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The Band were a Canadian-American roots rock group that originally consisted of Rick Danko (bass guitar, double bass, fiddle, trombone, vocals), Levon Helm (drums, mandolin, guitar, vocals), Garth Hudson (keyboard instruments, saxophones, trumpet), Richard Manuel (piano, drums, baritone saxophone, vocals) and Robbie Robertson (guitar, vocals). The members of the Band first came together as they joined rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins's backing group, The Hawks, one by one between 1958 and 1963.
In 1964, they separated from Hawkins, after which they toured and released a few singles as Levon and the Hawks and the Canadian Squires. The next year, Bob Dylan hired them for his U.S. tour in 1965 and world tour in 1966.[1] Following the 1966 tour, the group moved with Dylan to Saugerties, New York, where they made the informal 1967 recordings that became The Basement Tapes, which forged the basis for their 1968 debut album Music from Big Pink. Because they were always "the band" to various frontmen, Helm said the name "The Band" worked well when the group came into its own. The group began performing officially as The Band in 1970, and went on to release ten studio albums. Dylan continued to collaborate with The Band over the course of their career, including a joint 1974 tour.
The original configuration of The Band ended its touring career in 1976 with an elaborate live ballroom performance featuring numerous musical celebrities. This performance was immortalized in Martin Scorsese's 1978 documentary The Last Waltz. The Band recommenced touring in 1983 without guitarist Robbie Robertson, who had found success with a solo career and as a Hollywood music producer. Following a 1986 show, Richard Manuel was found dead of suicide; despite this, the remaining three members continued to tour and record albums with a revolving door of musicians filling Manuel and Robertson's respective roles, before finally settling on Richard Bell, Randy Ciarlante and Jim Wieder. Rick Danko died of heart failure in 1999, after which the group broke up for good. Levon Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1998, and after a series of treatments was able to regain use of his voice. He continued to perform and released several successful albums until he succumbed to the disease in 2012.
The group was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked them No. 50 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time,[6] and in 2008, they received the Grammy's Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2004, "The Weight" was ranked the 41st best song of all time in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.
The Band's music fused many elements: primarily old country music and early rock and roll, though the rhythm section often was reminiscent of Stax or Motown, and Robertson cites Curtis Mayfield and the Staple Singers as major influences, resulting in a synthesis of many musical genres. As to the group's songwriting, very few of their early compositions were based on conventional blues and doo-wop chord changes.[citation needed] Singers Manuel, Danko, and Helm each brought a distinctive voice to The Band: Helm's southern voice had more than a hint of country, Danko sang in a tenor, and Manuel alternated between falsetto and baritone. The singers regularly blended in harmonies. Though the singing was more or less evenly shared among the three men, both Danko and Helm have stated that they saw Manuel as the Band's "lead" singer.
Every member was a multi-instrumentalist. There was little instrument-switching when they played live, but when recording, the musicians could make up different configurations in service of the songs. Hudson in particular was able to coax a wide range of timbres from his Lowrey organ; on the choruses of "Tears of Rage", for example, it sounds like a mellotron. Helm's drumming was often praised: critic Jon Carroll declared that Helm was "the only drummer who can make you cry," while prolific session drummer Jim Keltner admits to appropriating several of Helm's techniques. Producer John Simon is often cited as a "sixth member" of the Band for producing and playing on Music from Big Pink, co-producing and playing on The Band, and playing on other songs up through the Band's 1993 reunion album Jericho.
Robertson is credited as writer or co-writer for the majority of The Band's songs, but sang lead vocals on only three of their studio recordings ("To Kingdom Come", "Knockin' Lost John" and "Out Of The Blue"). This role, along with Robertson's resulting claim to the copyright of most of the compositions, would become a point of contention, especially that directed towards Robertson by Helm. In his 1993 autobiography This Wheel's on Fire – Levon Helm and the Story of The Band, Helm disputes the validity of the official songwriting credits as listed on the albums, and explains that The Band's songs were often honed and recorded through collaboration between all members. Danko concurred with Helm:: "I think Levon's book hits the nail on the head about where Robbie and Albert Grossman and some of those people went wrong and when The Band stopped being The Band." ... "I'm truly friends with everybody but, hey—it could happen to Levon, too. When people take themselves too seriously and believe too much in their own bullshit, they usually get in trouble." Robertson for his part denied that Helm had written any of the songs attributed to Robertson and his daughter later remarked in a letter to the Los Angeles Times that Levon Helm's solo work consists almost entirely of songs written by others.
