The Band - The Band
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Free Music Notes for The Band
Free Music Review: Listn To Those Wispering Pines....Hear The Storys They Tell
Hit: 5 Stars
How do you write a review for one of rock music's true masterpieces? You simply can't. Yes Big Pink broke new ground, but this baby just brims over with an honest-to-goodness approach to Robbie Robertson's greatest songwriting. I mean does it get any better than Dixie Dowm, Rockin' Chair, Cripple Creek and King Harvast?...Then there's Rag Mama Rag, Look Out Cleveland and Jaw-Bone!!!....But wait how about Jemima Surrender, Unfaithful Servant and When You Awake?...Talk about "hitting their sride"!!! The Band simply put this one down so pure, so honest and true, that even they couldn't improve upon it.
This self titled second album and known most often as simply the "Brown Album" never grows old....It's never sounded dated or false...And one thing is certain, you know Robbie Robertson's sympathetic characters will make you either smile or laugh out loud. They can even make you cry. They're all so real. Real people who toil to work the land. Rebel soldiers defeated but still proud and brave, petty thieves with a sense of right and wrong and run-away slaves contrite for their "crime" yet determined none the less. Robbie Robertson put all these characters together from his years on the road with The Band. And The Band put a whole lot of the road into the music here. There's a bushell full of memories inside these old grooves....Just listen.....Hear those Wispering Pines....Hear the storys they tell, feel the pain and the joy. Relive the days and think back to a simplier time.
Free Music Review: One of the Best Albums EVER
Hit: 5 Stars
When the Band recorded this in 1969 the Band had already recorded a masterpiece, Music From Big Pink. This album takes the Americana concept a step further. The album is overflowing with music drenched in Americana and rock. And the lyrics in this album are absolutely amazing. They are up to par with the master, Bob Dylan. They are all about people, places and different times. The album is about the average man. It is a concept album lyrically and musically. Following is a song by song review.
1. Across the Great Divide - 9 out of 10. This song is a great song to start the album. Very Happy and fun lyrics.
2. Rag Mama Rag - 10 out of 10. This song is fantastic. The way the mandolin and the fiddle are used in this song. This is a great example of the Band not being afraid to use different instruments in a rock song.
3. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - 10 out of 10. This is one of the best songs on the record. The drumming and piano parts are powerful and the lyrics on the civil war are some of the best Robbie Robertson ever wrote.
4. When you awake - 9 out of 10. This song is one of my favorites and I think the guitar really holds this song together. This song has a great chorus and hook filled verses.
5. Up On Cripple Creek - 10 out of 10. This is one of the Bands best known songs. Absolutely awesome chorus and it is a classic.
6. Whispering Pines - 5 out of 10. This is the only song on the record that I don't like. It has no hook and has uninteresting lyrics.
7. Jeminia Surrender - 10 out of 10. This song is just a rocker fun lyrics. Who doesn't like that?
8. Rockin' Chair - 9 out of 10. This song has really great lyrics and really cool instrumentation. When a song this great isn't the best song on the album you know it's a really great album.
9. Look out Clevland - 10 out of 10. Another really cool rocker. Robertson's guitar and Danko's bass really hold down this song down.
10. Jawbone - 9 out of 10. This song has a couple of musical shifts in it. It is one of the only ones written by Richard Manuel on the whole album. It is also very cool lyrically.
11. Unfaithful Servant - 9 out of 10. This slow tune if filled with great lyrics and a really cool horn section. The guitar part by Robertson is also really great.
12. King Harvest (Has Surely Come) - 10 out of 10. This song is one of the highlights of the record. The lyrics are great and the instruments really bring this song together. The vocals are also great. This song is a great end to the great album.
This album is one of the great albums of the greatest musical decade ever. And if you want a treat you should try and find the take of "Get Up Jake" that the Band recorded for this album.
Free Music Review: The Band's greatest album
Hit: 5 Stars
A whole pile of great albums came out in 1969, and this is up there with every one of them. A bunch of powerful slices of Americana like the trucker's anthem Up on Cripple Creek (which is damned FUNKY - listen to that synthesizer! It's so cool!! AND it's my pick for the best Band song), the gentle, swaying anthem The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, with an enormously catchy sing-along chorus and very vivid imagery; the down-and-out Great Depression worker's anthem King Harvest (Has Surely Come), which is an awesome folk song; and the backwoods jam Rag Mama Rag, which is just pure, joyous, unbridled fun. You know what else is fun? I'll tell you. Across the Great Divide, Jemima Surrender and Look Out Cleveland. Great, GREAT songs with great, GREAT vocals, solid melodies, and fun piano parts. Love 'em both. They also tackle weightier songs quite well, with two unbeatable ballads: the haunting classic Whispering Pines and more underrated When You Awake. I've seen the latter of the two criticized a bit, but I like it very much - it's not one of the album's absolute highs, but it's not an unbearable piece of crap either. And the vocals are very strong, very chilling, etc. Now, it's not without its tiny little faults - I'm not a fan of Rocking Chair, its nostalgic lyrics strike me as being close to parody ("Ragtime Willie"? Come now, Robbie, you can write some GREAT lyrics, but this isn't an example...). But that's one loser out of a bunch of winners. Easily my favorite Band album. Easily.Free Music Review: THE Band
Hit: 5 Stars
With 3 Lead vocalists, that played more than half a dozen instruments between them. A lead guitarist and songwriter of the highest quality, and a multi-intrumentalist/keyboard player The Band were, and still remain quite unique to this day.
This album still sounds completely original now. In 1969 it would have been from another planet. Everybody was into acid and anti-establishment, Flower Power, Hendrix psychedelia were hip then. The Band went backwards and embraced a bit of country, Ragtime, Gospel and Rock N Roll of course.
Highlights - well the only only minor hit single they ever had "Rag Mama Rag" is a track that demonstrates their versitilty. Rick Danko (the usual bass player) is playing fiddle, theres some fiendish Piano Playing from Garth Hudson and virtually everybody is playing something different from usual.
The other well known track is The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (which sounds as though it was written in the 19th Century). This was covered by Joan Baez. However, my favourite is probably King Harvest (has Surely Come). Richard Manuels lead vocal is anguished, Robbies guitar solo, brilliant but understated. If you've seen the classic albums program on this album you'll understand.
Believe it or not this album influenced Eric Clapton and Elton John. Hard to believe. When Clapton first heard this record he stopped wanting to be a guitar hero and wanted to get back to writing quality songs. Listen to Elton Johns Tumbleweed Connection album and it reeks of the first two Band records (and its a great album in its own right).
Sadly Richard Manuel committed suicide in 1986, and Rick Danko died in the 1990's. We will never see The Band perform again in its original line-up and to me this is as sad as The Beatles never performing again after the famous roof-top concert. Thats how good these guys were. This album remains an essential purchase 37 years after it was released.
Free Music Review: Music from the poolhouse
Hit: 5 Stars
The Unfaithful Servant, King Harvest (Has Surely Come) are among the best songs ever written in the 60's. Amazingly this album was recorded in Sammy Davis Jr's poolhouse. Again, like Big Pink reissue, the bonus tracks are totally unnecessary.