Heard through the ears of the Britney Spears era, these four classic albums and assorted unreleased tracks seem incomprehensible. Tempos slip and slide, vocals sound like they were scraped from the singers' throats, the instruments could have been scavenged at a garage sale … and those lyrics! What's all this about carnivals and broken-down rebels and dusty old bourbon? All that, and yet hardly a word about sex! The closest these guys came to "Hit me, baby, one more time" is the geezer-like cackle that follows the line in "Cripple Creek" about "that little love of mine [who] dips her donut in my tea."
The depressing truth is that the gap may finally be too wide for today's post-punks and boy bands to find any relevance in this epochal ensemble. Modern pop sinks the individual into a swamp of focus-grouped sound; the sound of the Band evolved through the interplay of each member's unique strengths. Who will remember, 20 years from now, the voice of Backstreet Boy Number Three? Who can ever forget the voices of Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson, and Levon Helm, on their own and in the raw fragility of their harmony?
Garth Hudson, though, emerges repeatedly on these performances as the real heart of the Band. Again, his approach -- as a sideman who never intrudes yet transforms every song he touches -- doesn't compute so easily these days. No one in any modern band plays with the sensitivity to the material that guides Hudson in "Tears of Rage," where he shifts timbres and kicks the tremolo in and out through the hills and valleys of the tune. His solos, too, impress more than ever in the context of passing time, from the ghostly lines he weaves through "All La Glory" on Stage Fright to the marvelous balance in his improvisation on "Bessy Smith," from Cahoots.
Alternate takes are often illuminating, and there are some gems here. One, a slightly stripped-down rendition of "When I Paint My Masterpiece" is arguably more direct and a better vehicle for Helm's vocal than the one released originally on Cahoots. On the other hand, a previously unheard arrangement of "Lonesome Suzie" casts the song in a more problematic light: Set a few keys lower than we're used to hearing it, the tune lopes along on the kind of piano-driven beat that powered "Across the Great Divide," leaving Rick Danko little opportunity to caress the words as he did on the version they would release on Big Pink.
Are there any lessons for young musicians in the Band's legacy? Perhaps, but they won't register until the crisis in conformist pop finally comes to its end. Strange, isn't it, that a new breed of Internet musicians, freed from superstar dreams, may be the ones who revive the spirit that haunts this major-label landmark release?
