"He got caught in the spot ... light!"

This band had almost the reverse fortunes of the band I (re)posted on a week ago*. Yet, they remain just as unforgettable.

(Read more ...)

They were just known as The Band. I bought their LP called, yes, "The Band" right after reading about them in Time magazine. This band made the cover of the periodical, as I recall, and I just went back to the newsstand/record store in our little town and used my Christmas money to buy it.

I never used to do that. I'd always listen for a song or two on the radio first, then wait for the hallway buzz on the album at school. The kids with older brothers and sisters might have gotten a copy just to hear what it was like, while I could not afford to be that reckless. I had to add to my collection with care, both for my "rep" and my wallet.

But this was different. You never heard of a hippie rock band getting this kind of article in a national magazine, unless it was the Beatles or the Stones or someone like that.

What was different? I found out when I dropped the needle on this disc. My jaw fell open. I could not believe it!

Here was Our Music -- the South's own music, the real thing, in a musical amalgam never heard before -- and I'd been listening! I was not familiar then with The Band's first LP, Music From Big Pink. I recall now thinking of the earlier record as what we would today call an "indie" release, although I don't recall the label it was on. "The Band" was The Band's first major-label recording (as I thought of it then), and there was just nothing like it.

A song from the LP was already on the radio, but I disliked it so much at first I just never sought out the name of the group who recorded it. "Up on Cripple Creek" is a cold classic -- I can't find words to describe it, exactly. You just have to hear it for yourself.

In the context of the LP, "Cripple Creek" made sense, and I learned to love it. Getting a song like that on the charts at all was a landmark accomplishment, even then. But The Band failed to repeat the enormous success of its first major LP.

Oddly, I read an article regarding the 30th anniversary of the LP in one of those home-recording magazines that claimed the members of The Band pretty much recorded The Band on their own. They, as I recall reading, did not like the treatment the got at the studio at which they recorded "Big Pink," and just did the next one on their own.

The follow up to The Band was a record called Stage Fright. Full of catchy tunes (part of the title song is playing in my head now, as referenced by this post's title, and I gave away the LP ages ago!), none of the songs caught on publicly, and I was the only kid in school who even knew about it. In retrospect, it sounded like a major-label record. So probably did the third record in the major-label series. I don't even recall the title. All I remember is recommending The Band (the band) to a friend. He bought that third LP with the name I've since forgotten, and he basically never spoke to me again. Apparently that LP was really bad. Maybe not. No one else I ever spoke with about music ever mentioned that third major-label LP. I do recall reading that the label spent some money on it, though.

As I mentioned re: U2, that band's third major-label LP was the mega-hit cultural bombshell War. It has the same iconic status as the LP The Band, but the people who laid it to tape it pretty much inverted U2's recording history, at least as I recall it now.

What's really odd is that The Band as a group created a sound that really no one I can think of has ever successfully imitated, while I can think of many bands that have borrowed ideas from U2. Not being a musician, my view on it is probably off-base. But I just have never heard anything like The Band since.

Why am I mentioning this now, after Monday's rather intense post? There's a song that (to me) offers healing on The Band that I can recommend. It's called "Whispering Pines."

Yes, it's an iTunes Plus offering. I checked. ;)

P.S.: I'm posting this post script he day after I posted the above. I had an opportunity to re-hear The Band album since, and it occurred to me that some kinder, gentler among you readers might be offended by some of the songs (Joan Baez covered "The Night They Drove ... " so feminists of her era were not offended, apparently). The context I referred to was lyrical: The Band crafted most of the songs with words from their (and my) grandparents' or even great-grandparents' generations. I think that's partly what made The Band seem so funny, and so touching, when I first heard it.

___

*I began the re-posting project while still on LJ, intermittently. A few days later I posted this: "Yes, I -do- realize a legendary record producer also worked on The Band's The Band. That's not all. The song that delivered the real impact for me as a teen was "Unfaithful Servant." It, like the song I have referred to on Pet Sounds that hit me hard, did so while I was -- it seems in retrospect -- unbelievably young. I bought the album in the winter of 1970, when I would have just turned 15. BTW, if you listen to the "crying" vocal chorus on "Unfaithful Servant" you may hear familiar harmonies from that other iconic recording.
I am probably speaking out of turn here, but it occurred to me many years ago that some of Robbie Robertson's songs from that era have well-defined characters, even with names: Fanny from "The Weight" (on Music from Big Pink) Molly from "Across the Great Divide" and Bessie from "Up on Cripple Creek." I've often wondered if these songs may form part of a story or stories. Hmmm ... .

LJ orig.: Jan. 7, 2009