If you’re not familiar with The Last Waltz there’s a legitimate question about how we’re friends–if we are. It’s such a formative work of my taste in music that it seems not possible. The concert itself was 48 years ago today, meaning I would have been five years old when it happened.

I wasn’t five when I first heard The Band, though given my path to the music maybe I actually was? My uncles–there were two–had pretty fantastic taste in music really, and it seems likely that some of The Band’s songs circulated in my youth, probably on near worn out 8-Track tapes with their crappy sound and songs that split in the middle. Maybe on a record, but who knows?

I was raised, until i was about 11, on a steady diet of 70s AM classics, which I now keep on a sentimental playlist. C.W. McCall’s convoy was a favourite, especially in the car–always on the lookout for Smokey.

Dolly was in there, of course. The Carpenters. A lot of Abba. It’s Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler that I remember the most. I swear I must have worn that cassette out in my dad’s car, I played it so often. Whenever my father, who I haven’t seen in a a few decades, decides to kick the bucket…I know what’s going on the turntable.

Cut to 10 years or so later and Toronto legends The Skydiggers and Cowboy Junkies were favourites in high school, along with less twangy fare like The Police. 1988 saw the arrival of U2’s deeply under appreciated Rattle and Hum, with its dive into what we now call Americana and I think that helped cement the sound in my consciousness. I was hooked.

So, The Band. In 1989 i was working in a CD store (a radical concept at the time) and the To Kingdom Come compilation was released. To this day it’s one of my favourite compilations of their music–near perfect from end to end. Sure, The Last Waltz captures a moment and it’s fantastic but many would argue that the Rock of Ages album is a better live recording. Could there be a more pointless argument?

It’s a fool’s debate, really. It’s all fantastic, and the legend lives on 48 years later. My uncles are both gone so I can’t listen to it with them, but tonight I’ll watch the concert film and remember them. They’d have loved to be here.