How Long Can a Band Stay Your Favorite?

For years, my favorite band was The Who.  I have every book written about the band, every album (including Keith Moon's crappy solo album), every concert DVD released, everything pertaining to them.  After a brief stint of having terrible taste in music (I blame society for imposing pop groups and boy bands on impressionable young minds), my uncle Fred introduced me to the Kinks and the Who.  I remember taping the CDs so I could listen to them on my Walkman.  I don't think I really fell in love with those blokes from Shepherd's Bush until I saw the band perform live.

It was the summer of 2000.  Entwistle was still alive.  Ringo's son, Zak, on the drum kit.  My first rock concert.  It was just an amazing experience all around.  Madison Square Garden.  The Wallflowers opened the show.  Just... the whole experience was nothing less than magical.

The Who remained my favorite band for about 13 years.  Of course, I listened to other bands.  In an attempt to find a common bond with my other uncle Frank, I started listening to Steely Dan.  Don't get me wrong, Steely Dan is great.  But I actually had to force myself to listen to them at first.  They really are an acquired taste.

Uncle Frank actually got me started on Bob Dylan.  It wasn't until high school that I actually heard Bob Dylan.  I feel like that's weird.  His songs were never really played on the radio station that my parents listened to.  Not to mention, the first album of Dylan's that I actually bought/listened to was Nashville Skyline.  When someone mentions Dylan, most people think Blood on the Tracks or Highway 61 Revisited.  Nope.  Not me.  I bought Nashville Skyline for 12.99 at Costco.  That was my first Dylan album.

When you start listening to Bob Dylan, though, there's another group that's hard to avoid mentioning.  The Band.  Four Canadians and an Arkansan playing some of the best Americana rock and roll one would ever hear.  I bought Music from Big Pink and the brown album when I was in high school as well.  One day in college, I thought to myself "I should finish my collection of albums by The Band."  And I went on Amazon and bought all the rest of their studio albums (I'm regret the purchase of Islands, though.  Yikes!).

As my tastes changed, I started developing an intense liking for the harmonies, the piano, and a certain kind of guitar work.  The Band had 3 lead singers, which is a concept that's unheard of in rock and roll.  Sure, everyone in the Who sang a song every now and then, but most of the time, they left that job to Roger Daltrey.  The Band, however, had three lead singers.  And when they combined their voices, they made some sweet sweet harmony.  The piano in the songs is subtle enough to not take away from the song, but powerful enough to hear as a separate part in each song.  Not only that, but The Band had a piano AND organ playing at the same time, making the sound even more unique.  And the guitar work.  Robbie Robertson's guitar work was so simplistic, it made me feel like I could play anything.

It's things like these that helped me make the change from the hard rock of The Who to the softer side of rock and roll.  It helped me get in touch with my inner backwoods bumpkin.  I mean... my family does own a hunting cabin not too far from Saugerties, NY (where Dylan and The Band wrote a lot of their material).  It's weird, though, because I feel like I can relate to most of the songs a little bit better than I can relate to songs performed by a working class band from England.  Give me a song about an old man telling stories from a rocking chair instead of a song about hoping I die before I get old.  Only one of those ideas makes complete sense to me.