Music From Big Pink – 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe

Today’s other BIG TICKET DAY pick for The 2018 PopCult Gift Guide is a super deluxe fiftieth anniversary reissue of the legendary album, Music From Big Pink by The Band. This is the perfect gift for any die-hard fan of The Band, or anyone who wants to hear how Americana music was invented.

On July 1, 1968, The Band’s landmark debut album, Music from Big Pink, seemed to spring from nowhere and everywhere. Drawing from the American roots music panoply of country, blues, R&B, gospel, soul, rockabilly, the honking tenor sax tradition, hymns, funeral dirges, brass band music, folk, and rock ‘n’ roll, The Band forged a timeless new style that forever changed the course of popular music. Fifty years later, the mythology surrounding Music from Big Pink lives on through the evocative storytelling of its songs including “The Weight,” “This Wheel’s On Fire,” “Tears of Rage,” and “To Kingdom Come,” its enigmatic cover art painted by Bob Dylan, the salmon-colored upstate New York house – ‘Big Pink’ – where The Band wrote the songs, and in myriad descendant legends carried forth since the album’s stunning arrival.

In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of The Band’s landmark debut album, Music From Big Pink we now have a Super Deluxe CD/Blu-ray/2LP/7-inch vinyl box set with a hardbound book.

The big attraction is a limited edition of two pink vinyl LPs that feature a new stereo mix of the album, produced by Bob Clearmountain from the original four-track analog master. This new mix achieves a striking clarity and incorporates some previously unreleased chatter from the studio sessions.

For the LP, Chris Bellman cut the vinyl lacquers for the album’s new stereo mix at 45rpm at Bernie Grundman Mastering, expanding the album’s vinyl footprint from one LP to two.The music is also included on a CD and a 5.1 digitial audio Blu Ray disc.

The box set also includes an exclusive reproduction of The Band’s 1968 7-inch vinyl single for “The Weight” / “I Shall Be Released” in their new stereo mixes and a hardbound book with a new essay by noted music journalist David Fricke and classic photos by Elliott Landy.

Music From Big Pink – 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe box set can be ordered from any record shop that carries new releases, or you can find it at Amazon for just under ninety bucks.