The Band essays – Track 5 Side 1 – Up On Cripple Creek

This idea sprang from here.

Track 1 Side 1 - Across the Great Divide is here.
Track 2 Side 1 - Rag Mama Rag is here.
Track 3 Side 1 - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down is here.
Track 4 Side 1 - When You Awake is here.

“This living off the road / Is getting pretty old”

—Robbie Robertson / Up On Cripple Creek

"The hotel manager don't bring me down. I'll sit there and jaw with him all day..."

--Levon Helm

Nothing to see (or hear) here....just Garth Hudson inventing funk with a Hohner clavinet played with a wah-wah pedal after each chorus. And doing so a full 3 years before Stevie Wonder cut "Superstition". Everybody just assumed it was an old Jaw Harp (sometimes called a "Jew's Harp", nobody seems to know why...not even Google). "It was easy to do", shrugged Garth. Hudson was an inveterate tinkerer....one of those guys who continually ask themselves "I wonder what'll happen if I try this?...", which is the one thing all mad geniuses have in common.

(When Robbie broke up the group, and they reformed with various line-ups, Levon would always say it was still The Band as long as Garth was involved.)