John Niven, Music From Big Pink: a Novella (continuum, 2005)
This is the newest addition to the Continuum 33 1/3 series of critical reference books. Each of the two dozen previous volumes has looked at the creation and content of one particularly important record album from the history of rock and roll. So far Neil Young's Harvest, Love's Forever Changes, Hendrix's Electric Ladyland, and Let It Be by the Beatles have been but a handful of the albums covered. Before Christmas, GMR reviewed Allan Moore's pedantic take on Jethro Tull's Aqualung. But this one -- this one is different!
We all knew that The Band's first album was different. As soon as it arrived it caused a growing uproar among musicians and record buyers alike. It was loose, and yet contained some of the tightest group playing ever. These were the guys Bob Dylan had called his band for the groundbreaking British tour of 1966. People like Eric Clapton were so taken by this first album that they considered a radical shift in their own style. Clapton states, in the liner notes to a recent release of Band-member Richard Manuel's only solo recordings, that "their music changed my life . . . I have to admit that, to me, all the guys in the band appeared to be a little bit crazy, and definitely larger than life. . . ."
Music From Big Pink (the record) didn't play any commercial games. It didn't sound like anything that was on the radio. In fact, if it sounded like anything, it was the kind of folk music your old weird uncle played on his guitar when he'd had a few too many Black Labels. But there was an emotional attachment between these five odd guys and their songs that reached out and grabbed you. I remember walking into my local record store when the Band's second album came out. The owner, an older guy who was more into big band music than rock, said to me: "yeah, the only group you can count on for solid musicianship these days is The Band."
Loose, but tight.
So it's not really a surprise that when somebody sat down to assess this essential album, they wouldn't do it in the same way everybody else did. There's no daily diary of recording sessions. There's no comparisons to "aeolian cadences" or Bach fugues. There's no pretentious gobbledegook at all. John Niven has delivered his reaction to Music From Big Pink as fiction. Well, semi-fiction they call it. He creates a character named Greg Keltner, from Toronto, who is a drug dealer, and semi-street person who happens to get caught up in the world of The Band.
Niven has done his homework -- for the most part -- and his characterisations of the Band-members are pretty much right on. Rick Danko and Richard Manuel are the heavy duty drug users. Levon Helm is the good ol' boy, funny and gregarious. Garth Hudson is quieter, a bit of a loner, and Robbie Robertson, well, he's over there with Bob Dylan -- don't bother him!
The music that became Big Pink is described in development, as Keltner delivers some weed or uppers, he hears snippets from the basement of the big pink house, or tapes which are passed around like gold from friend to friend. Dylan wanders in an out of the narrative, always surrounded by an inner circle of protectors, and a gaggle of hangers-on.
Niven caputres the era beautifully, and if the language is a bit raw, well, so were the '60s.
The songs which ended up on Big Pink are seen as bits of biography. For instance, the classic "Tears of Rage" is lived out in Greg's return to Toronto (he is called to attend his mother's funeral) where he ends up shooting heroin with his father.
This is a brave and exciting approach to criticism. It's not a pleasant read, and you will still need Barney Hoskyn's marvelous Band biography Across The Great Divide for the recording details, but you will find yourself responding to the prose, as you did to the music. This is powerful stuff, and well done.
