Looking back half a century, it only makes sense that The Band’s Northern Lights – Southern Cross compares so favorably with the iconic group’s stellar first two albums. The ‘clubhouse atmosphere’ generated in the California studio edifice they dubbed ‘Shangri-la’ was a tangible recreation of that inspiring intimacy in the ‘Big Pink’ house back in Woodstock as well as the Hollywood home where the fivesome recorded their eponymous sophomore album.
In the annals of the band once known as the Hawks, only the 1972 live release Rock of Ages and the next year’s studio collection of covers, Moondog Matinee, radiated a similar warmth. Multi-instrumentalist Garth Hudson’s technical and musicianly versatility imbued the sixth Band studio album with a modern sheen, but it was distinctly different from the antiseptic polish applied to its 1971 predecessor Cahoots.
And “Jupiter Hollow,” the most overt instance of that sophisticated layering of keyboards, synthesizers, and wind instruments, also features both Richard Manuel and Levon Helm playing drums in jaunty syncopated tandem with the song’s author: Robbie Robertson foresook his guitar for clavinet there, thus recalling the swapping of instrumental roles so prevalent on Music From Big Pink and its successor.
“Ophelia” boasts a Dixieland feel from Hudson’s subtly brassy horns and a suitably compact solo from Robbie on guitar. Helm sings in a salty tone not unlike that of “Strawberry Wine” off Stage Fright, with Manuel’s additional vocals setting off the Arkansan’s guttural delivery with his own Canadian dignity.
Rick Danko’s stirring performance of “It Makes No Difference” validates the bassist’s volunteering to take the lead on the treatise of despair. And he is hardly less poignant in his somber intonations on “Twilight” (a later, more ruminative rendition on the 1976 Best of anthology supersedes this somewhat stilted outtake, included on the 2001 expanded CD).
Still, as on those first two Band LPs, Richard issues the most moving moments on Northern Lights – Southern Cross. “Hobo Jungle” is an empathetic ode to the forlorn population of the streets, as remarkably relevant to contemporary times as the (self-referential?) “Rags & Bones.” And both also manifest a rightful connection to “Acadian Driftwood.”
The late, lamented keyboardist shares the vocals with Rick and Levon to conjure the melancholy air of geographic and psychic displacement Robertson describes in his chronicle of the Cajun emigrations in the 1700s (quite possibly too channeling his own Native American lineage).
Lyrics delivered in French near the track’s end carry a sense of deliverance matching the gaiety of Garth’s piccolo playing as well as Byron Berline’s fiddle, instrumental touches that are ideal complements to the vocal rounds. The Band acknowledged they borrowed from the Staple Singers for just such delicate moments.
Recorded after the main sessions and initially intended as a single release, “Christmas Must Be Tonight” is the second of two bonus tracks on the aforementioned reissue. The cut eventually ended up on 1977’s Islands, the final long player by the esteemed quintet, where, at a more deliberate tempo, it sounds far superior to the other pieces Robertson composed for the sake of contractual fulfillment.
That pervasive strain is painful to hear, especially in contrast to the easygoing bond that permeates the performances on Northern Lights – Southern Cross, such as “Ring Your Bell.” The generosity of spirit arising from that number mirrors the picturesque image of The Band adorning the LP’s front cover: surrounding a campfire on the Malibu beach, where the group moved in the fall of ’73, the pose is certainly contrary to subsequent tales of a fractious internal dynamic that have emerged in the half-century since this essential entry in their discography first came out.
