The Band attained their hallowed position in rock history more by their recordings than their live performances, though their fearless accompaniment of Bob Dylan on his 1966 world tour earned them more than a little respect from the Nobel Laureate himself (in at least one interview he described them as ‘gallant knights’).
But it was the haunting simplicity of 1968’s Music From Big Pink (released 7/1/68) that caused ripples throughout the cognoscenti of the times. Musicians including Eric Clapton and George Harrison regarded it as a benchmark of a new aesthetic, in contrast to the au courant psychedelia of the times in all its tie-dyed glory.
Over a half-century hindsight confirms this earthy, soulful debut of The Band’s as the most mysterious rock and roll album in history (or at least a close second next to the almost equally cryptic effort by their mentor, John Wesley Harding). What’s most enlightening in retrospect is that the LP’s most famous songs, “Chest Fever” and “The Weight,” are not really its best.
While both tracks boast distinctive arrangements–the first an ear-widening intro by keyboardist Garth Hudson, the second a carousel of distinctly different lead vocalists in the persons of Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Richrd Manuel–Robbie Robertson’s lyrics sound like the work of a novice songwriter still processing the most surreal work of The Bard From Minnesota (whose rudimentary painting festooned the front cover).
Now, while that’s not all that surprising, given the mutual admiration between the two, it doesn’t excuse muddled imagery suggesting the Canadian still hadn’t transcended the influence. The words aren’t nearly so emotionally evocative as the late keyboardist/vocalist’s “In A Station” or “We Can Talk” and “Lonesome Suzie” is even more poignant.
Nor does the admittedly brilliant guitarist’s verbiage effectively conjure the dreamscapes (nightmares?) that arise from “This Wheel’s On Fire,” co-authored by Dylan and the late bassist/vocalist. Manuel and his famous Woodstock neighbor together wrote the plaintive “Tears Of Rage” and it’s hardly any less heartrending than “I Shall Be Released,” composed by the latter alone.
Compared to that aforementioned pair of Robertson compositions, all these numbers are more stylistically inventive in melding strains of gospel, country and blues. Meanwhile, the poetic clarity of each also surpasses Robbie’s verbal exercises. The man’s guitar work, however, is something else again, the essence of restraint as he eschews lengthy solos, as pithy and to the point on “Caledonia Mission” as other arrangements producer John Simon helped to economize (in part by his own playing on some!).
In the end, while Music From Big Pink may have most vividly evoked a time gone by, it was an almost wholly imagined past, one neither The Band nor their listeners could wholly recognize, much less one in which either party could readily picture themselves. As a point of comparison this epochal debut’s followup, The Band, is a much more literal-minded and conventional in terms of its historical vision as well as its musicianship (the tightly-knit latter belies how the five members of the group often switched off their customary instruments).
It’s little wonder, then, that the LP that’s come to be known as ‘The Brown Album’ is much more widely-recognized than its predecessor. Or that subsequent records by The Band, like Stage Fright, had much more in common with it; the quintet effectively demystified itself in the ensuing years, mostly through its live performances–where they could be diffident to a fault on stage–but also through conflicts that arose within its ranks (attention to which increased as the years went by).
After a move from Woodstock, New York to California, coincidental with their much-ballyhooed reunion tour with Dylan in 1974, the next year’s Northern Lights Southern Cross to a great degree recreated the wondrous enigmas that populated the fivesome’s first record. But the generally positive critical response exceeded that with which the buying public greeted that effort and both responses were overshadowed with the next year’s announcement of the Band’s cessation of touring.
Commensurate with the aptly-named final concert, The Last Waltz, there was some dissension within the ranks concerning that decision. The escalation of the internecine rancor, particularly between Helm and Robertson, rent the unity that was indispensable to the success of the ensemble’s early days backing Ronnie Hawkins, their support of Dylan and the first two longplayers.
With much of the world in flux, at the time of the respective records’ original releases roughly a half-century ago, each LP in its own way presented the means of dealing with the global instability. But the inside cover photos of Music From Big Pink were as symbolic of The Band’s confoundingly anonymous persona as the changing times: one b&w shot pictures the group itself, dwarfed by a Catskill mountain range in the background, while the other in color finds the five intermingled with with their families, connoting values of lasting bonds in contrast to the questioning of same within the counterculture of the era.
The deceptive level of knowing acceptance that permeates Music From Big Pink is testament to the near-mystical wisdom. And at the source of its quietude is The Band’s deep-rooted grasp of the history behind the music they were making. Even now, over fifty years since it came out, the record’s tranquility renders it an abiding, if somewhat fragile, source of gravity, all the more remarkable for the unaffected authenticity of its eclectic sound.
