LaRM day (Meg Baird-The Band)

Meg Baird's Dear Companion (2007). Lovely. In her time off from Espers, Meg Baird put together this collection of absolutely beautiful old-fashioned folk songs, which sounds like a broadcast directly from the late 1950's. This stuff is so true to its origins that you could easily peg it as having been recorded at absolutely any point over the last sixty years. In some ways you can see how the success of Gillian Welch's hyper-authentic approach to American folk music has opened the doors for other artists with a similar interest in the real stuff, but nonetheless, this is a hugely successful interpretation of the classic tradition, and unlike the Espers records, there is very little suggestion that a kind of "psychedelia" is necessary to add in to the mix to bring out just how strange classic folk music can be. The only flaw is that when she covers English folk songs, it underlines just how incapable American folk artists seem to be in understanding the real flavour of the songs. I'm sure it works the same the other way around, but it seems a shame when Baird's own songs seem to fit the tradition so nicely that you're joltingly reminded that in fact the English and American folk traditions are far apart.

And so on to something marvellous. It's the first three albums by The Band. Now this stuff is, of course, just awesome. First album Music from Big Pink (1968) is a statement of intent, not only using American pastoral and folk traditions to create a whole new kind of rock music, but also setting a template so strong, so robust and so perfect that Americana has taken a long, long time to get beyond it. Interestingly the least successful tunes as far as I'm concerned are the covers of songs by their old mucker Bob Dylan. Robertson's own songs are much clearer in terms of where the band were going to go and how stridently they would go there. Second album, The Band (1969) is a truly remarkable record, expanding and refining all the elements that were so extraordinary on the first album and creating a record that not only has its own mythology but also contributed to creating a mythology of a country in the process. It's an amazing record and a completely coherent and perfectly realised one. Every song is a triumph, from Richard Manuel's astonishingly moving 'Whispering Pines' to Robertson's rocking 'Look Out Cleveland', it's just all gold. From these incredible heights the only way is down and the most remarkable thing about Stage Fright (1970) is how little the quality really drops. There's no denying that the album is more disjointed and the songwriting not as strong as on The Band, but if it had followed directly on from Big Pink, it would have seemed like a natural progression and it only seems lacking in comparison to the brilliance that preceded it. For the first time though there are a couple of songs that don't cut it, and there were albums to come where the ratio goes very wrong, but when an album has 'The Shape I'm In' and 'Stage Fright', there's really nothing to complain about. PS, my editions of those albums have a ton of extra alternate versions and scrapped songs, which although not adding anything to the actual albums are, for once, hugely interesting in their own right. This also explains why there aren't many records today - these each go on for twice the length of the original albums.

The rest of The Band's albums are a mixed bag, varying in quality from the really quite poor (oof, Moondog Matinee) to the great but still patchy (Northern Lights-Southern Cross) so I've always made do with the compilation album To Kingdom Come to cover the best tunes from these albums, and there are some truly fantastic songs ('It Makes No Difference' and 'Acadian Driftwood' being two of the best they ever recorded). To Kingdom Come includes a couple of pre-Big Pink rarities and has tunes from every studio album to 1977 (they split following 1978's live extravangaza The Last Waltz, more of which in a mo), and as such has pretty much all the vital bits of those later albums. The Last Waltz itself is a gargantuan slab of self-congratulation that from a lesser band would seem like the most stomach-churningly vainglorious load of tripe. Imagine inviting some of the biggest stars in rock music to each come and do a brief turn to celebrate your own career - it's truly gruesome egotism, and yet, of course, this being The Band, it's the most spectacular and inviting bit of egotism modern music has ever seen. It's charming even when it's grotesque (I'm looking at you Neil Diamond) and when it's great (I'm looking at you Neil Young) it's fabulous. It doesn't even outstay its welcome at 19.5 hours long. Of course it's always better watching Scorsese's truly groundbreaking concert film of The Last Waltz, but listening to the show is almost as good as watching it.

And with this true greatness the weekend can begin. Nothing of this calibre to come next week, but some charm and some grace and some Bangles, so it's all gravy for a while. Deep breath for Mike "Womble" Batt's musical version of The Hunting of the Snark midweek though - ooooh dear...