The Marshall Tucker Band

I suppose people under thirty don’t remember a time when most musicians were ugly. Good looks were not required until the advent of video music. Many musicians were even physically deformed in some way. Young people who did not see the Jamie Foxx movie may be surprised to learn Ray Charles was not only a musical genius, he was also blind. I’m talking about the olden days now, when Lotus was a computer revolution and Madonna was a sexpot instead of a (twisted) spiritual leader. I have attended many Grateful Dead concerts, and the music was at times powerfully transporting, but I always felt when I opened my eyes and saw the fat, middle aged, men on the stage the spell was broken. Only minutes of concentration on the music would allow it to return. I mention this because the music on this DVD is incredible, both wonderful and beautiful but the band members are, well, not very attractive.

When I popped this DVD into my player my TV was tuned to the modern MTV, but in the span of a moment the beautiful teenagers selling sex and industrially assembled pop music were transformed into sweaty fat men playing funky grooves with real emotion. The people on this video are comically ugly. Designer jeans pulled up high, big cowboy hats, belt buckles, and sweaty western shirts, this DVD has them all. I won’t mention the hair. Even the pretty kids MTV picked to be in the audience were homely by today’s standards. But the music, oh the incredible music: it’s flawless and beautiful. This concert was filmed in the strange Jurassic age of MTV, before the advent of mega-popular starlet/singers manufactured in Disney’s bioengineering tanks. Real music made it on prime time TV somehow. I can’t explain it. I don‘t know how or even when it died, but it’s only a memory now.

The music from this concert is outstanding. For the uninitiated the MTB is similar to the southern rock of the Allman Brothers Band and Widespread Panic but with a more good timey jazz feel. Arguably their music is more successful for it. I just love this DVD; I’m tapping my foot as I write this, singing along and trying not to look at the video. They expertly cut their hard driving rock with jazzy flutes and organs. The music is crisp and clean, more "Jessica" than "Whipping Post." It’s like a beautiful Blue Ridge Mountain landscape in the Carolinas, viewed from the comfort of an air conditioned window.

When this was filmed in 1981, Tommy Caldwell, the Band’s original guitar wizard had just been killed in an automobile crash. His Brother Toy soldiered on behind the vocals of the dynamic Doug Grey, who was, and still is, every bit as talented as he is ugly, and that’s a lot. Paul Riddle’s drumming is very fluid and jazzy, and it provides a nice swing for their catchy songs to groove on. It all works so well because it’s a tight unit of boyhood friends playing together at the top of their game and obviously loving it.

There are some major hits on this Disk. You’ve heard chestnuts like “Heard it in a Love Song” and “Can’t You See” before, and your older sister or your mom may have danced to MTB at their prom. Those tunes make the music much more accessible to a new listener. The stage craft might remind some folks of the String Cheese Incident. There’s lots of hootin’ and hollarin’ and lots of calling for applause “one time”. Some songs stand out even though they weren’t hits. “Take the Highway”, the show opener and “Tell the Blues to Take Off the Night” crackle with electricity.

The disk comes with a nice documentary about the band featuring Charlie Daniels and Travis Tritt. Among the interesting tidbits included in this documentary: Marshall Tucker is the name of a blind piano tuner who lived in the band’s hometown of Spartanburg South Carolina. Not interested? That doesn’t matter. The music is enough to recommend this disk to anyone interested in this kind of hyper-country style music, and anyone who remembers this band from the seventies will be delighted. Just make sure you don’t look too much at the screen.