Postmodern Blues

The Band: Remastering The Masters (Part 2)

originally published September 26, 2001

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And then there was the frighteningly talented multi-instrumentalist Garth Hudson - the real Garth! - first known as an imposing, stentorian organist. In fact, Hudson had much to do with the organ's resurgence in music of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Before him, examples were few beyond Booker T. Jones, Al Kooper and Matthew Fisher of Procol Harum. On the stunning "Chest Fever" heard on Music From Big Pink he became Bach wearing rock and roll shoes. On top of all of these musical riches were the three distinctive soulful vocal contributions of Danko, Helm and Manuel, often dramatically "stacked," as Helm so aptly put it in his 1993 book (with Stephen Davis) This Wheel's On Fire: Levon Helm And The Story Of The Band. Listening to "The Weight" most obviously illustrates this point.

The remastered Music From Big Pink contains the most generous addition of previously unreleased tracks, almost doubling the album's lengths. Tunes like "Yazoo Street Scandal," "Katie's Been Gone," "Long Distance Operator" and "Orange Juice Blues," versions of which have been available in the essential Basement Tapes, are interspersed with outtakes of "Tears of Rage" and a solid version of the blues chestnut "Key to the Highway." These serve as a reminder of the way the inspired basement collaboration with Bob Dylan, on a tear through archives of American folk music (the "old, weird America" Greil Marcus extolled in his 1997 book Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes), overlapped with the creative effort behind the singular first Band album. Perhaps the most unusual bonus track is the swinging, loopy version of "Lonesome Suzie" where Richard Manuel sings like a mid-century crooner fronting a big band.

The first three albums by The Band form the core of its achievement, and The Band and Stage Fright need few additions. Most notable are the outtakes of "Whispering Pines" and "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" on the former and the alternate version of "Daniel and the Sacred Harp" on the latter. The Band, the second album and the first to be recorded in California, provided the breakthrough that made the members stars, while Stage Fright brilliantly captured the mixed blessings that new status entailed. "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "Rag Mama Rag," and "Up On Cripple Creek" won legions of adoring fans, but Stage Fright's "The Shape I'm In" and "Stage Fright" limned the dark side of musical celebrity. In the midst of it all was a plaintive cry of almost utopian longing for tranquillity and stasis: "Sleeping," one of the last songwriting efforts of Richard Manuel (in collaboration with Robbie Robertson).


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The Band's horn-backed live performance on the 1972 double album Rock Of Ages gave it a much needed shot in the arm (all jokes about other kinds of shots should be resisted here), and the 1973 tribute to its musical roots, Moondog Matinee, found the Band once again at the top of its form. The new disc version of Rock Of Ages adds a CD of previously unreleased live performances from the Madison Square Garden concert that made the original album possible. It starts off with The Band and then concludes with four surprise tracks in collaboration with an obviously intoxicated Bob Dylan. He strode unannounced to the microphone, fumbled his way through some tunes (while The Band tried to figure out what he was doing) and finally recovered himself with "Like a Rolling Stone," as he and his mates picked up where the "Royal Albert Hall" concert of 1966 left off.

By far the best marriage of an original album with appropriate bonus tracks is Moondog Matinee, with excellent renditions of "What Am I Living For," "Endless Highway" and Levon Helm's killer take on Chuck Berry's "Going Back To Memphis," previously available only on the live recording of the 1973 Watkins Glen concert. The last two works, Northern Lights, Southern Cross (1975) and Islands (1977) pale in comparison to the 1978 live Warner Brothers three-album set The Last Waltz (providing the basic framework for Martin Scorsese's documentary film). The former, however, contains arguably The Band's magnum opus, "Acadian Driftwood," Robbie Robertson's meditation on the tragic displacement of the eighteenth-century Acadians from French Canada to Louisiana, where "Acadian" became "Cajun." Levon Helm and Rick Danko delivered the vocal goods on this track as never before. Islands, however, was a real record company insult. The musicians completed it to fulfill their contractual obligation to Capitol, and the company pretended it was a real album rather than a hodgepodge of studio artifacts.


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Still, great musicians can make others' tunes their own, which Richard Manuel did with "Georgia On My Mind." The Islands volume of the Remasters series ends with an alternate take of that great song, followed by the singer's endearing chuckle. Wrenching every ounce of emotional fervor out of the lyrics in this version, Manuel comes close to the electrifying performance he gave in the fabled "Saturday Night Live" appearance broadcast the weekend before Jimmy Carter's 1976 election victory. It was a none-too-subtle campaign endorsement, and it became the singer's signature tune in later years. When you drive across the state line, it should be playing on your radio or stereo at the moment you read the motto on the welcoming sign.

Author's note: In trying to do justice to the history that explains the importance of these recordings, I have been ever mindful of the daunting example of the loving explorations into historical arcana -the "old, weird America," Georgia division- achieved by the late John Seawright. This is dedicated with admiration to his memory.

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