Half Off #2: The Band (The Brown Album)
The Band's self-titled second album, aka The Brown Album
Laura chose The Band’s self-titled second album as the second album in the Half Off series. The Band was released on September 22, 1969. Her comments:
The Band — “the brown album” — is one of my core musical touchstones, always on my list of Desert Island Discs. Yet when we listened to it for Half Off, I thought, why are there so many slow songs? Could I live without those? I decided to keep all the songs with everything I love about The Band: the swing, the funky syncopation, the horns, the loose-jointed feel. The vocals that almost shout with wild abandonment. That crazy mix of sounds.
My to-keep list originally included King Harvest, because it’s such an unusual and fascinating song. But ultimately I threw it in the discard pile with the other slow numbers.
The song I struggled with the most was Dixie. Allan said, “I never have to hear ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ again,” and I thought, Do I? I thought of Levon singing it in The Last Waltz, and realized, yes, I do. And then I’m really in trouble, because I can’t give up any of the others.
Ultimately, here’s how I made the decision. I frequently listen to The Brown Album in the car, when I’m driving by myself. I like to sing along — loudly. So which songs do I sing to? Here’s my list.
Across The Great Divide
Rag Mama Rag
Up On Cripple Creek
Jemima Surrender
Look Out Cleveland
JawboneOuch!
The Band offers a heady stew of rock and roll, folk, country, soul, and rhythm & blues, an intoxicating mix that decades later became known as “Americana” — with stories of both desperation and lust, featuring characters like Virgil Caine, Ragtime Willie, and Jawbone (he’s thief and he digs it!), and evocative lyrics such as “The smell of the leaves / From the magnolia trees in the meadow” and “Hailstones beatin’ on the roof / The bourbon is a hundred proof”.
Or as Levon Helm helpfully explains in The Last Waltz to director Martin Scorcese:
Near Memphis. Cotton country, rice country. The most interesting thing is probably the music. . . . That’s kind of the middle of the country, you know, back there so — bluegrass or country music, if it comes down to that area and if it mixes there with rhythm and if it dances, then you’ve got a combination of all those different kinds of music. Country. Bluegrass. Blues music. Show music.
Scorsese asks, “What’s it called then?” Helm: “Rock and roll.”
The Band is the record on which guitarist Robbie Robertson (1943-2023) emerged as the group’s main songwriter. (The band shared more of the songwriting on Big Pink. ) Robertson is credited as the sole writer of eight songs and co-writer on the other four, three with pianist Richard Manuel (1943-1986) and one with drummer Levon Helm (1940-2012). The issue of whether Manuel, Helm, and Rick Danko (1943-1999) stopped contributing songs or were pushed aside by Robertson (or stopped because they were pushed aside) is a matter of contention. The fact is the Band’s recorded material hit its peak with this album. I really like most of their next record, Stage Fright, but I have rarely played anything from the original lineup’s subsequent four studio albums.
The Band featured three lead singers — Manuel, Heml, and Danko — all of whom played multiple instruments. Manuel played piano, drums, baritone saxophone, and harmonica on The Band. Danko contributed bass, fiddle, and trombone. Helm was the drummer and also played mandolin and rhythm guitar. Garth Hudson (b. 1937) did not sing, but was a musical wizard on organ, clavinet, piano, accordion, melodica, soprano, tenor, and baritone saxophones, and slide trumpet.
Like Laura, I found listening to The Band more jarring than I expected. The instrumentation on several songs sounded very unconventional, even strange. Jawbone sounds like it was built from four or five different bits of music that had been not so carefully nailed together.
My list differs in two songs:
Across The Great Divide
Rag Mama Rag
Up On Cripple Creek
Look Out Cleveland
The Unfaithful Servant
King Harvest (Has Surely Come)
Laura considers The Band one of her Desert Island Discs. I’ve never rated it that highly, but I’d put Up On Cripple Creek, with its peerless groove and finest use of the word “nag” for a horse in human history, on a list of my favourite songs of all-time.
The Ed Sullivan Show, November 2, 1969
The Last Waltz, November 25, 1976 (Thanksgiving Day), Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco
The Band — The Making of “Up On Cripple Creek”