Music From Big Pink - The Band
Track List:
Tears Of Rage
To Kingdom Come
In A Station
Caledonia Mission
The Weight
We Can Talk
Long Black Veil
Chest Fever
Lonesome Suzie
This Wheel’s On Fire
I Shall Be Released
Songs I have heard before this listening:
The Weight
Songs I think could have been singles:
The Weight - This is still played on some classic rock stations.
Chest Fever - With the organ solo at the beginning it wouldn’t be fair if this wasn’t released as a single.
Other artists this reminds me of:
Bob Dylan - I know The Band was Bob Dylans backing band, his influence is obvious, he may have been involved in some of the songwriting.
Harry Chapin - Stylistic elements for the storytelling
Jim Croce - Stylistic elements both with storytelling and composition
Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Eric Clapton - The blues influence
The Grateful Dead - They both mash up rock and folk country styles with blues and jazz and get similar yet different results. They also have a similar recording style.*
Notes on the music:
The entire album has a 'live' feel to it. I sounds the recording may be a home studio or a recording from an amateur recording studio. Something of higher quality than a garage band recording. It doesn't sound like there are a lot of artificial layers you can get from a multi track recorder.
A funky soul take on folky country, it is a step between Elvis and Johnny Cash towards Lynyrd Skynyrd and George Thorogood.
I prefer the 2nd half of the album to the first, there is a greater use of organ and it just sounds better to me.
Notes on individual Songs
Chest Fever
The organ solo builds to a growl, it’s absolutely an amazing evolution to the sound of the instrument and the song is built upon that base. The entirety of the song is just a fantastic piece for keys.
This Wheel’s on Fire
A catchy and has some very modern sounding elements in comparison to the rest of the album. I wonder if the song "Girl on Fire" by Alecia Keys is a nod to this song.
Overall this is a great album and is probably more influential than one would think.
*The recording style of both this album and as well as the Dead’s early studio work is organic yet not polished. I am happy that we had the British invasion that encouraged American record companies to put out more polished products.
