Your Top Five Blues LPs, SQ-wise...

@slaw, haven’t heard that one, but I love SBW. He and The Hawks (later of course known as The Band) met up in drummer Levon Helm’s hometown of Selena, Arkansas in 1965, jammed for a day, and started making plans to go on the road together, they as his band. Before that could happen Sonny Boy met his maker, and The Hawks had to instead settle for being Dylan’s road band ;-) .

Dylan put them on retainer, paying them whether or not they were working. That led to them following him up to Woodstock (they were living in the Chelsea Hotel in NYC) after his motorcycle accident (where he went to heal his wounds, or to detox off speed, whichever story you choose to believe ;-), where they found and rented the "Big Pink" house in nearby West Saugerties, the basement of same being where the majority of The Basement Tapes were recorded.

Those recordings led to Capitol Records offering The Hawks a record deal in late ’67. Music From Big Pink by The Band was released July 1st, 1968, and the music world was immediately a very different place. Eric Clapton heard the album (played for him by George Harrison, legend has it), disbanded Cream, and went to Big Pink to hang with The Band, waiting for them to ask him to join. It eventually occurred to him: they neither required nor desired his services.

When The Band made their debut live performance in 1969 (they couldn’t tour directly after the release of MFBP, as bassist Rick Danko had broken his arm), The Beatles flew over from England to be there. There are pics of them sitting on the floor of Winterland in San Francisco, right alongside other audience members.

The last time I saw Levon perform live was while he was recovering from throat surgery to remove a Cancer (he was a heavy smoker his entire life, the knucklehead). He couldn’t sing, so he had daughter Amy along to do so in his place. The music was pure Blues, Levon’s first love, along with the Hillbilly he heard on The Grand Old Opry.