Sunday, March 12, 2023

The Wild Honey Orchestra - Tribute to Music from Big Pink and the Band, Alex Theatre, Glendale, CA, 3-25-2017

Here's yet another Wild Honey Orchestra (WHO) tribute show. This time, the focus was on the Band. It was mainly billed as a tribute to the Band's classic 1968 album "Music from Big Pink." But they also managed to play all the songs from their classic 1969 album "The Band," as well as plenty of other songs from around that time period. Surprisingly, though, there were no songs from 1967's "The Basement Tapes" that the Band did with Bob Dylan (except for the three on "Music from Big Pink"). It's very possible that's the target for a different WHO tribute show.

Songs one through 12 consist of "The Band" album played in order. Songs 13 to 20 are other good Band songs, mostly from the early 1970s. Songs 21 to 30 consist of the "Music from Big Pink" album. Then two more songs were played. The last song, "I Shall Be Released," is also from the "Music from Big Pink" album, but was held back because it made for a good final encore.

The concert had a special guest: Garth Hudson. He was the keyboard player for the entire duration of the Band's existence. While most members of the Band were talented lead vocalists, Hudson was not. So he didn't sing lead for any of these songs. However, there were a couple of instrumental showcases for him, especially "The Genetic Method," as well as an unnamed piano solo instrumental. Additionally, I believe he played on many or most of the other songs. Plus, a couple of songs at the end were sung by his wife, Sister Maud Hudson.

Otherwise, the songs were done by many of the same "usual suspects" who performed in most of the other WHO concerts. However, this one had more unique guests than some of the others I've posted here. In particular, they got a very big name by having Jackson Browne sing a couple of songs. Other notables who generally weren't in the other WHO shows I've posted include: Carlene Carter, Peter Case, Victoria Williams, Van Dyke Parks, and Brenda Holloway. 

The source for this is the same as the others I've posted, which means the recording has the same plusses and minuses. The main plusses are that the sound quality is excellent, and all the songs are here. The main negative is that none of the banter between songs is included, unless one counts the comments made at the ends of songs while the audience was still clapping. Another minus was that the applause usually cut off early, right after those comments. So I patched in more applause from other songs for the vast majority of the songs.

This concert is unusually long, even by the standards of the other WHO shows I've posted. It's two hours and forty minutes long.

Unfortunately, this is the last WHO show I plan on posting, until I come across more worthy recordings. I did find a recording of the 2014 show, which was a tribute to the Beatles albums "Revolver" and "Abbey Road." However, it's a rough audience bootleg and I don't find it listenable.

01 Across the Great Divide (David Baerwald with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
02 Rag Mama Rag (Jerry Riopelle with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
03 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Carlo Nuccio with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
04 When You Awake (Peter Holsapple, Skylar Gudasz & Van Dyke Parks with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
05 Up on Cripple Creek (Carlo Nuccio & Fuzbee Morse with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
06 Whispering Pines (Continental Drifters with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
07 Jemima Surrender (Gary Eaton with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
08 Rockin' Chair (Victoria Williams & the Continental Drifters with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
09 Look Out Cleveland (Jeff Young with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
10 Jawbone (Chris Price & David Goodstein with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
11 The Unfaithful Servant (Carlene Carter with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
12 King Harvest [Has Surely Come] (Terry Reid with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
13 Stage Fright (All Day Sucker with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
14 When I Paint My Masterpiece (Steve Wynn & Van Dyke Parks with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
15 All la Glory (Rob Laufer & Van Dyke Parks with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
16 Ophelia (Sarah Kramer with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
17 4% Pantomime (Luther Russell & Rob Laufer with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
18 Life Is a Carnival (David Goodstein with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
19 The Shape I'm In (Keith Allison with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
20 Get Up Jake (Nick Guzman & Danny Henry with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
21 Tears of Rage (Syd Straw with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
22 To Kingdom Come (Louise Goffin & Julianna Raye with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
23 In a Station (Plainsong [Iain Matthews & Andy Roberts] with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
24 Caledonia Mission (Jackson Browne with Susan Cowsill & the Wild Honey Orchestra)
25 The Weight (Continental Drifters & Jackson Browne with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
26 We Can Talk (Cindy Lee Berryhill, Victoria Williams & Syd Straw with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
27 Long Black Veil (Steve Barton with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
28 The Genetic Method - Chest Fever [Edit] (Garth Hudson & Bebopalula with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
29 Lonesome Suzie (Luther Russell with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
30 This Wheel's on Fire (Peter Case with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
31 Piano Solo [Instrumental] (Garth Hudson with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
32 It Makes No Difference (Skylar Gudasz with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
33 Baby Don't You Do It [Don't Do It] (Sister Maud Hudson & Steve Wynn with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
34 I Shall Be Released (Robert Levon Been & Sister Maud Hudson with the Wild Honey Orchestra)

https://www.imagenetz.de/hyk6k

The cover art is entirely based on promotional art for the concert. I cropped some things out and resized other things to make a rectangular poster fit into a square space.

8 comments:

  1. I have a question: This title listing begins with the self-titled album "The Band" and saves "Big Pink" for the closing part of the show, but your description seems to have that reversed. So that I can sequence my DL properly, which sequencing is the correct one? BTW, all these WHO posts have been absolutely wonderful!! You have my gratitude!!

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    1. Oops, you're right, I got them reversed in one of them paragraphs. I just fixed that. And I'm glad you like. I'm just bummed I can't find more these shows. Especially the Big Star one from 2022. You'd think someone would have that one.

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    2. Thanks for all, Paul. Would you have an objection if I were to occasionally put links to some of your posts on a music Fb page I'm part of (there are about 150 members)? No problem if you prefer I don't, for any reason.

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    3. If you're sending people over to my blog, that's great.

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  2. It's not quite true that there were no songs from the Basement Tapes. "I shall be released", "Tears of rage" and "This wheel's on fire" were all Basement Tapes songs before The Band re-recorded them for the Big Pink album.

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    1. Good point. I just made a minor change in the text to fix that.

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  3. thanks so much for this, although i was a little disappointed but perhaps that is just because i love the band so much it would have to be really good to equal the band live.

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  4. The WHO just did a concert a couple of weeks ago which was a 50th Anniversary of the original Nuggets album. Lenny Kaye was MC. Could you load that one up should you get a copy? Thanks for all you do

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