WHEN I PAINT MY 5.1 MASTERPIECE
WHENEVER WE TALK about artists who changed the course of rock history who aren’t The Beatles, one group with perhaps the most unassuming yet wholly appropriate name tops the bill: The Band. Their homespun July 1968 debut Music From Big Pink literally turned the rock world on its collective ear to such a degree that contemporaries like Eric Clapton instantly renounced their virtuosic “look at me” playing styles and adjusted their thinking toward creating more organic and more authentic music truer to their essential selves.
Hardly a one-and-done effort, Big Pink was followed up with September 1969’s equally seminal The Band—also known as The Brown Album because of its sepia-toned and textured cover art—and August 1970’s reflection on the not-so-hidden cracks in the group’s armor, Stage Fright
In recent years, chief songwriter and ace guitarist Robbie Robertson has led the charge in overseeing how The Band’s core catalog is being remixed, remastered, expanded, and repackaged accordingly in highly collectible 50th anniversary 13.1 x 12.7-inch multidisc box sets via Capitol/UMe. Even better, Robertson enlisted his longtime friend, venerated producer Bob Clearmountain (Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Simple Minds) to bring said original Band albums fully into the surround sound universe.
Robertson and I first discussed surround sound over a decade ago back in March 2011 when he told me, “I love the idea of putting the listener right so he can sit in the middle of the people playing the music, like he’s in another chair in the room with them.” Then, when we talked about the surround mix for in September 2018, he