The members of The Band gradually came together as a part of Toronto-based, rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins's backing group, the Hawks: Helm, an original Hawk who journeyed with Hawkins from Arkansas to Ontario, then Robertson who was told by Hawkin's,"You won't make much money but you'll get more pussy than Frank Sinatra", Danko, Manuel and finally, Hudson. Hawkins's act was popular in and around Toronto and he had an effective way of eliminating his musical competition: When a promising band appeared, Hawkins would often hire their best musicians for his own group; Robertson, Danko, and Manuel came under Hawkins' tutelage this way.
While most of the Hawks were eager to join Hawkins's group, getting Hudson to join was a different story. He had earned a college degree, planned on a career as a music teacher and was interested in playing rock music only as a hobby. The Hawks were in awe of his wild, full-bore organ sound and often begged him to join. Hudson finally relented, so long as the Hawks each paid him $10 per week to be their instructor; all music theory questions were directed to Hudson. While pocketing a little extra cash, Hudson was also able to mollify his family's fears that his education had gone to waste. The piano-organ combination was uncommon in rock music, and for all his aggressive playing, Hudson also brought a level of musical sophistication.
—Garth Hudson, The Last Waltz
With Hawkins, they recorded a few singles in this period and became well known as the best rock group in the thriving Toronto music scene. Hawkins regularly convened all-night rehearsals following long club shows, with the result that the young musicians quickly developed great technical prowess on their instruments.
In 1963, Levon Helm met the groupie Cathy Smith, with whom he and other members of the Band would have a long association.
By 1964, the group had split from Hawkins over personal differences. They were tiring of playing the same songs so often and wanted to perform original material, and they were weary of Hawkins's somewhat dictatorial leadership. He would fine the Hawks if they brought their girlfriends to the clubs, fearing it might reduce the numbers of available girls who came to performances, or if they smoked marijuana. Alcohol and pills were acceptable but Canada then had stiff penalties against marijuana possession.
Robertson later said, "Eventually, [Hawkins] built us up to the point where we outgrew his music and had to leave. He shot himself in the foot, really, bless his heart, by sharpening us into such a crackerjack band that we had to go on out into the world, because we knew what his vision was for himself, and we were all younger and more ambitious musically."
Upon leaving Hawkins in 1964, they were briefly known as the Levon Helm Sextet with sax player Jerry Penfound being the sixth member, then Levon and the Hawks after Penfound's departure. In 1965, they released a single on Ware Records under the name Canadian Squires, but returned as Levon and the Hawks for a recording session for Atco later in 1965. Also that year, Helm and the band met blues singer and harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson. They wanted to record with him, offering to become his backing band, but Williamson died not long after their meeting.
In late summer 1965, Bob Dylan was looking for a backup band for his first U.S. "electric" tour. Levon and the Hawks were recommended by blues singer John Hammond, who earlier that year had used Helm, Hudson and Robertson on his Vanguard album So Many Roads. Around the same time, one of their friends from Toronto was working as secretary to Dylan's manager Albert Grossman. Mary Martin told Dylan to visit the group at the Yonge Street club called the Le Coq d'Or Tavern – though Robbie Robertson recollects it was the Friar's Tavern, just down the street. Her advice to Dylan: "You gotta see these guys."
After hearing the band play and meeting with Robertson, Dylan invited Helm and Robertson to join his backing band. After two concerts backing Dylan, Helm and Robertson told Dylan of their loyalty to their bandmates, and told him that they would only continue with him if he hired all of the Hawks. Dylan accepted and invited Levon and the Hawks to tour with him. The group was receptive to the offer, knowing it could give them the wider exposure they craved, but they simultaneously feared that their music was too different from his. They thought of themselves as a tightly rehearsed rock and rhythm and blues group and knew Dylan mostly from his early acoustic folk and protest music. Furthermore, they had little inkling of how internationally popular Dylan had become.
