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Springsteen and Clapton on their favorite, heh, band.

I went and saw Once Were Brothers; Robbie Robertson And The Band in a theater early last year, and now tonight on a DVD at home. It is alternately both thrilling and irritating, but that’s not the point of this thread. If you don’t already know how very, very special The Band were, and the deep impact they made on Rock ’n’ Roll, here is what Bruce and Eric had to say about them in the film:

- Springsteen: "I think I was in a little coffee shop in Redbank, New Jersey. I kid came in with Music From Big Pink, put it on the sound system. And suddenly this music comes on, and everything changes."

- Clapton: "When I heard Big Pink, it was like someone had nailed me through my chest onto the wall. I was immediately converted. I thought ’This is what I want to do’. It changed my life."

Mine too.
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jasonbourne52's avatar
jasonbourne52
2,863 posts
 
+10 for The Band! I was listening to it in 1969! Still their best work!
bdp24's avatar
bdp24 OP
9,795 posts
 
The brown album contains more of what we think of as The Band "sound" and style. I complete understand preferring it to MFBP (I myself did for years), but the point of this thread is to celebrate the impact MFBP had on the musical community in 1968. And it’s not an exaggeration to say that in 1969 the brown album revolutionized Rock ’n’ Roll music, and in a more accessible way than had MFBP. MFBP is very sneaky! ;-)

Jim Keltner still marvels at Levon Helm’s drumming on MFBP, which is absolutely brilliant. The drumming on the brown album is also marvelous, about half the songs featuring pianist Richard Manuel on Levon’s Gretsch kit. Richard is a fantastically musical drummer, and a very witty, creative one. Yes, there is such a thing an witty musicianship.

I was completely consumed by the first two albums of both Cream and Hendrix at the time of MFBP’s release (June, 1968), and didn’t "get" The Band AT ALL. It wasn’t until a year after it’s release that I had evolved to the point where I was finally capable of doing so. When the brown album came out I was ready for it, and listened to it constantly for a coupla years, absorbing not just it's music and lyrics, but the lessons they had to teach.

The brown album made almost everything else irrelevant to me, including Cream and Hendrix. Clapton was so shaken by MFBP he told Jack & Ginger that he was done with Cream, traveled to West Saugerties (the town in which the Big Pink house is located), hanging out with The Band as he tried to get up the courage to ask them to invite him to join. In the film Eric says "I thought maybe they could use a rhythm guitarist or something." ;-)
edcyn
1,876 posts
 
I never warmed to The Band, this despite (or perhaps because) I must have heard the Big Pink LP thousands (okay, maybe only hundreds) of times at buddies' houses through the years. I went to a special pre-release screening of the movie, as well. To my ears they were whiny, forced and slow. Yeah, I know... Dem's fightin' words!
docknow
309 posts
 
I am lucky enough to be one of 106 people in the audience at an outdoor concert at Levon Helm's studio in Woodstock this weekend, celebrating what would have been his 81st birthday.  Chris Thile is fronting the "Midnight Ramble" band.  I have been listening to a lot of the The Band to prepare :).
bkeske's avatar
bkeske
5,597 posts
 
Richard Thompson and the rest of Fairport Convention were another totally floored by Big Pink when they first heard it, and also their 2nd LP. It was The Band’s music that lead Fairport to dig deeper into their own English folk music roots and mix it with rock. Just as The Band did with various American roots music. Fairport may have never became what they did without that influence.
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