Personnel
"Up on Cripple Creek" was released as the first single from The Band's sophomore release, The Band, with "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" on the flip side, thus combining two of the seminal examples of Americana on a single 45.
There is so much that could be said about this song, which I'm surprised to encounter so soon in this countdown, yet virtually nothing that hasn't already been said. Consider the lyrics. Robbie Robertson has said,
"Up On Cripple Creek" is somehow an extension of this Americana. We're saying, 'What does this guy think, with that one light on upstairs, and that truck parked out there?' That's who I'm curious about. Just following the story of this person, and he just drives these trucks across the whole country, and he knows these characters that he drops in on, is really what this song's all about.
Or consider the playing. Garth Hudson invented the idea of playing a clavinet through a wah-wah pedal, something that became a fixture of 1970s soul music. Max Weinberg includes "Up on Cripple Creek" among the outstanding drum tracks, saying "Levon's beat is so soulful and right. His drums here are fat and deep, his snare splitting the music in half."
There are more Band entries to come on these lists, so I think I will save my stories about going to see Scorsese's The Last Waltz at the theatre in Toronto and then taking my buddies to see it when it hit the Sault, all of us crammed in the back of Jimmy Fitton's pickup, or going to see the post-Robertson Band with Dave and Sue at Lulu's Roadhouse and at an open air festival in Woodstock.
| Origin: | Toronto (as Ronnie Hawkins's band); Woodstock, NY (as Bob Dylan's band) |
| Release Date: | album: 22 September 1969; single: 29 November 1969 |
| Composer: | Jaime Robbie Robertson |
| Album: | The Band |
| Style: | Americana |
| Charts: | #10 Canadian Singles Chart; #25 US Hot 100 |
| Mar*Star 125: | 30 |
| Mar*Star 150: | 56 |
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Personnel