With Dylan, The Hawks played a series of concerts from September 1965 through May 1966, billed as Bob Dylan and the Band. The tours were marked by Dylan's reportedly copious use of amphetamines. Some, though not all, of the Hawks joined in the excesses.[23] Most of the concerts were met with the heckling and disapproval of folk music purists. Helm was so affected by the negative reception that he left the tour within three months and sat out the rest of that year's concerts, as well as the world tour in 1966. Helm spent much of this period working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
During the European leg of their 1966 tour, Mickey Jones replaced Sandy Konikoff on drums. (Levon Helm had departed in October 1965, depressed by the booing which greeted their live performances.) Dylan and the Hawks played at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester on May 17, 1966. The gig became legendary when, near the end of Dylan's electric set, an audience member shouted "Judas!". After a pause, Dylan replied, "I don't believe you. You're a liar!" He then turned to the Hawks and said "Play it fucking loud!" With that, they launched into an acidic version of "Like a Rolling Stone".
The Manchester performance was widely bootlegged (and mistakenly placed at the Royal Albert Hall). The recording of this gig became one of the most famous of Dylan's career, often inspiring a rapturous response in those who heard it. A 1971 review from Creem stated "My response is that crystallization of everything that is rock'n'roll music, at its finest, was to allow my jaw to drop, my body to move, to leap out of the chair ... It is an experience that one desires simply to share, to play over and over again for those he knows thirst for such pleasure. If I speak in an almost worshipful sense about this music, it is not because I have lost perspective, it is precisely because I have found it, within music, yes, that was made five years ago. But it is there and unignorable." When it finally saw official release in 1998, critic Richie Unterberger declared the record "an important document of rock history."
On July 29, 1966, while on a break from touring, Dylan was injured in a motorcycle accident, and retired into semi-seclusion in Woodstock, New York. For a while, the Hawks returned to the bar and roadhouse touring circuit, sometimes backing other singers (including a brief stint with Tiny Tim). Dylan invited the Hawks to join him in Woodstock, where they recorded a much-bootlegged and influential series of demos, subsequently released on LP as The Basement Tapes.
Reunited with Helm, the Hawks began writing their own songs in a rented large pink house, which they affectionately named "Big Pink", in West Saugerties (near Woodstock). When they went into the recording studio, they still did not have a name for themselves. Stories vary as to the manner in which they ultimately adopted the name "The Band." In The Last Waltz, Manuel claimed that they wanted to call themselves either "The Honkies" or "The Crackers" (which they used when backing Dylan for a January 1968 concert tribute to Woody Guthrie), but these names were vetoed by their record label; Robertson suggests that during their time with Dylan everyone just referred to them as "the band" and it stuck. Initially, they disliked the moniker, but eventually grew to like it, thinking it both humble and presumptuous. Rolling Stone referred to them as "The band from Big Pink."
Their first album, Music from Big Pink (1968) was widely acclaimed. The album included three songs written or co-written by Dylan ("This Wheel's on Fire", "Tears of Rage", and "I Shall Be Released") as well as "The Weight", the use of which in the film Easy Rider would make it probably their best known song. While a continuity certainly ran through the music, there were stylistic leanings in a number of directions. Never a specifically "psychedelic" group, the Band's first record did contain at least one song ("Chest Fever") demonstrating some similarities with that genre. In contrast to his wild guitar playing with Hawkins and Dylan, Robertson opted for a more subdued, riff-oriented approach, often mixed low down in the song.
These first two records were produced by John Simon, who was practically a group member: he aided in arrangements, and played occasional instruments (piano or tuba). Simon reported that he was often asked about the distinctive horn sections featured so effectively on the first two albums: people wanted to know how they had achieved such memorable sounds. Simon stated that, besides Hudson (an accomplished saxophonist), the others had only rudimentary horn skills, and achieved their sound simply by creatively utilizing their limited technique.
Rolling Stone lavished praise on the Band in this era, giving them more attention than perhaps any other group in the magazine's history; Greil Marcus's articles in particular contributed greatly to the Band's mystique. The Band was also featured on the cover of Time's January 12, 1970 issue.
