from the LP Music From Big Pink, Capitol Records, 1968On paper, the concept of mixing together four Canadian musicians with a drummer / vocalist who grew up in a place called Turkey Scratch (I’m not kidding), in rural Arkansas, must have looked terrible, or at the very least confounding; well, you know how the saying goes, “don’t judge a book…” yadda yadda yadda. Anyone that knows me well or has spent some time around my home is well aware of my unyielding love for the British television series Absolutely Fabulous, so this choice for my first Band posting will come as no surprise to them, as this track was the theme song for that hilarious series about 2 aging hippies who refused to grow up; admittedly, this is not my favorite number from the Band, by a long shot, but it’s still a good one. This was a track Band member Rick Danko had written with Bob Dylan during their legendary basement sessions with him, and a different version can be heard on the Dylan album, although I like this one the best, thanks largely to Garth Hudson’s quirky organ & Clavinet playing. Enough longwinded things have been opined about the Band and their preternatural ability to churn out the rootsiest shit of all time, so I will just leave it at this: one must only look at the guest list for their final concert (The Last Waltz) to understand the Band’s omnipresence within modern music.
