Roger Waters and Graham Nash on The Band.

The last two posts by @winnardt and @2ndliner (great name!) perfectly encapsulate the reaction The Band evokes. Mine of course eventually (it didn’t happen at first) became exactly as that of 2ndliner: The Band were life-changing. For those to whom The Band’s allure remains a mystery (hype?!), I can empathize. They are like the Rorschach test ;-) .

2ndliner: I too considered Mitch Mitchell and Ginger Baker (as well as Keith Moon) my drumming role models in 1967-8 (I saw each of them live three times in those two years). By the time The Band’s second s/t (brown) album came out that was no longer the case. I didn’t see Keltner live until he was with Little Village, and never (unfortunately) saw Richie Hayward. Are you hip to Roger Hawkins? Fantastic! How about Jim Gordon? Harry Stinson? He’s in Marty Stuart’s band The Fabulous Superlatives. Best band in the world, and that’s not hype ;-) . Harry is also a 1st-call session singer in the Nashville studios.

The Band were given carte blanche to choose the opening act for their 1970 Hollywood Bowl show. What other Rock ’n’ Roll band would have gone with Miles Davis? Now THAT takes balls!

One last point: Up above @edcyn opines that the singing voices of The Band sound "choked and forced." Everyone is entitled to their own opinion; here is that of well-known Rock critic and writer Greil Marcus on The Band’s 1969 performance at Winterland : "Richard Manuel’s vocal on ’Tears Of Rage’ was probably the finest singing that has ever been heard at Winterland." And of drummer Jim Keltner: "Such a sweet soulful voice (referring to Levon). And Richard Manuel was the voice that sounded like it was coming straight from heaven."

How can the voices of Levon and Richard sound so different to edcyn than they do to Greil Marcus and Jim Keltner? That is a question for which I have no answer.

@tostadosunidos: I have a couple of Brinsley Schwarz recommendation for you, one being Dave Edmunds’ second album, Subtle As A flying Mallet. The last song on each album side is Edmunds backed by the BS band, performing a pair of Chuck Berry songs live in a pub in Wales. Very cool versions imo.

The album is also great in other ways. Edmunds is not a songwriter, and on his first two albums chose to record (mostlly) old songs, on some of them his ambition being nothing more than to reproduce them all by himself (he sings and plays almost all the parts).

That changed somewhat on his third album---Get It (maybe his best). On that album the songs are a mix of old (a dreamy version of Rogers & Harts’ "Where Or When") and new, with songs by contemporary songwriters such as Bob Seger (a killer version of "Get Out Of Denver"), Graham Parker, and Nick Lowe. Some members of Brinsley Schwarz play on the album.

@bdp24: Oh, come on.  You went to their show.  No one could hear the Beatles in concert, thanks to all the screaming girls.  It's why they quit playing live. 

@bdp24 - Yeah, Dave Edmunds is great - my first exposure to him was 'Saber Dance' - my favorite of his is 'Repeat When Necessary', but they're all good.

I loved seeing him with Rockpile, which I did a number of times. Last time I saw him must have been 20 years ago, doing a solo acoustic show....

Wonderful producer, too...

Also about Dave, I liked how a couple of my favorite artists gave Dave songs they'd not recorded that I think rank right up there with their very best; 'Crawlin' Through the Wreckage' by Graham Parker and 'Girls Talk' by Elvis Costello...