Bob Dylan and The Band spent the summer of ’67 in Woodstock,
isolated from the sitars, Mellotrons, and psychedelics that defined the season.
When they emerged, they put out the two albums that redefined Rock & Roll
for back-to-the-roots ’68. But whereas John
Wesley Harding felt like Dylan’s most personal album since Another Side, The Band’s Music from Big Pink was clearly made
under Dylan’s heavy influence. It’s an excellent record, but their own defining
personal statement was still a year away.
The Band finds The
Band leaving the Dylan-collaborations and covers behind for a completely self-created
work. Robbie Robertson emerged as a songwriter with a vision nearly as individual
as his mentor’s. Much has been made of the idea that The Band is a sepia snapshot of America’s past seen through the
eyes of an (Canadian) outsider. However, many of Robertson’s characters seem to
be born Americans, and he dramatizes them with such commitment and authenticity
the backwoods funk of “Up on Cripple Creek” or the farming woes of “King
Harvest (Has Surely Come)” feel completely homebrewed in American soil. “The
Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is so soaked with humanity that it’s easy to
forget that its sympathetic narrator fights alongside the Civil War’s villains (apparently
that’s what staunch Civil Rights activist Joan Baez did when she turned it into
a hit).
Dylan may no longer be lurking behind the curtain, but The Band is no solo show. Robertson’s
songs are uniformly excellent, yet the record is equally dependant on the group’s
uniquely ramshackle instrumental and vocal interplay, and there are wonderful
showcases for each of its singers: full-throated Richard Manuel, rough and
rollicking Levon Helm, and the underrated, eternally heartbreaking Rick Danko. It
is this magical combination of superb material and intoxicating performance
that place The Band in the running
for best album of 1969.
50 years later, The
Band sounds better than ever as an audiophile, double 45-RPM vinyl set from
UMe. The album appears in a Robbie Roberston-approved remix that offers
exceptional differentiation of instruments without losing the original’s unity.
Every harmonica, guitar, piano, and fiddle note in “Rag Mama Rag” is clear as
the North Star but its back porch alchemy is still very present. The new mix
allows that track to tickle on for a few more seconds before running its
course, but there aren’t any particularly distracting differences between the
new and old mixes. Levon Helm’s detuned skins thump with extraordinary depth throughout.
The vinyl is super quiet. This 50th anniversary edition of The Band is a fine way to hear one of
the very best albums of the Rock & Roll era.
