The Band - The Band
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Free Music Notes for The Band
Free Music Review: The Band
Hit: 5 Stars
Definately top 5 of all time. Everyone should be isued this recording when they are born--more important then diapers.Free Music Review: Desert Island Album
Hit: 5 Stars
Words can't do justice. I can't add anything to the tributes that others have provided, but neither can I leave this page without throwing in my personal "Amen." This is perhaps my favorite album of all time. I knew a couple of the songs from the Band's 70's hits package when I picked this one up. But -- surprise! -- those were probably the weakest songs on the album. I envy anyone the experience of picking this up for the first time and exploring all the "filler" tracks on here. The first notes of "Across the Great Divide" hooked me, and 30 years later I've found few musical experiences to match. My only caution to new purchasers might be -- well, it can't be quite the same experience on CD. Same incredible music, but this one was made to be an LP. This is one of the coolest looking albums ever. This is not an album to fit in a pocket.Free Music Review: If you could only have one . . . .
Hit: 5 Stars
If you could only own one Band album (which I hope never happens to you), this is probably the one. Actually, if you could only own one album by anybody, this one is pretty much up there too. For a band with three other essential albums (Music from Big Pink, Stage Fright, and Northern Lights - Southern Cross), The Band had to work pretty hard to earn it's place as the group's top recording. If you don't own this record, all I can say is "buy it as fast as you can." It's a classic, influential work of songwriting, playing, singing, and production genius as well as a portal from mainstream rock to the rockabilly, country, gospel, folk and blues that it synthesizes.
There's not one weak cut on this album--from the soulful, uptempo openers to the classic anthem "The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down," the back-porch "Rockin' Chair" and the heavenly funky "King Harvest," the album flows seamlessly from start to finish like some sort of time travel experiment in which somebody took a time machine to 1865 and brought rock and roll along with them. Guitarist Robbie Robertson's songwriting was never as consistently good--the songs range from narrative stories like "Dixie," and "Rockin' Chair," to more humorous stream-of-consciousness lyrics like "Across the Great Divide" and "Rag Mama Rag," as well as more oblique numbers like "Unfaithful Servant." Drummer Levon Helm and pianist Richard Manuel contribute as well on several numbers, notably "Jemima Surrender" (Helm) and the heartwrenching, soulful, "Whispering Pines" (Manuel).
What makes this album so classic is the combination of great songwriting with an unmatched blend of musical virtuosity and variety. Robbie Robertson's guitar is biting and original, full of between-vocal fills and pinched harmonics as well as some really resonant acoustic work. He's a master at understatement, usually eschewing solos for lead that supports the song as well as the vocalist while at the same time remaining oh-so wicked ("King Harvest" anybody?). Levon Helm's drumming is so fat it sounds like he's in the room with you, and his combination of heavy funk with the mostly folky music accounts for a large portion of this album's unique sound. Rick Danko has always been an underrated bassist, backing up Helm's funky drums with an equally funky bass bottom that grooves and gets deep at all the right moments. Richard Manuel's piano is solid, though he's easily outshone when Garth Hudson tears across the keys on songs like "Rag Mama Rag" and "Jemima Surrender." Hudson represents a one man musical army, unmatched in virtuosity--his unmistakable, agile Lowrey organ lines typified the Band's sound for their entire career, but he was also adept at playing pretty much any instrument he got his hands on, including melodica, clavinette, some of the raunchiest saxophone ever laid down on a rock record, trumpet and accordion. Most bands would have killed to get a musician like Hudson into their group, and his talents aren't wasted here, bringing class and jaw-dropping keyboard lines to the aforementioned tunes as well as "Look Out Cleveland."
The final ingredient to the other-worldly magic that makes up this album is the fact that The Band had three of the best vocalists of the early rock era, using them each as lead vocalists as well as backing singers in gorgeous harmony combinations that showcase each singer's unique vocal timbre. Levon Helm (lead on "Up On Cripple Creek"), the group's only American member, contributes the Southern flavor, soulfully croaking out lead vocals that evoke good times, the anguish of Confederate soldiers and some irreverent debauchery. Rick Danko's country-inflected vocals (lead on "Unfaithful Servant") crack with palpable emotion and provide the sugar-sweet, high-range harmonies on many of the tracks. Last and most impressively, Richard Manuel (lead on "Whispering Pines") possessed a truly priceless set of vocal chords, capable of deep, resonant power ("Jawbone"), unbelievable texture ("King Harvest") and a heavenly, bellowing falsetto that still makes my hair stand on end ("Whispering Pines"). These voices are the stuff dreams are made of, and they rotate back and forth, showcasing each singer's talents and deftly matching each singer with the song he sings.
