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and yeah i own 5 or 6 of their cd's, and i've finally replaced "music from big pink" and this self titled "the band" albums/cd with the newer remastered editions. beautiful. no one. i've been a huge "band" fan since i first saw "the last waltz" on pbs way back in the 1980's. a creative musical celebration of americana. 5 out of 5 stars. if you're a serious lover of music you should really listen to this.the songs "the night the drove old dixie down", "rockin chair" and "up on cripple creek" are my favorites.ahh f--k i love them all.
no band ever sounded and recorded like "the band" period. nobody was recording music like this. this album was released in 1969 and it must have turned the music industry on it's collective ear. this album is a singular masterpiece that stands alone. the 3 singers trade lead and harmony parts back and forth and the acoustic instrumentation is just stunning.
i own it now on dvd of course. you hear everything. as for the the remastered sound and there is so much to listen to. nobody ever wrote songs like robbie robertson and sang like levon helm, richard manuel and rick danko. the songs are american root music and often deal with our history and our culture and yet 4 out of the 5 of them are canadian including their lead songwriter robertson.
With haunting vocals by Richard Manuel, it makes Pet Sounds seem like amateur hour. Perhaps they gave so much to us in their music they had nothing left for themselves. Critical darlings, it is unfortunate that The Band is not more well-known. If we are to believe Levon, Robbie polluted the true ensemble feeling by appropriating most of the credit for himself, and that's a shame, because the depth and diversity of musical talent here is truly extraordinary. Manuel. And Robbie--well, he's Robbie. But the true masterpiece here is Whispering Pines.
Nick Drake. Jeff Buckley.
Add to that the extraordinary classical training and understanding of Garth. Ian Curtis.
Music from Big Pink and this album capture the immensely talented group in all their glory. So many of this world's greatest musical talents have been taken from us too young, and so many by suicide, too.
This album is totally worth it for Whispering Pines alone, but every track is excellent. What other rock group could boast THREE great vocalists.
Awesome, awesome guitarist, and his antics and ego amuse us.This album and Big Pink both have some great moments and some fascinating innovations (on this album, Jawbone and King Harvest stand out for me as the most structurally unique and hypnotic).
The rough, raspy, southern drawl of Levon Helm complemented the songs he sang in a way that no one else would have been able to ("Dixie" being the supreme example). You may get the best known ones, but you'll miss out some real gems; "Whispering Pines", "Rockin' Chair", "When You Awake", etc. This was a group interested in making quality music as opposed to following behind whatever banner of any of the sundry collections of fad rock going on at the time.The second key ingredient here is the voices. He was a little overwhelmed by what I had said in my review and clearly out of his depth.Back to the point, The Band had literally an incalcuable array of styles they incorporated into their performance during their ten years or so of existence. Three lead singers, all unlike each other and pretty much unlike any other voice in rock music at the time.
This is not surprising given that they were often overshadowed by more image-oriented, commercially accesible, and generally less interesting bands at the time. Sometimes high and soulful, sometimes high and menacing. Certainly unlike anything else going on in the late 60's. This then is the first thing that makes the Band special. Sometimes everything in between. Deep and soulful, sometimes deep and menacing.
The haunting, piano lead "Whispering Pines" is one of the finest and most overlooked Band songs. When I accurately criticized Zep as being derivative of blues music, a fanatical type commented underneath quipping that everything in music is derivative of everything. A lot of bands struggle to produce a single interesting vocalist, this group had three. Thirdly, the songwriting. A compilation won't cover it. Probably not a great deal has been mentioned about 2009 being the 40th anniversary of the Band's second and finest album.
Thirdly, my personal favorite, Richard Manuel. "King Harvest" which deals with the formation of unions in response to labor abuses and more specifically in this case, the smothering of small farmers. That a single group could perform such a wide variety of music, from elements of country, folk, rockabilly, occasionally even soul and hard rock, is perhaps most attributable to the individual members that made up the Band, their own disparate interests, and the fact that they all were multi-instrumentalists (save Robertson). Many of my favorite songs from the Band owe as much to Manuel's vocals as anything else. It is not often that a songwriter of 25, as Robertson was at the time, speculates on old age and a bygone era by virtue of creating a lyric and character in a music performance. I myself recently noted 2009 being the 40th anniversary of Led Zeppelin's first two albums, but this was more of a tongue in cheek gesture as opposed to the adulatory yelps of sycophantic fandom that the Zeppelin review page is replete with. The outstanding example of this, "Rockin' Chair". Elsewhere, "Across The Great Divide" and "The Unfaithful Servant", although probably not as well known as "Dixie", are nonetheless two of Robertson's finest historical narrative songs in my opinion.
Robertson's songs are historical/literary in nature, but the emphasis is usually on the historical. Unique for the time to be sure, but it remains if not singularly unique, at least still warrants praise for its unusual quality and high degree of intelligence. Conversely, some tracks place the emphasis on a literary quality, that is a character based lyric. That's the importance of this album which can't be stressed enough. Also of note is a track that doesn't really fit any of the above descriptions of Robertson's songwriting and that may be because it was co-written by Richard Manuel. I don't know whether it's coincidental or not, but many newer singers, particularly of the folk/rock sort of persuasion sound to me very reminiscent of Danko. Ray Davies of the Kinks is one of the few that I can think of. I think it's important to distinguish the difference between influences and derivation as that commentator was unable to do.
"The Night They Drive Old Dixie Down", a reaction to the end of the Civil War from the loser's perspective is probably the greatest example. I don't think there's another singer with a wider range than Manuel in the rock/pop genre. It is not that any one of their myriad musical influences originated with them, but rather the several different parts (extraordinarily wide by rock standards) combined to create a truly innovative and unique sound. Rick Danko, somewhat higher than the others, but capable of producing at times an incredibly impassioned delivery (the live version of "It Makes No Difference" off of the Last Waltz).
Still sounds too digital, unlike the now defunct DCC. This one is good, but not enough of an upgrade over the current Capitol remaster to be worthwhile. Audio Fidelity should maybe use the excellent engineers of MOFI for their product.
And for sure, it is not bad, and has it's merits. Or maybe Huffman just needs a better digital setup. I had high hopes for this remaster from Audio Fidelity.
Mobile Fidelity has their own, proprietary all analog tube mastering chain and only use true analog masters. Pass. However, it is doubtful that this remaster was done from the true original analog master tapes, and even the liner notes are silent as to the source used, relying only on engineer Steve Huffman's name, gained through exhausting self-promotion.
Sonically, it exhibits a smiley-face eq with prominent bass and a tipped up brightness on top, with elements of digititis on high transients betraying the likely DAT source.
Hopefully someone will read this and correct it. No way are they selling that for this price. UPDATED - okay the reviews are all mixed together for all the various versions of the Band. If it is says Audio Fidelity and its $30 or so, this is the one you want.Although this is one of the all-time greats, and this version is fine in every way, I know it is not the gold disc which came out a week or so ago, nor is it the limited edition Japan disc, as noted in the description.
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