It’s not that Music From Big Pink by The Band took a long time to grow on me, but rather that I just wasn’t ready for it when it came out in early 1968. Some of my musician friends loved it immediately, and some particularly smart non-musician friends did as well. I was completely mystified, not at all understanding what all "the fuss" was about (the album caused quite a stir. It in fact started the "counter-counterculture", if you know what I mean).
I was loving the current leaders of the "musician’s musicians" movement in Rock (instigated imo by The Yardbirds): Cream, Hendrix, The Who, The Nice (Keith Emerson’s pre-ELP Group), and (I’m really embarrassed to say) Vanilla Fudge. Yes, I still loved The Kinks, The Beatles (though not their latest album, the vastly over-rated Sgt. Pepper’s whatever), Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, and the last two Beach Boys albums, Smiley Smile and Wild Honey. The San Francisco Groups were making a lotta noise, but out of all of them I liked only Moby Grape’s fantastic debut album.
Music From Big Pink starts with "Tears of Rage", a slow song sung in almost-falsetto voice, the snare drum played with the snare wires "off". The song was rather "low-energy" (as Trump would put it), with no guitar solo, some New Orleans horns, and funeral-parlor organ. I had absolutely NO idea what to make of it. "To Kingdom Come" follows. and I could make no more sense of it. Then comes "In A Station", which has no guitar to speak of, the drummer playing only his bass drum. WTF?! Next was "Caledonia Mission" which kept starting and stopping, the drummer playing his snare drum in "cross-stick" fashion (the tip of the stick on the drum head, the drum’s metal hoop then hit with the stick’s shaft, producing a "click" sound). This is Rock ’n’ Roll?! I tried a couple more times, to no avail. I had to agree to disagree with those who were absolutely raving about the album (including George Harrison, who carried a carton of the LP in the trunk of his car, giving a copy to everyone he visited. Eric Clapton got his copy, and upon hearing it disbanded Cream, went to Big Pink and hung with The Band, waiting, he says, for them to ask him to join. It finally occurred to him his services were not required or desired. Eric talks about The Band and MFBP "correcting" the direction music---including his own---was headed in.).
A year later (Spring of ’69) my teen combo got a gig opening for The New Buffalo (Buffalo Springfield drummer Dewey Martin leading a 4-piece Band, the bassist being Randy Fuller, formerly of The Bobby Fuller 4). The contract stipulated that we allow our amps and drumset be used by them, as they traveled with only their guitars and Dewey’s own snare drum and bass drum pedal (drummers will appreciate what I’m talking about ;-).
We finished our set, and TNB mounted the stage, plugged in and tuned up, and started playing and singing. Those who have had a genuine epiphany will understand me when I say that midway through their first song, the infamous light bulb suddenly snapped on over my head, and I in an instant understood what all "the fuss" was about. Ensemble playing! Playing for the song! Musicality! It took awhile, but I finally got it. So did Neil Young; as good as Buffalo Springfield was, and Neil’s own solo albums, Music From Big Pink, and then it’s follow-up (s/t, aka the "brown" album) raised the bar WAAAY higher than it had been. Neil’s Harvest album (by far his best) was a direct attempt to equal the second Band album. He ditched his lame band (Crazy Horse) and assembled a world-class recording band, comprised of Nashville studio drummer Kenneth Buttrey (who played similarly to The Band’s Levon Helm, and had already been on several Dylan albums), bassist Tim Drummond (also from the Nashville studios), pianist Jack Nitzsche (L.A. studios, including doing all of Phil Spector’s orchestral arrangements), and pedal-steel played Ben Keith. What "a band"! Neil even recorded the album in his barn, to get the "dead", "thumpy" sound of Levon’s drumkit. As good as it is, Harvest falls far short of MFBP and TBA. The Band had three great songwriters (plus Dylan, with whom they co-wrote), three great singers, and had been playing together for eight years, often six nights a week, before they recorded MFBP!
Having that epiphany not only allowed me to now appreciate Music From Big Pink, but to be very ready for The Band’s second album, which I eagerly awaited. But much more than that, it completely changed the way I think about musicianship, and what I value in a player. Nothing was ever the same, everything had changed---all in an instant. Thank God for that gig!
