A great video about Garth Hudson.

@garebear: In the late-90’s a long-time friend of mine---who is my exact age but doesn’t keep up with new artists, bands, and music---asked me for a recommendation of an album by a current female artist for his wife. Without hesitation I said My Life by Iris Dement. That album contains a song that never fails to bring me to tears: "No Time To Cry", a song I read Merle Haggard raving about (he recorded it himself) in an interview.

The report I got back was that the wife found the album rather melancholy. To me that’s a compliment, but in retrospect I perhaps should have instead recommended someone like Alanis Morissette or Bonnie Raitt, though the latter can certainly wring every ounce of emotion out of a song.

"It Makes No Difference" is also pretty melancholy, which I consider an appropriate reaction to this life we experience. That attitude commenced when at age 14 to 15 I watched in abject horror as cancer ate my mother’s brain. If there is a God, he is quite cruel.

Damn @garebear, nice momento in that drumhead! My copy of Levon’s book is signed by him, and Ringo also showed up at the signing event (at Book Soup on Sunset Blvd.) to get his copy signed.

The Dylan/Band tour is one I missed. Bill Graham sold tickets in a lottery-type arrangement, and I didn’t win a pair. He received requests for about ten times the number of seats available for the Bay Area show, so I wan’t alone. The album that came out of that tour---Before The Flood, of course---is one of my favorite live albums.

Another great Robertson song (maybe his last) is "It Makes No Difference", sung by Rick Danko.

Levon’s last collaborator, Larry Campbell---who served as Levon’s rhythm guitarist, singer, arranger, and bandleader---is still making great music. He and his wife Teresa Williams have put out three great studio albums (the latest very recently), plus a live one recorded in Levon’s barn.

I can completely relate @garebear!

The album you refer to is The Band’s second, commonly referred to as the brown album (it’s self-titled). Their debut---Music From Big Pink---was released a year earlier, and caused quite a ruckus (Clapton disbanded Cream after hearing it, traveled to the Big Pink house and hung around for a coupla weeks, hoping and waiting for them to ask him to join. He finally realized they didn’t need or want him 😉).

My crowd was comprised mostly of musicians, and Music From Big Pink divided that crowd into two camps---those who got The Band, and those who didn’t. I was amongst the latter, and try as I might I just could not understand why the smartest guys I knew loved that album. I was into all the usual stuff---Cream, Hendrix, The Who and the rest of the power trios (The Who were a quartet, by Daltry isn’t a musician), as well as the doors, Buffalo Springfield, Moby Grape, The Byrds, The Beatles (to a degree), etc., and MFPB sounded very foreign to me. I couldn’t in the least relate to it. And that bothered me.

Then in the spring of 1969 my band got a gig opening for The New Buffalo Springfield (drummer/singer Dewey Martin the sole original member remaining) at a local San Jose high school. We played our set, and I carefully watched and listened as TNBS started theirs. As the set developed, I became confused. None of the members seemed to be playing much, but they sounded SO good. At about the halfway point in their set, I had a sudden and overwhelming epiphany: Oh, NOW I get it! The "it" is the musical style called ensemble playing: Playing in service to the song, and in relation to what every other member is playing and/or singing.

That experience changed my musical life, and when the brown album came out later in ’69 I was ready for it. I and every musician I knew studied that album from front-to-back, for hours, and hours, and hours. I had to complete relearn how to play drums, and that album (as well a MFBP) is the blueprint for how to play musically.

Music From Big Pink and the S/T album are without question my two favorite album of all time, by a wide margin. So musically rich, so deep. Expert musicianship, three fantastic lead singers, and great songs. That's what it's all about!