I also have to mention John Simon's production--this record feels and sounds so organic, like everything is happening live in a small room. The texture is so clear and rich, and the record's woody, thick low-end still rocks and grooves just as hard as the Band wanted it to when they originally recorded this gem.
The bonus tracks on this album aren't truly essential, except maybe the studio take of "Get Up Jake," a live favorite. Instead, they mostly help prolong the magic, providing slightly different alternate takes that reveal different vocal nuances and less polished products along with a window into the Band's creative process.
This record is so good I can't recommend it enough, truth be told. It influenced so many other artists and still sounds so fresh and unique today that it really is a must-own album that belongs in your collection to be heard, reheard, and treasured for years and years to come.
Free Music Review: Half of a superlative double CD
Hit: 5 Stars
Enough has been written, and some of it with an eloquence that is to literature and history as the music is to its musical context. Greil Marcus was amongst those shouting from the rooftops when the music first surfed the waves, and I read him for his wowing erudition and historic reach. I know the time and place where I first heard 'Jemima Surrender', and 'When You awake', for instance. And there aren't too many moments like that in a life. People argue about the relative merits of the two albums, The Brown and The Big Pink (with its anonymous looking cover and a bit of Bob naif painting on the cover). I don't seperate them. There's a slightly rockier feel to the numbers here. But the atmospherics are, unsurprisingly, similar. I've always preferred the aching isolation of,'Whispering Pines' over the more biblically inclined,'I Shall Be released' for the haunting Manuel vocals; but what a pathetic quibble. With tragic prescience, he teeters on the rim of flighty transience and earthly entrapment. Helm's command of 'The Night of Old Dixie' and with Manuel,'King Harvest' replete with righteous indignation are absolutely thrilling. Was there ever a more desperate tone in rock than Manuel's in this disturbing utterance of Union disenchantment? These songs, Rag Mama Rag, Rockin' Chair etc. are those I coached my eldest daughter with and the fruit is in our choral joys on car trips and around the campfire, for as long as we both exist. Whatever, if you were compiling your own greatest Band double CD, you'd be hard put to exclude any from these CDS. I did this, having read Barney Hoskins rather jaundiced bio on The Band(in that he shared the opinion of Helm about Robertson, it seems), and followed his lead with a compilation. A bit of Stagefright ('Daniel', 'Masterpiece','Life is a Carnival' and the paranoia of 'Stagefright' itself)),'Arcadian Driftwood' and 'It Makes No Difference' from Islands get a guernsey. There are other things that lesser bands would settle for. But not after these crescendo moments. I rate 'Moondog Matinee' up there too, to the point of not pirating a thing or spoiling its integrity. Again, Manuel's brilliant rendition of Sam Cooke's,'River' is an angelic achievement and never fails to move me. And the cover art? (setting the template for a host of country rock American bands of the 70s as well as their musical agenda: the complete retro parody being The Eagles,'Desperado'). The lads (and there's a host of others from the shoot that have turned up over the reisssues) looked to have freshened up for some Matthew Brady Civil War reportage, which cleverly twinned with the archaic musical themes. How my mother re coiled when I set about rummaging the thrift stores for 30s and 40s cast-offs from deceased estates, in a painful effort to mimick my heroes.Free Music Review: 5 Stars is not enough. 10 Stars is not enough.
Hit: 5 Stars
I enjoyed the review that likened this ridiculously brilliant album to prog rock. I'd be more likely to call it roots and Americana rendered as chamber music, but the idea is the same.
The vocal harmonies are at once barnyard and equisite. The group interplay is spacious and telepathic. And for about 3 or 4 years JR Roberstson hit a high that few American songwriters can rival.
My favorites? When You Awake, Whispering Pines, Unfaithful Servant, Jawbone, and King Harvest (Has Surely Come), for starters, and I'm aware that I've overlooked the two legendardy classic rock staples that the album produced.
After listening to this album, it's a little hard to swallow the loss of Richard Manual, isn't it? My goodness, what a singer.