BEST OF THE BAND

Discography / Up on Cripple Creek

Up on Cripple Creek

The highest-charting single the Band ever released, reaching No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1969 and earning the group its only appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Robertson wrote it while the group was snowed in during a Montreal winter, on a trip to Hawaii intended partly just to find some warmth, and the song's loose, easygoing feel, the story of a long-haul trucker torn between his steady woman and a girl named Bessie in Lake Charles, matches the circumstances of its writing more than most of Robertson's tightly researched historical songs.

Levon Helm sings lead, in a performance that ranges from a growling verse delivery to an actual yodel on the outro, and the song is also historically notable for being one of the first rock recordings to pair a Hohner clavinet with a wah-wah pedal, a combination Garth Hudson used to create the song's signature squelching riff between choruses, years before the same sound became a funk and soul studio staple. Helm later admitted the band initially didn't think much of the song; they cut it two or three times without it clicking before finally doubling up the harmony parts and finding the version that worked.

Chart performance

Reached No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1969, the highest chart position of any Band single.

Notable versions