Why ‘Bobby Charles’ Is the Best Band Album Not Released by the Band
Bobby Charles’ too-often-overlooked self-titled album arrived 50 years ago with a set of timeless and beautiful songs – and some very famous friends.
Bobby Charles’ too-often-overlooked self-titled album arrived 50 years ago with a set of timeless and beautiful songs – and some very famous friends.
Producer John Simon was intimately involved in the genesis of the Band, emerging with a unique perspective on that era.
Away from the Band’s circus-like chorus of characters, from faith healers to woman stealers, there’s something else going on here.
The Band’s “Strawberry Wine” heralds a layered, endlessly fascinating project that could only have come from a moment of deep conflict.
Woodstock native Jim Weider got to live out a musician’s dream, having been a fan of the Band at the turn of the 1970s before eventually them from 1985-99.
A cross between a Memphis blues and a Storyville saloon romp, “Rag Mama Rag” showed the Band’s complete grasp of American song styles.
The Band’s “Chest Fever” starts out as Bach, then it becomes midnight funky – and that’s all before anybody but Garth Hudson does a thing.
After reaching across generations on the solemn and startling “Tears of Rage,” the Band leapt into a rambling groove on “To Kingdom Come.”
There’s a moment in this song, when Steve Forbert sings “sneak on out beneath the stars and run,” that meant everything to me when this song was new. A whole world, a world far away, lived inside that one line You May Also Like: Steve Hackett, “In the Skeleton Gallery”Read More