Wilco's career's v. The Bands'

[JUDE]

...there was the nitty gritty dirt band...

 

"Fishin in the Dark"

[aricandover]

everyone should read "Across the Great Divide: The Band and America" by Barney Hoskyns.

[Lammycat]

i think their 1978 - 1981 detour through album rock forever cast them in an unfavorable light, but they came out of that in fine form and still record and tour. some of the best shows i've ever been to were NGDB shows.

Unfortunately they are basically relegated to playing country fairs these days. Very good band, though.

 

Jimmy Ibbotson was tight with HST and still lives out in Woody Creek (hence the title of the most recent album) and John McEuen plays around Denver/Boulder a lot (I think he lives nearby).

 

Quick trivia: name a certain famous/popular solo recording artist who was in the original line up of NGDB from the mid-60s? (no googling!)

[caliber66]

I know, but I'm not going to post it.

[LouieB]

Unfortunately they are basically relegated to playing country fairs these days. Very good band, though.

 

Jimmy Ibbotson was tight with HST and still lives out in Woody Creek (hence the title of the most recent album) and John McEuen plays around Denver/Boulder a lot (I think he lives nearby).

 

Quick trivia: name a certain famous/popular solo recording artist who was in the original line up of NGDB from the mid-60s? (no googling!)

No googling, but I think it was Jackson Browne.....(actually I think he was not in the group that recorded on Liberty way back when they were more of a jug band.)

 

LouieB

[uncle wilco]

[quote name='JUDE

[Lammycat]

No googling, but I think it was Jackson Browne.....(actually I think he was not in the group that recorded on Liberty way back when they were more of a jug band.)

 

LouieB

Correct. And I believe you're correct that he did not record with them. His tenure was very brief with the group.

[Lammycat]

who taught steve martin how to play the banjo?

I don't know but I know he used to live in the Aspen area and I know he's friends with some of the NGDB fellas, so....

 

There's alao a great picture of him and Garcia backstage (outdoors) at a festival from the 70s plucking banjos together.

[LouieB]

Correct. And I believe you're correct that he did not record with them. His tenure was very brief with the group.

I had a friend who had most of the early Liberty records and he wasn't with the group at that point (the jug band era) and then when they ended up on United Artists they became a bluegrass type band and he had moved on to the singersongwriter career.

 

Okay here is a trivia back at you. Who recorded his first song or two?? (there may be more than one song or singer, but this one was his big break....)(Yikes I think there were two.....my memory is failing.)

 

LouieB

[uncle wilco]

I don't know but I know he used to live in the Aspen area and I know he's friends with some of the NGDB fellas, so....

from steve's site:

I went to Nashville with my soon-to-be manager, Bill McEuen, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, of which Bill's brother, and my old high school friend, John, was now a member. Catching the coattails of the Dirt Band 's recording time, I taped five original songs with the best bluegrass musicians around: Vassar Clements on fiddle, Junior Husky on bass, Jeff Hanna and John on guitar. Years later, I put the songs on the back of my last comedy album. I still take pride in these early efforts at creativity.

 

steve martin and john [mc euen] actually learned the banjo together growing up.

[Adam2]

The Band is one of the greatest groups in the history of music. To say that they weren't accomplished musicians is just ridiculous. Garth Hudson is a genius... an unbelievable musician and true original. As others have pointed out, Levon Helm's "bayou folk" drumming has been so influential to so many drummers (go on over to Glenn Kotche's site and see who he lists as one of his biggest influences...). Rick Danko's bass playing was wonderfully original, so essential to those songs. And Richard Manuel, besides having the most breathtaking voice in music, contributed so much with his energetic rhythm piano playing. And that's just forgetting they had the best singers of anybody. The rugged mix of Richard's full and falsetto voices, Levon's southern swagger, and Rick in the middle, was among the finest in all of music.

[coast to coast]

Go here!

[socbret]

but Jeff didn't go to rehab for addiction to green beans.

There is one addiction I wouldn't mind having. Let it be known that not all 20 year olds on this board are as clueless as bob.

[caliber66]

Go here!

I don't get it.

[uncle wilco]

Go here!

do you work for espn or something?

 

 

 

oh, and pacman jones is a loser.

 

 

 

there...i said it.

[mountain bed]

Since this has died down, and I've been away all day, I won't have anything to add other than I really love The Band & Wilco. But I wanted to say that this was one of my favorite threads in a long time. Well done.

[uncle wilco]

Since this has died down, and I've been away all day, I won't have anything to add other than I really love The Band & Wilco. But I wanted to say that this was one of my favorite threads in a long time. Well done.

i know of no better online community to hang out on. some of the threads in the last few days are evidence of that.

[So Long]

Wilco is SO much better than The Band in my opinion. I won't go into why for fear of death threats...

[airtaco]

I just think Louie B is the greatest person ever, The Band and Wilco be damned. Honestly, the depth of your musical knowledge is nothing short of mindblowing.

[jff]

Richard Manuel is probably the best "rock" piano player ever...

