These albums go together. If you buy one, you must buy the other, simple as that. IMHO they never did better than these two initial recordings. Everything you need to know about The Band is here.
They had a previous life of course, starting out as the backing group for Ronnie Hawkins and so named, obviously, The Hawks. After leaving Hawkins they went through a few name changes - The Levon Helm Sextet, Levon and the Hawks, The Canadian Squires (wow!). When Dylan heard of them and signed them up as his backing group, they were always just referred to generically as the band, lower case even though they were essentially still The Hawks. They had the distinction of backing Dylan on his controversial 1966 tour and were famously at the Manchester Free Trade Hall on the night of May 17th. Following an acoustic first half, Dylan went into his electric set. After a rousing version of 'Ballad of a Thin Man' during the silence between songs someone in the audience shouted 'Judas'. Dylan responded "I don't believe you. You're a liar". He turned to the band and said "Play it fucking loud!" and they burst into a wild and heavy 'Like A Rolling Stone'. I must admit, I've had a recording of that show for many years, firstly on bootleg editions and then when it was released officially and I always hear it as him saying 'Get fucking loud', but I'll bow to public opinion and go with the standard quote.
Anyhooow, after the tour, fate took a hand. Dylan was injured in a motorcycle accident (subject to all sorts of conspiracy theories, right up there with the 'Paul is Dead' stuff) and he went into a long low-key period. The Hawks were playing bars and for a while were backing ... wait for it ... Tiny Tim !!. In 1967 Dylan suggested they get together and 3 members of The Hawks rented a house in Saugerties NY. Named 'Big Pink' because of the colour of the sidings the basement of this house has become a shrine to Dylan and Band fans alike. It was where the much bootlegged and much revered 'Basement Tapes' were recorded. Not officially released until 1975 when some of the tracks were published on a double album, it wasn't until 2014 that the full sessions were made available. That didn't stop some 'unauthorised' recordings circulating and some of the songs recorded at Big Pink appeared on records by a variety of people. Just think of Manfred Mann's 'Quinn the Eskimo', 'This Wheel's on Fire' by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trinity and the Byrds version of 'You Ain't Goin' Nowhere'.
Looking for their own identity after being tied with Hawkins and then Dylan as a backing group, the Hawks needed a new name. After "The Honkies" and "The Crackers" were rejected by their record company, they decided to go with what they'd been referred to throughout the Dylan tour and so officially became "The Band", this time in uppercase letters.
Even though they were branching out to become an entity in their own right, their association with Dylan didn't end there. When they put together their first album 'Music From Big Pink' 3 of the 11 tracks were either wholly or partly Dylan compositions. In fact Dylan offered to be on the album but then had second thoughts, letting the group do their own thing. He did get some involvement though, he painted the original artwork used for the album. Perhaps wanting to add even more of himself, he painted 6 musicians on the cover when in fact the band only had 5 members. Hmm.
When I started by saying these two albums tell you everything you need to know, I didn't mean to discourage the adventurous amongst you from digging deeper. If you want a live experience, with influential guests and a wide range of music then you can't go past the 1978 release 'The Last Waltz'. The album is a soundtrack to the documentary of the concert by Martin Scorsese. Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Clapton, Dr. John .. the list goes on. It was a 'farewell' concert, but as with a lot of 'farewell' concerts, the artists tend to bounce back at some point. For The Band, this point was 17 years later in 1993 when they released 'Jericho'. They were missing Robbie Robertson from the line-up and Richard Manuel had committed suicide. Stan Stelest had been brought in on keyboards but died of a heart attack, so by the time the album was put together it was a bit of a pastiche, with some tracks featuring players who had passed. There were two or three original compositions but the majority of songs were covers, a Dylan, a Springsteen, Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon. I thought it was rather sad and a bit desperate to have a painting of the Big Pink house as the album cover. By this time Big Pink was just a memory.
This wasn't the first album of covers they'd done. 1973's 'Moondog Matinee' was ALL covers, Chuck Berry's 'Promised Land', Junior Parker's 'Mystery Train' and weirdly, an instrumental of the 'Third Man Theme'.
Although they never had a hit single, in fact they didn't even get into the top 20 anywhere, their material is instantly recognised and enjoyed. As soon as the strains of these songs are heard, the world sings along.
"Virgil Kane is my name
And I served on the Danville train .."
or this chorus
"Up on Cripple Creek, she sends me
If I spring a leak, she mends me"
and of course
"I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead
I just need some place where I can lay my head".
Forget any greatest hits or best of compilations, as I said at the top .."These albums go together. If you buy one, you must buy the other, simple as that."
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