And Clapton Didn't Even Know

Clapton ended up not liking the role he played in Cream (nor no longer liking the music Cream had created) after being played The Band's Music From Big Pink by George Harrison. Harrison started carrying around a portable record player specifically to play that album for people, and a carton of the LP so he could give a copy to everyone he played it for. Clapton, upon hearing the album, was stunned, he has said, re-evaluating what a band and even music can and should be. That's the effect Music From Big Pink had on an entire generation of musician's---it's importance, significance, and quality cannot be overstated (I'll get down off my soapbox now ;-). He told Jack and Ginger that Cream was over, and went to Woodstock to hang with The Band, waiting for them to ask him to join. He says he finally realized they didn't need him (duh), and went looking for a job as a sideman guitarist, finding one with Delaney & Bonnie's road band. That's where he met Jim Gordon, their drummer, who rejoined him in Derek & The Dominoes. Ginger worked again with Clapton in the not-so-hot "Supergroup" Blind Faith, with Little Stevie Winwood and Rick Gretsch.

After Cream hit big, we young musician's searched out Jack and Ginger's previous work together in the Graham Bond Organization, a British jazz group in which their playing was not much different than that in Cream. Ginger was already doing an early version of his drum solo "Toad".

I was going to say that I wouldn't argue with Cream being the first (at least with all members having equal billing), but then I remembered The Who, debuting two years before Cream. Does having a fourth non-instrument playing member disqualify them as a power trio? There are examples of the power trio sound before Cream but with the guitarist as the acts name, not a group name. American guitarist Link Wray (whose sound was that of a trio) is acknowledged by Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck, and Jimmie Page (as well as other Brits) as being an inspiration to pick up a guitar. But Link was part of the "Rock 'n' Roll" generation (the 50's), not the "Rock" one (the 60's), if one wants to differentiate between the two terms and eras.

It was the power trio style of Cream that Clapton wanted to distance himself from after hearing The Band. Power trios, where all three instruments vie for equal frontline status, became known amongst certain kinds of musicians (like good ones ;-) as embarrassments, being comprised of "lead" bass players and "lead" drummers, not referred to as such as a compliment. The art of playing a supportive role (remember rhythm guitar? The power trio made it uncool to not be a "lead" guitarist. John Lennon was an excellent rhythm guitarist) was lost for a while, until The Band emerged from the basement of Big Pink to save Rock 'n' Roll.

On a separate note (no pun intended!), the internal bickering in Cream was well known, and assumed to be between Clapton and Bruce, since they were the frontmen, and had to split the lead vocal glory (though Bruce was really their lead singer, wouldn't you say?) and songwriting royalties. But it was actually between Bruce and Baker, who couldn't stand each other.

I'll make an analogy: The Linn LP12 (The Band) rescued the turntable from the completely wrong path it's design was heading in. Yes, the AR table (Sweethearts of the Rodeo?) was already around, as was the Thorens TD-125 (The White Album) and TD-150 (Beggars Banquet). But the LP12 made a bold statement, much stronger than either the AR or Thorens'. Mapman, you list Wheels Of Fire by Cream as an example of Rock not needing to be saved in '68, yet it was Clapton himself who said (in The Last Waltz) that upon hearing MFBP he realized Rock, including his own musical journey, had taken a wrong turn (empty virtuosity), and that The Band was the beacon showing the way back. I'm paraphrasing, but that's Clapton talking, not me.

I actually didn't "get" The Band for about a year after I first heard them, not understanding what all the fuss was about (and if you weren't around, it was a big fuss. They were on the cover of Rolling Stone and Time magazines). I was still loving Cream, Hendrix, The Who (having seen all three twice, in '67 and '68), and all the other Groups big at the time (living close to San Francisco was great!). Then my little teen combo got a gig opening for The New Buffalo Springfield (drummer Dewey Martin being the only remaining original member, but with Randy Fuller---Bobby's brother---on bass) at a local High School. And as I watched and heard that excellent band, I suddenly "got it". An epiphany, truly. Just like that (finger snap), everything I had read and heard about MFBP and The Band came rushing into my brain. And everything changed. Not just for me, but for every aspiring young musician I knew.

