I want to be there
when The Band starts playing
‘Oh the moon shines bright tonight along the
Wabash.
From the fields there comes the breath of
new-mown hay.
Through the sycamores the candle light is
gleaming
On the banks of the Wabash far away.’
Paul Dresser,
‘On the Banks of the Wabash Far Away’
A few years ago I saw a reader poll in The Guardian. Readers
were asked to vote for their favourite popular music LP, but with the proviso
that the usual suspects were disqualified in advance. You weren’t allowed to
vote for Sergeant Pepper, Dark Side of
the Moon, Rumours, or other albums which had sold in terrifyingly large
numbers. From my own point of view, the exclusion of certain albums which
almost everyone had in their collection was irrelevant on two counts. In the
first place, I never get round to voting in these polls or generally
participating in anything. I’m like the chap in the joke who is continually
praying for a win on the lottery, until the Good Lord in a fit of exasperation
begs the supplicant to meet him halfway and buy a ticket. On the second count,
I never owned or liked much the albums which were audio-icons of their age. Dark Side of the Moon was one I
particularly hated, because it came out just before my first year at university
in 1974. As a result, every party, every drop-in for a cup of tea, every coffee
after the pub had closed, was accompanied by Dark Side of the Moon. I couldn’t even escape from it by going
home. The guy I shared a room with in the Parkview Motel (seven pounds a week
for bed, breakfast and evening meal) had his copy and played it regularly.
To get back to this poll, the rules about exclusion threw up
some interesting results. My memory may be at fault, but I think three of my
favourite albums featured in the top five: Hot
Rats by Frank Zappa, Rain Dogs by
Tom Waits, and The Band, by The Band.
This last is a uniquely valuable classic of Americana. The
Band backed Bob Dylan and were highly respected among their peers, but to
someone outside of the business, their exact place in the popular music world
was not at all clear. The album’s best known contents are Up on Cripple Creek and The
Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. These fed The Band’s image, which they
played up shamelessly, as a southern US outfit, despite the fact that only
Levon Helm, the drummer and singer, was actually from the south. The main
impression from a first hearing of this album is that it is a document of the
hardships of farming life in the former Confederate states in the years
immediately after the civil war. In the Guardian article accompanying the
results of the poll, it was observed that the songs said a lot more about 1869 than about 1969,
the year of the record’s release.
The album has twelve tracks, some of which were immediately accessible,
such as Up on Cripple Creek, Look Out
Cleveland, and Rag Mama Rag.
Despite their accessibility they do not have the usual pop song themes. Most of
the songs require repeated listening for appreciation, in the same way as some
novels take a bit of work to ‘get into’ but become absolutely riveting by page
80. A second group of songs is comprised of rural American anthems, like Across the Great Divide and King Harvest (has Surely Come), a
masterpiece of electric guitar and vocal interplay that still manages to sound
rustic despite late twentieth century production values and sound quality.
Among this middle group of songs which require a little more
work to appreciate is a curiosity, even for The Band, Rockin’ Chair. This is a reminiscence of an old seafarer who longs
to spend his twilight years back with his old pals in Virginia, and includes
exhortation to ‘Willie Boy’, a fellow sailor, to settle down too. It is
nostalgic and corny, but is rendered haunting by the arrangements, musicianship
and inspired mythical reference, exemplified by the line, ‘Hear the sound,
Willie boy, The Flying Dutchman’s on the reef.’
After what I always
regard as the middle group are the two most demanding of the lot, which are
characterised by the most tear-jerking sadness. The first of these is Whispering Pines, an expression of
alienation and regret for the past which rivals Tom Waits’ Tom Traubert’s Blues for emotional engagement, and is comparable
with some of Dylan’s later work for visual imagery. The second is The Unfaithful Servant, which
alternately ploughs furrows of hope, despair and finally resignation.
The Guardian writer’s comment about the album’s saying more
about 1869 than 1969 is a fair one, but we can expand on it. The Band’s first
three albums, Music From Big Pink, The
Band, and Stage Fright, all evoke
an America that never existed, and an epoch that never was. The myth, however,
has some real ingredients, and hovers between the Deep South and New England,
with the time varying between the nineteenth century and the Old Testament. The
women’s names in the songs conform to this mythical, old-time world, a bunch of
Mollys, Jemimas and Bessies. More than anything else, this is a celebration of
rural America. The Band’s songs alternately evoke dusty, biblical landscapes and
the harvest moon tangled in the branches of the magnolia trees. This rural evocation
in song is probably the most successful since the songs of Hoagy Carmichael. In
particular, Up A Lazy River comes to
mind. Interestingly, The Band covered Carmichael’s Georgia on My Mind, as a
tribute to President Carter, in a later album.
I discovered this LP in 1971, around the same time as I
discovered girls, and found that they were by no means enthusiastic about
discovering me. As a result I was drawn to the sadder songs, which as already
noted required a little effort to
appreciate. To this day, when I listen to Rockin’
Chair or Whispering Pines, I am
back in 122 Stenhouse Street, Cowdenbeath, aged 15 and sorry for myself,
looking out of my bedroom window at the whin bushes on Kier’s Hill and longing
for the company of some girl in my year at school.
But that suggests that the reason for the inexorable pull of
these songs on me is simply my emotional state when I first heard it. This
would be unfair to The Band. One aspect not discussed so far is the quality of
musicianship on the album. The musical technique is unsurpassable. Not only are
the playing, arrangement and style all flawless, there is also an astounding versatility.
Numerous instruments feature on the songs, strings, brass, percussion, the lot.
I can almost imagine Robbie Robertson saying, ‘Rick, we need a trombone on this
number,’ and Rick Danko replying, ‘All right, I’ll just go and learn the
trombone. Back in a minute.’ I know that’s not how it happened, but it is
important to bear in mind the formidable musical ability of these guys. It is
that ability to perform their songs with something close to perfection that
gave them the freedom to buck the psychedelic trend and celebrate the world
that gave birth to the blues and to rock and roll, which in turn fathered the
hippy music of The Band’s contemporaries. If they had been slipshod musicians,
they would never have got away with producing such unfashionable work. My
sister once said that although she was not a big fan, she always had the
impression that The Band really only cared about the music. There is some truth
in this. While they had the same human feelings and failings as the rest of us,
it is clear from Levon Helm’s autobiography that the innate love of playing and
singing came first for them.
Everyone who has heard it likes Up on Cripple Creek. The
Night They Drove Old Dixie Down has become a classic of American folk music
and it would not surprise me to learn that like Flower of Scotland and The Fields
of Athenry on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, it is generally thought to
date from long before the late twentieth century when it was written. For me, however,
some of the more obscure songs on the album are almost unbearably evocative. I apologise
for the cliché, but I cannot hear the guitar on King Harvest without shivers running down my spine, and listening
to Rockin’ Chair, I am once again
Stephen Duffy, O Grade student and lovesick adolescent, in small town Scotland
and longing for a wider world.
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