A critical and commercial triumph, The Band, along with works by The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, established a musical template (sometimes dubbed country rock) that later would be taken to even greater levels of commercial success by such artists as the Eagles. Both Big Pink and The Band also influenced their musical contemporaries, with both Eric Clapton and George Harrison citing the Band as a major influence on their musical direction in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Indeed, Clapton later revealed that he had wanted to join the group.
Following their second album, the Band embarked on their first tour as a headlining act. The resulting anxiety from fame and its hang-ups was especially evidenced by the group as its songs turned to darker themes of fear and alienation: the influence on their next work is self-explanatory. Stage Fright (1970) was engineered by musician/engineer/producer Todd Rundgren and recorded on a theatre stage in Woodstock, New York, but the fraying of the group's once-fabled unity was beginning to show. As was the case with their previous, self-titled record, Robertson contributed the majority of the songwriting. However, the trademark vocal style of the Band's three lead singers was much less prominent on this work.
After recording Stage Fright, the Band was among the acts participating in the Festival Express, an all-star rock concert tour of Canada by train that also included Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead and future Band member Richard Bell (at the time he was a member of Joplin's band). In the concert documentary film, released in 2003, Danko can be seen intoxicated participating in a drunken jam session with Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Joplin while singing "Ain't No More Cane."
At about this time, Robertson began exerting greater control over the Band. This has become a point of antipathy, especially between Helm and Robertson. Helm charges Robertson with authoritarianism and greed, while Robertson suggests his increased efforts in guiding the group were due largely to some of the other members being unreliable. In particular, Robertson insists he did his best to coax Manuel into writing or co-writing more songs, only to see Manuel's talents overtaken by addiction.
Despite mounting problems between the musicians, the Band forged ahead with their next album, Cahoots (1971). Cahoots included tunes such as Bob Dylan's "When I Paint My Masterpiece," "4% Pantomime" (with Van Morrison), and "Life Is A Carnival," the last featuring a horn arrangement from Allen Toussaint. Toussaint's contribution was a critical addition to the Band's next project, and the group would later record two songs written by Toussaint: "Holy Cow" (on Moondog Matinee) and "You See Me" (on Jubilation).
In late December 1971, The Band recorded the live album Rock of Ages, which was released in the summer of 1972. On Rock of Ages, they were bolstered by the addition of a horn section, with arrangements written by Allen Toussaint. Bob Dylan appeared on stage on New Year's Eve and performed four songs with the group, including a version of "When I Paint My Masterpiece".
In 1973, The Band released Moondog Matinee, an album of cover songs. There was no tour in support of the album, which garnered mixed reviews. However, they did open for the Grateful Dead for two summer shows at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, New Jersey. They also played at the legendary Summer Jam at Watkins Glen. This massive concert took place at the Grand Prix Raceway outside Watkins Glen, New York on July 28, 1973. The event, which was attended by over 600,000 music fans, also featured the Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers Band. Next, The Band reunited with Dylan, first in recording Dylan's album Planet Waves, released in January 1974, and then for a joint 1974 tour, which played 40 shows in North America during January and February 1974. Later that year, the live album Before the Flood was released, which documents the tour.
In 1975, now having relocated to California and built their own studio, Shangri-La, The Band released Northern Lights – Southern Cross, their first album of all-new material since 1971's Cahoots. All eight songs were written exclusively by Robertson. Despite poor record sales (due to the elongated period of inactivity by the band) the album is favored by critics and fans alike. Levon Helm regards this album highly in his book, This Wheel's on Fire: "It was the best album we had done since The Band." The album also produced more experimentation from Hudson switching to synthesizers, heavily showcased on "Jupiter Hollow."
By 1976, Robbie Robertson was weary of touring. After having to cancel tour dates due to Richard Manuel suffering a severe neck injury in a boating accident in Texas, Robertson urged The Band to retire from touring, and conceived of a massive "farewell concert" known as The Last Waltz. The event was held, following an appearance on Saturday Night Live on October 30, on Thanksgiving Day of 1976 at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, California, and featured a horn section with arrangements by Allen Toussaint and a stellar list of guests, including other Canadian acts Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. Two of the guests were fundamental to The Band's existence and growth: Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan. Other guests they admired (and in most cases had worked with before) included Muddy Waters, Dr. John, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Ronnie Wood, Bobby Charles, Neil Diamond, and Paul Butterfield. The concert was recorded by Robertson's friend, filmmaker Martin Scorsese.