Why are The Band singled out, above all others? Because though there were already real good Groups making fine music---as contained in your above list above---some
that may appear to be not that much different from that of The Band---The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Flying Burrito Brothers---what The Band did was at a level far, far above everyone else, and has still not been equaled, even after all this time. Those first two Band albums are a Masters Class in how to play Rock 'n' Roll, how to be a Band. The Bands roots are so very deep, going all the way back into Blues before it went electric, Hillbilly when it was still way back in the hills.

But it's much more than that. Groups like The Who and The Yardbirds (first guitarist one Eric Clapton, second Jeff Beck, third Jimmy Page) were the ones who took R & R down that "wrong" (in Claptons estimation) path. And that path is the one of, to employ another metaphor, the manner in which the game of basketball is now played. Huh? If you look at footage of old basketball games, you see amazing set-ups and teamwork, the guy actually making the basket just the final link in a chain. The credit for the 2 points goes to the whole team, not just the guy who made the dunk. In fact the dunk was possible only because of the teamwork that allowed it to be made. You may know how it is played now; gimme the ball, I'm gonna make a basket all by myself. Sounds like a lot of guitarists I hear. The analogy holds up---Rock music became like sports. Who runs (sports)/plays (music) the fastest? Who plays the most "difficult" music, like how the judging in the Olympics includes the consideration of the degree of difficulty in performing any given athletic endeavor.

Do you see what I'm getting at? Musicianship. What each musician in The Band is playing is related to and dependent upon what the other musicians are playing. They all play supportive roles, both to each other, but more importantly, to the song. It's all in service to the song. It's takes a selflessness, and maturity, to play music that way. Amongst good musicians, The Band are considered to have no peers, they are that much better than everyone else. George Harrison heard The Band and thought so, as did Clapton when George played MFBP for him. It took me a year, but I eventually heard it. I sympathize with those who don't, and perhaps never will.

Martykl---Johnny Kidd! He did a pretty good version of "Shakin' All Over", the inspiration for the Who's Live At Leeds recording. But if you haven't heard Link Wray, you'll want to. Whereas Johnny had the clean, non-overdriven tube amp guitar sound, Link was already into distortion in the late 50's (it is said he ripped holes in his speaker cones to achieve his tone), and was an inspiration to not only Johnny, but Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and lots of other British guitarists (though Jeff--- the best of his generation?---has lots of non-R & R influences (Merle Travis and Les Paul the two biggest). Of course the original Rock & Roll Trio was Scotty, Bill, and D.J. Ya'll better know who they were! There was also a great band who actually called themselves The Rock 'n' Roll Trio (later The Johnny Burnette Trio), with the great Paul Burlinson on guitar. Their smokin' version of "Train Kept A Rollin'" (an old Blues) just screams, making Aerosmith and even The Yardbirds sound like a buncha pussies.

Perhaps the Linn LP12 analogy wasn't clear enough. A casual examination of the LP12 versus the AR and Thorens' could lead one to say "What's so different about the Linn? It's just a suspended sub-chassis belt-drive table---so are the AR and Thorens". But what Linn did was revolutionary, not just evolutionary. Linn said: 1- A turntable is a mechanical device, not an electronic one. It's all about the mechanical design and the precision machining, 2- The turntable is the most important part of the system. The information on an LP that is lost by the turntable can not be gotten back. 3- System hierarchy: Each subsequent link in the chain is less responsible for the quality of a system that that preceding it. This was absolutely revolutionary in Hi-Fi in 1973, when loudspeakers were generally considered the by far most important component in a system.

The Band were equally revolutionary. But this horse is quite dead. Either you hear it (like George, Eric, and the best musicians, singers and songwriters I know and don't know---Los Lobos, Richard Thompson, Van Morrison, Nick Lowe, John Hiatt, Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris, Neil Young, the list goes on forever) or you don't.