In September 1974 The Band rehearsed for a Wembley Stadium show at the farmhouse in Beaconsfield owned by Brinsley Schwarz who had lived there together for almost three years. It was keyboard player Bob Andrews who set the wheels in motion, calling a publicist he knew to ask if he could meet The Band’s Garth Hudson. Sure, said the publicist, but do you know anywhere where the Band could rehearse while they’re in the UK. How about our farmhouse, replied Andrews.
The story of how Brinsley Schwarz hosted their idols is told in Graham Parker’s Howlin Wind by Jay Nachman, published last year by Tangible Press, a copy of which the author mailed to me recently after I helped with his research into UK pub rock.
“We were wildly excited, if you can be wildly excited and stoned at the same time,” Brinsley Schwarz told Nachman when he heard that The Band were on their way to Beaconsfield.
“The Brinsley Schwarz members were starstruck when their musical idols climbed out of their limo,” writes Nachman. “Using Brinsley Schwarz’s gear, The Band set up in the barn and began to play. The members of Brinsley Schwarz crammed together on the steps outside, and for approximately two hours they were treated to a private concert.”
“They sounded exactly like they did on the records, which is another quite extraordinary thing about them,” said Brinsley. “They sounded just like The Band.”
What’s more Hudson stayed behind after his four fellow Band members left and for about 20 minutes played “every genre under the sun on Andrews’ Lowie organ, from classical music to rock to Southern rock and more. The members of Brinsley Schwarz stood behind him in awe. “He would subtly change the sound he was laying,” said Schwarz. “And then he would change the playing to suit the sound. He would evoke Southern states’ music. He pulled up images of Virginia and the War of Independence and all of that stuff. He would just hold a note or two, he’d just change a few switches and things on the organ and suddenly you’d be into Mozart. It was mind-blowing. His mastery of the instrument was better than sensational.”
“At one point I said to Garth, ‘You’re the best keyboard player in the world’,” Andrews recalled. “And he said, ‘Well, time to go’. I blew it. It was the thrill of lifetime to be that close to somebody who you’d been admiring for years.”
“Schwarz, a devoted fan of The Band to this day, regards Robbie Robertson as a favourite guitarist,” writes Nachman. “After Hudson left, the Brinsleys wandered back into the barn to play ‘The Weight’, ‘The Shape I’m In’, ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ and other Band songs. Hoping to capture Robertson’s sound, Schwarz plugged his guitar into his amp, the same one Robertson had played through, using Robertson’s cable, which the guitarist had left behind. Out came nothing but a discouraging lesson.”
“I plugged into my amp,” said Brinsley, “I had a look at the settings, which were almost exactly like mine, and played and it sounded like me, very annoyingly, and not like him at all. I thought, ‘How does he sound so much like himself and I can’t even sound remotely like him?’ That is one of the things about guitar players who are always searching for this magical sound that they have in their heads.”
Both Brinsley Schwarz and Bob Andrews subsequently joined The Rumour, Graham Parker’s backing band, whose story is told in Howlin’ Wind, alongside that of Parker who was interviewed at length for the book. Here’s a link: https://grahamparkershowlinwind.net/
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