The Band.

Xgau's take on both---thought he might haaate Cahoots but no, just not that interested:

Stage Fright [Capitol, 1970]
I've gone both ways with this group--if Music from Big Pink didn't tempt me away from my urban fastness, The Band did manage to make me jump around in my apartment. What gets in the way of this follow-up, however, is neither natural alienation nor critical overanticipation--it's the music itself, which simply overmatches the words. The tunes are so bright and doughty, and the musicians pitch in with so much will, that the domestic banalities of side one seem out of place in a way those of Delaney & Bonnie, say, never do. And if the settings are too complex for what Robbie Robertson knows, they're too unfocused for what he doesn't know, as the confused politico-philosophical grapplings on side two make agonizingly clear. Memorable as most of these songs are, they never hook in--never give up the musical-verbal phrase that might encapsulate their every-which-way power. Which perhaps means that they don't have much to say. B+

Maybe a little too tough, but I guess lack of hookiness on an Age of Rock album can make the diff between A- and B+---fair enough, if you really must issue a letter grade, jeez.

Cahoots [Capitol, 1971]
Whew, these fellows can really play. They cook on "Smoke Signal," and you should hear the guitar solo on "Last of the Blacksmiths." Seem overly worried about the passing of the world as they know it, though--not just blacksmiths, but eagles, rivers, trains, the works. B-
Seems even more like a legit worry now, and people were talking bout ecology and planting Earth Day etc. back then.

That's a good point about "Walcott", and it and "Daniel and the Sacred Harp" are the only songs on Stage Fright that really have that "old-timey" conceit.

Rick and Levon liked him enough to play on one of the songs on Runt, though. Didn't know this! So they were in on TR's window of opp for those, like Chilton, who glimpsed the proto-jangle-power-psych-pop etc. possibilities ( indeed, as I mentioned on the main Big Star thread: "a note to self on Twitter:
In radio interview on @BigStarBand's Live at Lafayette's Music Room, AC worries that forthcoming #1 Record is too much like Rundgren...") Would like to check out more of their guesting pop-rock gifts---they certainly sparkle 'n' burble on Bobby Charles's '72 s/t, released on Bearsville, their and Rundgren's neck o' the woods---and they showed up on at least one of Ringo's albums, right? With for instance Nilsson in there somewhere--?!

Energetic new review of Stage Fright---dunno that it was really "small stakes," seems fairly ambitious to me, w some of that making-of stress sublimated, or subliminal, but "they would never sound so happy again"---so overall happy, in sum of alb---seems plausiblehttps://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-band-stage-fright-50th-anniversary-edition/

Robertson says he's working on Cahoots next. It'll be interesting to see how he'll try to rehabilitate it, but I'm not expecting a salvage job on par with Dead Man's Pop. To be fair, even though it's mediocre by their standards, but there's some good stuff on there. I'd like to say they should have held off until they came up with more, but it would have been a four year wait.

The title of "Life Is a Carnival" alone is too corny, but it's still a fun track with a great horn arrangement from Toussaint. "4% Pantomime" with Van Morrison is a lot of fun, and "When I Paint My Masterpiece" is another excellent Dylan cover. I never liked "Smoke Signal" until I heard it again on the newly mixed Academy shows where it held its own - it's probably better on there, but it's not a complete reinvention of the album version, just a better recording and a better performance. "Don't Do It" should have been included, it's one of my favorite Motown covers and would've helped a lot.

FWIW, it sounds like Greil Marcus really likes the new version (i.e. new mix and new order), which surprised him because he actually hated the remix of "The Shape I'm In" when it was released ahead of the rest. It's supposed to come up in his next column.

I'm sort of amazed by how much I dig this new mix/track list, like I really love it and I've always really liked the record even if it always felt a bit confused? I dunno like a funny joke that someone kind of screws up the set up when they are telling it to you.

The Calgary Hotel stuff is amazing and the live set is great.

I've always had a weird soft spot for Cahoots, album cover aside

And I've also never really dug any of Robertson's other remix jobs over the yrs

Love those Calgary Hotel sessions, immediately make me think of the Tom Waits + Replacements songs that padded out the Dead Man's Pop box.

Almost forgot about those

Now that I think about it, those 'Mats/Waits sessions took place at Bearsville. Must be something in the water up there.

drugs

fluoride

re: Robertson's bad singing… "to Kingdom Come" is leagues, miles better than "Knockin' Lost John" or "Out of The Blue." And while Cahoots has issues, I don't understand how anyone can belittle "the Moon Struck One."

Can anyone think of another example of a songwriter —who comes up with everything, particularly melodies made to be sung by really good singers— who is a legendarily bad singer? Like obviously there are Leonard Cohen/Mark E Smith-style singers who render their limitations artfully, and I've never encountered anyone alleging that in fact Manuel, Helm or Danko came up with those melodies… the songs for which Robertson is credited, he wrote every bit of them…whereas Manuel and Danko (very seldom) wrote or co-wrote with Zimmy the songs they are credited for… so Robertson had to say "OK, this is how the vocal melody to "Stage Fright" goes," to the other three, and yet everyone agreed at the time that the composer of these often really fantastically challenging melody lines shouldn't sing them… are there other examples of this? Not including pure, non performing songwriters…like did I heard that Duke Ellington kinda sucked as a singer?

Some might say Randy Newman?
I guess Robertson's vocal perceived shortcomings have to do with his somewhat whiny tone, rather than singing out of tune or having an especially limited range?

he probably worked out the melodies on his guitar

Irving Berlin?

Sorry. Was actually thinking something similar to voodoo chili.

