Music from Big Pink

Few debut albums have changed music as quietly as Music from Big Pink. It arrived in 1968 amid psychedelia and stadium volume and offered the opposite: warm, weathered songs that sounded like they'd always existed. A generation of musicians, Eric Clapton among them, heard it and changed course.

The house that named it

The album takes its name from “Big Pink,” the pink-sided house near West Saugerties, New York, where members of the group lived and made music with Bob Dylan in 1967. Much of the album's spirit was forged in its basement. The naive, dreamlike cover painting was made by Dylan himself.

The songs

Side for side it's remarkable: “The Weight”, the Dylan/Manuel collaboration “Tears of Rage,” the haunting “I Shall Be Released,” Garth Hudson's organ tour-de-force “Chest Fever,” and “This Wheel's on Fire.” It had three lead singers and no single frontman, an ensemble playing in complete sympathy.

The influence

Its impact was immediate. It's often credited with helping turn rock back towards roots, country and restraint, and with opening the way for the Americana that followed. It's a foundational record, and the best place to start.