Comments on: Music from Big Pink

By: malcolm

malcolm — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 04:23:54 +0000

Oh, and as as an afterthought, I would love to talk about Greil Marcus and Lester Bangs and R. Melzer, and Robot C. Hull and Dave Altman…I will stop now.

By: malcolm

malcolm — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 04:21:48 +0000

After all these years I still have trouble admitting that I wasn’t on board with The Band from the beginning. In 1968, if ValuMart didn’t carry it, you had to travel to Seattle get a record like “Big Pink.” But to be honest, “The Weight” struck me as a tad bit corn-pone. I would come to “Wheels on Fire” on the Byrds first post Sweetheart of the Rodeo album and think that I had discovered Dylan’s great lost song. What a bonehead, especially after hearing Garth Hudson’s fucking goth-rocking intro to Chest Fever. Forty-plus years later and I’m still kicking myself. But when Levon lit into Rag Mama Rag on “The Band” album I was hooked for freaking ever. I think the beauty of our coming of age was that we can remember where we were when we first heard “Good Vibrations,” “Foxy Lady,” “Rosalita,” “Political Science,” “Beat on the Brat,” “Wild Horses,” “What’s Goin’ On” et al. Whatever we call rock ‘n’ roll today is better than ever, but there is too fucking much to absorb. Just think, you and I can probably name a song and talk about what we were doing on that day, at that moment we fell in love with the music, over and over again. It is a gift I would love to give to my girls. Nice recollection.

By: Pat shipley

Pat shipley — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:21:58 +0000

With all respect to Dave, only eleven? It does get a little interactive when you have to do a high kick along with Van Morrison in his sequined jump suit, join Levon in saying “I thought we weren’t gonna talk about it ” when the female companionship aspects of life on the road were discussesd, the famous Scorcese cinematic development of the “bugger mat” to hide the enormous cocaine rock in Neil Young’s nose, etc.
I have a tad less enjoyment now that I know how much Levon hated the movie for essentially cutting Richard Manual out of the musical scenes and Robbie’s flashy belting out his vocals with the mike turned off.
I was moved by your recollection of the first time you listened to Big Pink as my husband had given a very similar accounting the day Levon died.
My husband would like to go on record as having brought several books on our honeymoon as well as stipulating that he read “This Wheel’s on Fire” aloud to me in Rome.

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:26:39 +0000

Let’s talk about Greil Marcus!

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:23:36 +0000

I’m with you, Pat. I can hear every song in my head from start to finish, note for note, in real time, just sitting here. I was at Ithaca College at the time of the big Watkins Glen concert, summer 1973, I believe. 600,000 some people, a mess, but the Dead, the Allman Brothers, and The Band. That’s all. They all came out together last thing and played I don’t know how many hours. Anyway, I guess we could all go on and on. Our Dave says he’s seen The Last Waltz eleven times.

By: Richard Gilbert

Richard Gilbert — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:21:49 +0000

Yep, that’s a keeper. And Levon’s recent solo album is too. One of the most brilliant and strange books I’ve ever read, Greil Marcus’s Invisible Republic, is about Dylan and the Band, Big Pink and the music they made there, and the rape by America of Appalachia!

By: Pat Shipley

Pat Shipley — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 19:11:05 +0000

The Band is my favorite band. My musical tastes were shaped by my brothers, 7 and 10 years older, in Ann Arbor while I was in New Canaan. I can mark many of the most important events in my life with the Band song it was associated with, even if decades after they broke up.
Levon Helm was the one who endured. Not just cancer, but playing with the best people amywhere he could till the end of his life. When I saw him for the last time in 2011 he could no longer sing but his eyes lit up as his daughter Amy and Larry Cambell sang songs as he still played the hell out of the drums.
Each Band member had a gift, many gifts, that made the Band the organism it was. Richard Manuel is, I believe, the greatest singer in rock and roll. His voice could grab you in the chest, sweet or dark, baritone or falsetto.
Rick Danko’s innocence with fire was never repeated. I still have a smile when I here “This Wheel’s on Fire”, especially since Ab Fab took it as a theme song, as Rick wrote it with Bob Dylan and this is one of the few songs that any of The Band make money on, the rest going to Robbie Robertson. Could Chest Fever exist without Garth Hudson? How could a Canadian write about Dixie, medicine shows and jamborees without Levon. Also curious is the success of The Band and the failure of Robertson’s 3 ? solo albums, none of which if I recall correctly had a good song on them.
My husband read Levon’s book, “This Wheel’s on Fire” on our honeymoon in Rome.
We force people who come to the house to watch “Man Outside”, with Bradford Dillman, the worst movie ever made, because all the members of The Band except Robertson are in it. Levon was the sheriff and quite good. He became a good actor as well as a great singer, drummer, mandolin player and keeper of the flame of the hostory of American music.
I miss him like I knew him.