Boston. Tom Scholz wrote music and lyrics for almost all of their songs but never sang, not even back up.

Where can I find the xpost Calgary Hotel sessions? Also still wondering about where to find this, mentioned in the Viney post I recently linked upthread: There is a circulating tape of Band-only basement sessions, which was due to become the sixth volume in the bootleg series The Genuine Basement Tapes. It was never released. This includes unreleased items, like a guitar instrumental version of Ruben Remus as well as other versions of Orange Juice Blues and Yazoo Street Scandal. Any of yall heard it?

The Calgary Hotel sessions discussed above are the ones tacked onto the recent Stage Fright reissue.

just listening to the 2020 mix and "sleeping" does sound like it could be on something anything or the ballad of todd rundgren

Nice catch! For sure--"Sleeping" particularly isn't worlds away from Rundgren's "The Range War."

indeed.. the use of those sustained* chords at the end of each stanza* bring to mind "the range war" and "torch song"... plus maybe the way the piano is mixed, as birdistheword mentioned above.

*not sure if correct terms

I guess you could call them flat 7 triads over a tonic pedal bass (D/E in "Sleeping") or 11 chords.

I love the chord progression at the start of the song, that reappears in each refrain:

C#m/B B "Where else on
Bm/A A Earth would you
F#m/E E Want to go?"

Another similar Todd song is "Boat on the Charles". It might even be the same piano the Band used at Bearsville studios.

I only know "The Range War" from a good cover version on one of DBT Patterson Hood's solo albums, Murdering Oscar (and Other Love Songs). It surprised me, considering that Lester Bangs once reported asking Rundgren what he thought of country music: " 'AH'M DUMMB, AND AH'M STEWW-PID,' he brayed, but not everybody is."

I got that there was maybe a Band influence:
Your daddy runs sheep and my uncle runs cattle
Nothing can keep us out of this battle
They wage as it burns up the plains till no one is left in the saddle
Your ranch is upstream and they've dammed up the water…
There were such wars, and may be again, as the water situation out there incl. more and more drought. (Of course it's also meta, if you like.)

The Band opening for CSNY @ Wembley in '74 (#onethread)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7CniLlueBI

WARNING: Robbie's microphone <is on>

halfway into this, pretty fun, thanks for the tip.

the sound mix starts glitching at certain points, resulting in some fun weird moments such as garth's organ being about 3x louder than everything else during dixie

man backstage must have been a drug scene for the ages

In Shakey, Joni Mitchell said the cocaine was cut with Borax, and it was really hard to get buzzed.

The 1974 version of a big entrance:

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN... THE BAND"

*****five minutes of stumbling around the stage and tuning*****

Actually, it was nice to see/hear them doing "Just Another Whistle Stop" and "Smoke Signal", which aren't on any live recording I've encountered.

"Smoke Signal" was on the Live at the Academy reissue (i.e. the Rock of Ages reissue), and I was pleasantly surprised how well it came off on stage. It's not a great song, but even when it was slotted between much better ones, their performances sold it as a decent number.

I wonder if Robbie had written any of the Northern Lights/Southern Cross material by this point. It can't have been a good feeling if the only things he had finished since 1971 were "Endless Highway" and "Two Piano Song".

I saw them 10-30-70 at Memorial Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, and however stitched together Big Pink had sometimes sounded (in a good way) they had no prob replicating it and then some, very passionately, however many times they'd played it, incl. 32 previous shows on that tour, which started in Jan; and lasted midway through Dec. Songs from s/t were good too, but the only thing I remember remembering (even later that evening) from Stage Fright, which had come out that summer, is and was the title song. But I'm sure I was pretty stoned, so (still). And I've never felt the urge to get back to that album, but maybe I will (though it's not on the Bucket List),

Here's the show (not song) list; no wonder Robertson retired:
https://theband.hiof.no/history/The_Band_in_Concert_1970.pdf Pretty typical for a big or big-ish act back then, I think.

Big Pink live was being inside the record.

Even on the tour supporting it, they only ever played a few things from Cahoots live, and "Life Is A Carnival" was the only one that made it up to The Last Waltz. Moondog Matinee was their latest release in '74, but apparently they never did any of that stuff live either.

Moondog Matinee's a good album. I get the impression it's knocked unfairly due to its origins (Levon's book argues that they could only do covers at that point because there was too much resentment and jealousy for any collaborative work creating original material to happen.) But the idiosyncratic choices are surprisingly welcome, and the performances are all excellent. And Robertson's new verses on Mystery Train are surprisingly memorable - they expand the song rather than hurt or diminish it.

That should be "Mystery Train," no italics.

How could I forget "Mystery Train"? One track from MM made it into the setlist.

Not sure why I never go beyond Big Pink and the brown album, but I heard this today and it's really nice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq2e7DPhyHg

I know what you mean. It took me ages to go beyond those two as well, bu when I first heard Northern Lights Southern Cross it was a revelation.

i have to say the remixed and resequenced stage fright really make a great case for that album not being too far off the first two in quality

today i learned that the best band song not by the band is by....the beach boys???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Xbg7v3Fwg

yeah I dig that stage fright reissue, but I like the royal albert hall show that came with the deluxe edition even more!

yeah that's great!

I was more just surprised, I'm pretty leery of people fucking with old albums, especially Robbie, but he did a great job

I voted for that album in the Todd Rundgren poll, but I still need to listen to it some more.

Another Band song not by the Band: "Once Burned" by Rundgren, with Rick and Levon on bass and drums.

Yeah, I dabbled with Stage Fright over the years, but now I love it. Time to Kill might be a top 3 The Band song for me.