Do you all agree when Prince said the 60s, 70s and 80s were the golden ages of music?

"But I really feel that different minds crave repetitive music or familiar vs. more complex or perhaps unfamiliar music"

Yes. . . 

"We are the oddballs of society that place a massive premium on making music the focus, not just a narration for our activities. I believe the audiophile brain has its reward system more wired into the auditory center than most, hence our musical appetite will tend to be broader than most.".

Richard Thompson dubbed the US a "culture-free zone". 

I really wish the moderators would simply remove any and all political references, here. 

What you mean is you wish they would remove everything you disagree with. Isn't that the way censorship always works? Somebody gets to decide what everyone else gets to think. Only reason you would suggest that is out of the arrogance that what they will decide we are okay to think is what you already think. In other words you want to be the one to decide. Only you won't come out and say it. So you pretend to believe in your moderated utopia. 

There's a reason that word literally means "no-where", you know?

Okay fellas, I listened to the band’s 1968 and 1969 LPG’s on YouTube. Being a Motown and jazz guy I wasn’t inspired by any of their tunes. And why were they playing previously published hit tunes by other rock artists? I didn’t find any reference to “jazz” artistic accomplishments. Simply classic rock. But hey, everyone’s got a different sense of what defines great music, and great musicians. At least give me some Carol King, who began as a songwriter of countless hits in New York. All simply my opinion.

Yes @coltrane1, The Band are too subtle for some listeners. They were for me, it taking me a year of listening to finally "get" Music From Big Pink. Perhaps you need to listen to them some more, or perhaps you, like some musicians I know, will never get them. No pejorative implications intended.

As for "previously published hit tunes", what the heck are ya talkin' bout? The s/t brown album contains 100% Band member composed songs. So does Music From Big Pink, with the exception of

1- "Tears Of Rage", co-written by Band pianist/singer Richard Manuel and Bob Dylan. Dylan rarely writes with anyone else, a sign of the respect he had for Manuel's songwriting talent.

2- "I Shall Be Released', written by Bob Dylan during the year (1967) he and The Band (then still known as The Hawks) spent recording publishing demos in the basement of Big Pink. They contributed to the development of the song, so imo have some right to consider it part of their original repertoire.

3- "Long Black Veil", recorded by Country & Western artist Left Frizzell (hardly a "Rock artist") long before The Band did. They included the song on MFBP for an artistic reason, the explaining of which would take up too much time and space.

So, of the 23 songs included in their first two albums, none was a "previously published hit tune by other Rock artists". I mean, unless you consider Lefty Frizzell a Rock artist, and "Long Black Veil" a "hit tune".