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| Original LP Title: "Free Moustache Rides" |
The Band - "The Band" (1969) - Capitol Records
Hello Friends,
Tonight on the turntable we've got The Band's second LP. Its self-titled, but here on Vinyl in the Valley we like to refer to it as The Brown Album.
And what a great listening experience The Brown Album is... a real Hootenanny!!! Its a ramshackle mash up of American roots music: country, folk, soul, blues, ragtime & rock with some lessons in American History thrown in to boot! There's Confederate soldiers, retired sailors, drunken miners, labor union organizers, proud thieves and unfaithful servants! (Sounds like the unsexiest Halloween party ever!)
Side One almost plays like a Greatest Hits collection with "Across The Great Divide", "Rag Mama Rag", "Up On Cripple Creek" and the incomparable, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". The side closes out with "Whispering Pines" featuring Richard Manuel's heartbreaking and haunting vocals.
Side Two is no slouch either with "Jemima Surrender", "Rockin' Chair", "Jawbone", the rocker "Lookout Cleveland", and the country-soul working man epic, "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)"!
The themes, characters and tales-- as well as much of the music-- is timeless, rustic and nostalgic. Obviously, The Band didn't really fit the mold of mainstream rock & roll of the late 60's. While most bands were writing Vietnam protest songs, these guys were reminiscing about the Civil War!
In this way, The Brown Album is similar to The Kinks' masterpiece, Village Green Preservation Society '68-- an album so steeped in nostalgia with songs which longed for a more traditional "country life" that was considered to by quite unhip by many hipsters at the time! But hey, that's the problem with these hipsters!
RATING: 5 Civil War Re-enactments out of 5
And what a great listening experience The Brown Album is... a real Hootenanny!!! Its a ramshackle mash up of American roots music: country, folk, soul, blues, ragtime & rock with some lessons in American History thrown in to boot! There's Confederate soldiers, retired sailors, drunken miners, labor union organizers, proud thieves and unfaithful servants! (Sounds like the unsexiest Halloween party ever!)
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| The Band dressed in Civil War outfits a.k.a. "Stuff White People Like" |
Side One almost plays like a Greatest Hits collection with "Across The Great Divide", "Rag Mama Rag", "Up On Cripple Creek" and the incomparable, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". The side closes out with "Whispering Pines" featuring Richard Manuel's heartbreaking and haunting vocals.
Side Two is no slouch either with "Jemima Surrender", "Rockin' Chair", "Jawbone", the rocker "Lookout Cleveland", and the country-soul working man epic, "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)"!
The themes, characters and tales-- as well as much of the music-- is timeless, rustic and nostalgic. Obviously, The Band didn't really fit the mold of mainstream rock & roll of the late 60's. While most bands were writing Vietnam protest songs, these guys were reminiscing about the Civil War!
In this way, The Brown Album is similar to The Kinks' masterpiece, Village Green Preservation Society '68-- an album so steeped in nostalgia with songs which longed for a more traditional "country life" that was considered to by quite unhip by many hipsters at the time! But hey, that's the problem with these hipsters!
RATING: 5 Civil War Re-enactments out of 5
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