Product Description

The Band emerged from months of seclusion with this enthralling debut album. It followed a lengthy spell accompanying Bob Dylan, which culminated in sessions known as THE BASEMENTTAPES. Three songs herein were revived from those recordings, and the remainder showed a similar pastoral spirit. Wherecontemporaries sought expression in progressive music, the Band were largely reflective, creating atmosphere from traditional forms and distilling the results in an economical style. The Band's ensemble playing and rural voices were best captured on "The Weight", an elliptical composition that displayed their craft to perfection. Americana of every hue can be gleaned from this collection, the depth of which left a marked impression on audiences and musicians alike.

Track Listing

1. Tears Of Rage
2. To Kingdom Come
3. In A Station
4. Caledonian Mission
5. Weight
6. We Can Talk
7. Long Black Veil
8. Chest Fever
9. Lonesome Suzie
10. This Wheel's On Fire
11. I Shall Be Released
12. Yazoo Street Scandal
13. Tears Of Rage
14. Katie's Been Gone
15. If I Lose
16. Long Distance Operator
17. Lonesome Suzie
18. Orange Juice Blues (Blues For Breakfast)
19. Key To The Highway
20. Ferdinand The Imposter

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14095 in Music
• Released on: 2000-09-11
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered

Amazon.co.uk Review
Music From Big Pink stands as one of those rare albums that turned the rock world on its axis. On this record released at the height of the psychedelic revolution, the five members of the Band (along with producer-sideman John Simon) eschewed spacey diversions, opting for an earthier route. Soon enough, wah-wah pedals and tape loops were making way for fiddles and mandolins. The group's most democratic effort (Robbie Robertson would soon emerge as the ensemble's mouthpiece), the debut's 11 songs come from Robertson, bassist Rick Danko and pianist Richard Manual, who contributes two songs and co-wrote the doleful opener, "Tears Of Rage", with Bob Dylan. Manual's role would diminish from this point hence and the balance he brought to the quintet would be missed. Many would argue that Big Pink's sequel, The Band, represents their crowning achievement. The truth is, Big Pink is the purest distillation of the Band, and their pre-eminent recording. --Steven Stolder

Customer Reviews

Very much of its time
I bought this cd as its regarded by many as being influential on rock genres that were to follow. While there are a few decent tracks here, the bulk of the album is pretty mundane. I can see where U.S bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd may have been influenced, but 1968 releases by Cream, Moody's, Tull, Zep etc are far superior, both in material and musicianship and would form more of a basis this side of the pond.

Ok for occasional plays hence 3 stars only.

Not Their best
As a massive fan of The Band unfortunatly I think this album now sounds very overrated. It starts of quite brilliantly with the painful Tears of Rage - certainly a great debut track. Other highlights are Chest Fever with Garth Hudson's blistering keyboards and a brilliant version of Long Black Veil. Little else connects with me though. Sorry to be so negative, I'm certainly in the minority and from here in, until the awful Islands album, I think their music was incredible.
The bonus tracks are nice to have, what a classic track Ferdinand The Imposter sounds, if only it turned up on a latter 1970's band album.

Band buyers begin here
Largely influential on the currently voguish Americana and alt. country scene, this first album grew out of the music the Band were creating with Bob Dylan at the house Big Pink, near Woodstock NY in 1967, and includes several new Bob Dylan songs - I Shall Be Released, This Wheel's On Fire and Tears Of Rage, the latter two co-written with the members of the Band who sing them. Probably the best known song was the single The Weight, which also appeared in the film Easy Rider (but was not licensed for the soundtrack album). There is one cover, Long Black Veil, which was influential on Robbie Robertson's writing style, and which he learned from Lefty Frizell's version.

If you need to own one Band album, this is the one to go for. It was hugely influential, an album unlike any other, and caused huge ripples across the music fraternity, changing the way people like Eric Clapton experienced and created music.

Beautifully re-mastered this new edition has copious notes and is almost doubled in length with bonus tracks, mostly appearing for the first time. It is fascinating to hear alternative arrangements of some of the songs, such as Lonesome Suzie which turns up with a big band horn arrangement. Musically, it sounds great, but was discarded, rightly, for being inappropriate for the song. A couple of covers recorded for fun, never intended for release on the album, are included - the Stanley Brothers' bluegrass If I Lose, and a less successful stab at the Jazz Allum and Big Bill Broonzy blues standard, Key To The Highway.

Some of the songs were included on The Basement Tapes, the Bob Dylan and the Band album of demos and home-recordings made at Big Pink. Orange Juice Blues and Yazoo Street Scandal are alternative versions, but of especial interest are Katie's Been Gone and Dylan's song Long Distance Operator. These are presented here as full stereo studio recordings, but are clearly the same takes that appeared on The Basement Tapes, demonstrating that the eight tracks by the Band on that album had not been recorded at Big Pink at all but had been muddied up to sound as if they had. Long Distance Operator now spawns an extra verse, but unfortunately there is a mistake in the editing so that the first line of the last verse is missing. Clearly these and other Band tracks from that album and any others from the same period need to be rounded up and given a proper release in restored sound quality