 

I'd be more inclined to give that crown to Little Richard or Jerry Lee.

 

Having said that, I'm going to pay extra attention to Manuel's piano playing next time I listen to the Band.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

I haven't heard anyone discuss Little Feat since I was in high school in Texas almost twenty years ago. I hear about the Band and their legacy all the time. "Dixie Chicken" is a cute little song, but it has nothing on the Band's even average songs. I don't think I've ever heard a band list Little Feat among its influences, while there are piles of acts around today that would count the Band as one.

PLEASE don't start trashing Little Feat because Bob is having a bad day,

 

Waiting for Columbus is simply one of the best live records of ALL TIME. Ranks right up there with "Live at Filmore East and Rock of Ages.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

it isn't the same little feat.

 

 

One of the great tragedies of the music business...Little Feat reforming 8 years after Lowell George's death and still calling themselves Little Feat. As disturbing as the continuation of Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Who.

 

At least Led Zepplin called it a day when John Bonham died.

[jff]

REM are worse than all of them since they had a pact that they'd end the band if anyone quit.

[LouieB]

PLEASE don't start trashing Little Feat because Bob is having a bad day,

 

Waiting for Columbus is simply one of the best live records of ALL TIME. Ranks right up there with "Live at Filmore East and Rock of Ages.

No truer words were ever said. Waiting for Columbus IS one of the all time great live records; representative of how great a band Little Feat was, it sounds great and it has held up over time. In fact I just bought a cheap copy for a friend who is getting back into buying vinyl. No one should dis Little Feat for not being the Band. They were great in their own right and time, talented, great songwriting and rocked liked crazy (something the Band didn't really do....compare it if you must to Rock of Ages...). Comparing any two bands is sort of a fools game we all play, me included; its fun, but ultimately is merely opinions. Wilco is a great great band, but there is no question one of the wonderful things about it is that it honors the past and tries to do something original with it. On Mermaid Avenue I think it is "I Guess I Planted" is the biggest most smile producing homage to the Band ever (someone correct me if I am wrong on this, but the outro with the keyboards, if I have the right song) is clearly patterned on the Band's sound. I love hearing it for that reason. I wish I had written up my reactions to Being There the first time I heard it, because at the time I clearly saw all sorts of homages from the Beach Boys, to the Band, to Leonard Cohen, the Stones, etc. etc., we all did. Meanwhile the Band did the same thing (Listen to the vastly under-rated MoonDog Matinee if you have any doubts about the Band's influences) creating some of the greatest records ever produced (thanks John Simon by the way...) and giving us not only two "real" masterpieces, but also a template for legions of groups to use. Quite honestly Little Feat's Sailing Shoes" is also something of a minor masterpiece as well, not as great as Big Pink and The Band, but nothing to dis either.

 

 

I just think Louie B is the greatest person ever, The Band and Wilco be damned. Honestly, the depth of your musical knowledge is nothing short of mindblowing.

Thanks for your vote of confidence (unless you are dissing me and I can't figure it out), but above ramble is just the fever dream of someone who has heard too many records and can't manage to listen to everythng I buy. At my advancing age I suppose all I should really be interested in is Crosby Stills and Nash and James Taylor, I have found a whole new area of music to become obsessed about, that made prior to 1925. I just got a copy of the biography of James Reese Europe, one of the most astounding and long forgotten figures in American music. Meanwhile while sitting on the can this morning I read the New Yorker's profile of Chicago phenoms Fall Out Boy, a group that seems way way too easy to dis (check out the article though, at least the picture of them is pretty cool), but they must have something going on. The New Yorker's profile of Arcade Fire was equally as good by the way from a couple weeks before that.

 

We live in a time when the entire history of recorded music is available to us and when musicianship is at an all time high. It is not hard to imagine youngersters like this bob dude saying the Band were bad musicians, since it is true that just about any band with some amount of chops and a decent music education can produce the same sound as The Band, but few will ever be able to produce songs from scratch like Whispering Pines that never fail to bring a tear to the eye.

 

(Another band that should have called it quits at some point....the Flying Burritto Brothers...)

 

LouieB

[Dreamin']

Big Pink is already kind of a footnote. Who talks about it anymore?

We do!

 

At my advancing age I suppose all I should really be interested in is Crosby Stills and Nash and James Taylor, I have found a whole new area of music to become obsessed about, that made prior to 1925. I just got a copy of the biography of James Reese Europe, one of the most astounding and long forgotten figures in American music. Meanwhile while sitting on the can this morning I read the New Yorker's profile of Chicago phenoms Fall Out Boy, a group that seems way way too easy to dis (check out the article though, at least the picture of them is pretty cool), but they must have something going on. The New Yorker's profile of Arcade Fire was equally as good by the way from a couple weeks before that.

LouieB

Louie, you always remind me that growing older has its perks - more time on this earth to discover great music (both new and old). I hope you're able to get tickets to see the Arcade Fire in Chicago, because I'd love to read your review.