Saturday, January 18, 2025

Music From Big Pink (1968)

I’ve always found the Band generally overrated (usually by boomers) and a little pretentious too—start with the name, where a lot of people feel constrained to capitalize “The.” Don’t do it, I beg you. It feels like a majority of the songs on this tiresome debut album are from Bob Dylan bootlegs circulating in the late ‘60s, notably one called Great White Wonder, later collected for the official 1975 release The Basement Tapes (and then on a 2014 box, The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete. Note that all Bootleg Series releases are legitimate Columbia label products). It’s actually only three of the 11 songs on this album, all written or cowritten with Dylan, but they’re in the important sequencing positions at the start and end: “Tears of Rage” (a terrible start to the album, my notes say), “This Wheel’s on Fire” (also weak), and, last (literally last on the album), “I Shall Be Released,” a song about not wanting to be a bootleg, and which, again according to my notes, should not work but does. So you can see I don’t hate this stuff, it just seems underwhelming after all the hype. The Rick Danko song “Caledonia Mission” strikes me as generic Band, with the shambolics and help-me-keep-up vocals and harmonies. If it tickles your fancy, there’s 10 more songs here for you. I do have to agree with the consensus that “The Weight,” by Rick Danko and Levon Helm, is an undeniable, bone-shivering classic from the opening line on: “I pulled into Nazareth, was feeling ‘bout half past dead” (am I the only one who hears this as “half past 10,” like he’s making a corporate staff meeting?). I’ve heard a lot of covers of “The Weight” and they always work and so does the original, absolutely. The other song I like is not really typical of the album, which puts me in a place that feels awkward. It’s like calling “Moral Kiosk” the best song on Murmur. But “Chest Fever,” written by Robbie Robertson, hits with a fancy heavy-rolling organ keyboard attack (Garth Hudson doin’ it!) that feels like something from the Phantom of the Opera story accompanied by tornado warnings. It loses focus when the singing starts and then it goes to familiar Band places, but you can’t have everything and eventually the majesty makes a brief return. Last, I don’t mean to be gratuitous, but “Long Black Veil” is one of the worst versions of that lovely and truly haunting song I’ve ever heard. For god’s sake cut the yowling for once. I recommend Bobby Bare on this one, which I understand might be telling on myself somehow to country aficionados. I am merely a dilettante in the realm, but I think it’s fair to wonder whether the Band might be too. Cover art by Bob Dylan.

1 comment:

  1. Fascinating comments. I am one of those boomers, and Music from Big Pink was a touchstone for me (I was 15). But it is the kind of album that I think benefits from the perspective of someone who didn't grow up with it. You can avoid the mythology. Thanks.

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