Springsteen and Clapton on their favorite, heh, band.

I loved Springsteen and the E Street Band. Sincerity. Energy. The singularity of mood and purpose they could invoke.  Comedy.  Drama. The concerts were long, to be sure, but the numbers never degenerated into endless, self-indulgent jamming...something that afflicted other bands I could (but won't) mention.   

Gee, what memories!  Thanks to the OP and all comments for this.  Have not thought about this (actual) music in a while--been busy moving.

As for all the various albums mentioned, the NRPS one, all The Band albums, and of course both CSNY, Byrds, and Springfield, and the artists and workers--Hawkins, Dowd, Wexler et. al., makes me nostalgic for those days.

If you read articles from Guitar Player from back then (I have them put away somewhere!) you will see the way these bands influenced each other both technically--GP used to be a technical mag, not sure about now--and what changes went down when each influencer found its way to others music.

What a GREAT TIME for music--all those REAL musicians working on learning and evolving to become better at their craft, listening and working with each other--it was a magic time, well, for me anyway.

The Band remains one of the best ever, and like Paul said of Pet Sounds--it brought forth Sgt. Pepper--real musicians are constantly listening and learning and evolving.  The musicians in The Band are superb, and the work they recorded was groundbreaking in many ways.  (Reading that Keltner loved Helm's work was fun--he's not exactly a slouch himself...).

Thanks for bringing this thread to this forum.  About time we did some thinking about the actual MUSIC!

Cheers!

To all of you who actually saw many of the musicians/bands discussed and shared your experiences….love it, thank you!
I was just a little too young and isolated (MS) to have had an opportunity to see & hear them. 

In my mid teens I was a huge Dylan fan and saw a "Dylan and The Hawks" (the Band without Levon Helm for that tour anyway) show in Honolulu in 1966...whew...it was the first time anybody had played that arena (called the Honolulu International Center or HIC back then) with their own sound system (on their way to Australia I think) consisting of piles of Altec A7s, and the first time I'd seen Leslie speaker cabinets. An hour or so of Bob killing it solo, followed by him and the Hawks just loud and really powerfully putting on one of the best shows possible...utterly life transforming for my 15 year old self. Big Pink was like something carved out of wood and at the time was also purely amazing, and I basically wore out my first copy the Brown Album and listen to it still. I bought the boxed set reissue/remix thing last year and the vinyl in that set is maybe the cleanest and best sounding vinyl album I own...highly recommended. I saw the Band again in 1972 or so, and later versions without Robbie a couple of times much later. My favorite band through the 70s was the original Little Feat who, for my tastes and that of most fellow musicians I knew back then, were the hottest live band at the time.

So done with "the Boss"....and I’m from NJ. He’s so consumed with saying all the "correct things" for all the "right people" he’s liable to "shill" for anything provided he continues to get undeserved rave reviews and exposure for all the crap album’s he’s made post 1983’s Nebraska ("Bruce’s latest is his most groundbreaking"..... "his new album harkens back to Born to Run".......). For an achingly long time, it has seemed to me that most of the Boss’s utterances are purely to build up his "indy cred" for the decision making class simply so that they have more influence through him with his Boomer demographic........not taking anything away from the Band or their great record but the Band’s whole history of musical integrity, seems to me, to be the antithesis of the "Boss" and his highly massaged and inauthentic image (see inexplicably feted Bon Jovi who help covers political messaging with the Gen X demographic).