore district. He brought some of the old Blues guys out of retirement, having them open for the white kids who were imitating them. Let me tell ya, seeing them live was a real education.
In the Summer of ’68 Music From Big Pink appeared, and I didn’t get it AT ALL. I didn’t like the fact that the smartest guys I knew loved the album, but oh well. Life went on, and I discovered The Nice (Keith Emerson’s pre-ELP group)---whom I saw at The Fillmore, Procol Harum (good live), even Vanilla Fudge (I’m embarrassed to admit ;-). Early in ’69 a non-musician I knew said there was an album by a new group that was great. I listened to it in the school library, and instantly detested it. It was the debut Led Zeppelin. Nothing more than fake, corny, Blues cliche’ posturing. I was embarrassed to be white.
Then in the Summer of ’69 my teenage band opened for The New Buffalo (drummer Dewey Martin the only remaining member of Buffalo Springfield, with Bobby’s brother Randy Fuller on bass and harmony vocals), and as I watched and listened to them play and sing, I became confused, disturbed. I could not understand why, though none of the four members seemed to be doing much, they sounded SO good. All of a sudden I had an epiphany: all became clear, and in a rush I understood what The Band was all about. EVERYTHING had changed in an instant.
It’s not that I don’t "like" Cream: they are what they are. Clapton has said that upon hearing Music From Big Pink for the first time (he became obsessed with the album), his reaction was: "Music had been headed in the wrong direction for a long time. When I heard MFBP, I thought: Well, someone has finally got it right." Once again, and this time on the deepest level, the game had been completely changed.
