Springsteen and Clapton on their favorite, heh, band.

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!

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 :).

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.

Speaking of the influence the brown album had on The Band's contemporaries:

I went to my local Barnes & Noble this afternoon to return the copy of the new John Hiatt/Jerry Douglas LP I received in the mail yesterday. Even before opening the flimsy shipping carton I could see there was a problem: the carton exhibited a severe dish-warp, so bad that there was no way the LP could be flat.

But I of course opened the carton, and not only was the LP warped, but whomever pulled the album from the rack in the B & N warehouse grabbed it by the corner of the cover, causing the cover to bend and crease around the perimeter of the LP. Cretin!

I intended to have the store order me a replacement copy (it's a B & N exclusive version of the LP: the cover is signed by John and Jerry, and the LP is pressed of black and charcoal vinyl, kinda cool), but it just so happens they had a copy in their small LP island rack, in perfect condition.

Anyway, back to The Band. After exchanging LP's, I went over to the magazine racks to see what was new. There was a new issue of Uncut with Dylan on the cover, and a bunch of pages inside devoted to him. There was also a new Mojo Magazine with Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young on the cover, the story on them inside devoted to the 50th anniversary of the Deja Vu album.

I for some reason never much cared for the album, and hadn't seen a pic of them in years. This picture really caught my attention: it was sepia-hued, and Stills was wearing a Confederate soldier uniform. That reminded me that the original album had a brown textured cover, very reminiscent of The Band's brown album cover, released a year before Deja Vu. A Confederate soldier uniform, like that Virgin Caine of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" would certainly have worn? What a coincidence!

Another UK band who mimicked The Band was Brinsley Schwartz; Nick Lowe has stated they were trying to be the UK The Band, failing miserably in that effort. Everybody musician I knew completely changed his approach to making music in the wake of the brown album. Guitarists ditched their Les Paul's and Marshall stacks, replacing them with Telecasters and small combo amps (the Fender black-face Deluxe Reverb being a favorite, along with the 1950's tweed Bassman), Drummers sold their second bass drum and extra toms---returning to playing a simple 4-pc kit, and tuned the drums low and dead, to get Levon's "thumpy" sound. Being English and having the "Rock Star" look was out, being American (or Canadian ;-) and looking working-class was now cool.

Of course, this was all happening on an underground, cult level. In the real world Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were what normal people were listening to, along with all the Progressive bands my kind had no use for or interest in. 

The Brown Album was the record where Robbie Robertson took control of the group.  You can hear it.


Stephen Stills was an army brat who grew up in a number of places, but primarily the Florida panhandle.  Confederate trappings were common place in that part of the country.  Further regarding Stills, MFBP was released in July, 1968 which is the same month the final Buffalo Springfield album came out.  Buffalo Springfield was an interesting mixture of rock, country and folk.  And let's not forget The Byrds.  "The Notorious Byrd Brothers" and "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" both were released in 1968.  I bring these up because you're making it sound as if The Band came out of nowhere with a unique sound.  They were one of several groups experimenting with rock and country sounds.  I mean Bob Dylan went to Nashville in 1966 to record "Blonde On Blonde".  I would also like to direct your attention to another 1968 release, this one from the Electric Flag,  "Along Time Comin'".  Combing rock, r&b, blues and soul in many ways it parallels MFBP as a roots oriented album.  1968 was an amazing year for music.