In 1977, The Band recorded their seventh studio album Islands, which fulfilled their record contract with Capitol so that a planned Last Waltz film and album could be released on the Warner Bros. label. Islands contained a mix of originals and covers, and was the last with The Band's original lineup. That same year, the group recorded soundstage performances with country singer Emmylou Harris ("Evangeline") and gospel-soul group The Staple Singers ("The Weight"); Scorsese combined these new performances, as well as interviews he had conducted with the group, with the 1976 concert footage. The resulting concert film-documentary was released in 1978, along with a triple-LP soundtrack.
Levon Helm later wrote about The Last Waltz in his autobiography This Wheel's on Fire; in the book he makes the case that The Last Waltz was primarily Robbie Robertson's project, and that he had forced The Band's break-up onto the rest of the group. Robertson offered a different take in a 1986 interview: "I made my big statement. I did the movie, I made a three-record album about it—and if this is only my statement, not theirs, I'll accept that. They're saying, 'Well, that was really his trip, not our trip.' Well, fine. I'll take the best music film that's ever been made, and make it my statement. I don't have any problems with that. None at all."
The Band has influenced numerous bands, songwriters, and performers, from the Grateful Dead and The Beatles to Eric Clapton, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Led Zeppelin, Elvis Costello, Elton John, and Phish.
The album Music from Big Pink, in particular, is credited with contributing to Clapton's decision to leave the super group Cream. In his introduction of The Band during the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert, Clapton announced that in 1968 he'd heard the album, "and it changed my life." Guitarist Richard Thompson has openly acknowledged the album's influence on Fairport Convention's Liege and Lief, and journalist John Harris has suggested that The Band's debut also influenced the spirit of The Beatles' back-to-basics album Let It Be as well as The Rolling Stones' string of roots-infused albums that began with Beggars Banquet. Meanwhile, the Big Pink song "The Weight" has been covered numerous times, and in various musical styles. In a 1969 interview, Robbie Robertson remarked on the group's influence, "We certainly didnt want everybody to go out and get a banjo and a fiddle player. We were trying to calm things down a bit though. What we're going to do now is go to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and record four sides, four psychedelic songs. Total freak-me songs. Just to show that we have no hard feelings. Just pretty good rock and roll."
In the nineties, a new generation of bands influenced by The Band began to gain popularity, including Counting Crows, the Wallflowers, and The Black Crowes. Counting Crows indicated this influence with their tribute to the late Richard Manuel, "If I Could Give All My Love (Richard Manuel Is Dead)" from their album Hard Candy. The Black Crowes frequently cover Band songs during live performances, such as "The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down", which appears on their DVD Freak 'n' Roll into the Fog.[ They have also recorded at Helm's studio in Woodstock.
The inspiration for the classic rock-influenced band The Hold Steady came while members Craig Finn and Tad Kubler were watching The Last Waltz. Rick Danko and Robbie Robertson are namechecked in the lyrics of "The Swish" from The Hold Steady's 2004 debut album Almost Killed Me. Also that year, southern rock-revivalists Drive-By Truckers released the track "Danko/Manuel" on the album The Dirty South.
In January 2007, a tribute album, entitled Endless Highway: The Music of The Band, was released which included contributions by My Morning Jacket, Death Cab for Cutie, Gomez, Guster, Bruce Hornsby, Jack Johnson and ALO, Lee Ann Womack, The Allman Brothers Band, Blues Traveler, Jakob Dylan, and Rosanne Cash, amongst others.
>>Excellent SoundQuality<<
The Band - Washington DC.12-12-76 FM Broadcast
01. Don't You Do It
02. Shape I'm In
03. The Weight
04. Tears of Rage
05. Ophelia
06. King Harvest
07. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
08. Chest Fever
09. Up On Cripple Creek
10. WS Walcotts Medicine Show
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