The Band

I have a vague memory that in 1971 someone came in to the classroom with a couple of albums under his arm and tried to sell them at a low price. I think that they came without a sleeve, which would tend to imply that they fell off a lorry, as the euphemism puts it. I didn't succumb to temptation, although I did listen to a copy; the only song that I remember was an upbeat number called "Time To Kill".

Several years later, I buy a copy of "Mystery Train" by Greil Marcus (first edition); I bought the book for its chapter on Randy Newman, but of course read it from cover to cover. Whilst I wasn't too interested in Elvis or Sly Stone, the chapter on The Band caught my imagination (I should also note that the chapter on Randy Newman deepened my understanding immensely). I talked this over with a lecturer in the Arts department, and he was kind enough to give me a cassette copy of "The Band" (aka The Brown Album). I found this quite difficult to listen to, and couldn't reconcile easily what I was hearing with what Marcus wrote about.

After emigrating to Israel in 1978, someone was kind enough to give me another cassette, this time with "Big Pink" on one side and "The Band" on the other. Maybe it was the clarity of the recording and maybe it was listening to an album without interruption (the previous cassette had the album spread over both sides of a C60, instead of one side of a C90), but suddenly The Band started to make sense. Around this time, the soundtrack to "The Last Waltz" came out, and I became captivated by some of the tracks, especially "It Makes No Difference".

When I moved from purchasing vinyl to purchasing cds, some of my earlier purchases were the early Band albums, along with a now not available compilation. When the Internet became popular, it didn't take long to find the excellent Band site, which again helped deepen my understanding.

A few days ago, I was looking at this site and noticed that a new page had been added: covers of Band songs by visitors to the site. As it happens, I had recorded a version of "Whispering Pines" a few months ago (several versions, to be accurate), but due to restrictions on the Soundclick site, I was unable to upload it there. So I took this opportunity to make one of my covers available, and one can hear it here. Hope that you enjoy it.