Latest Release
- SEPT 20, 2024
- 20 Songs
- Greatest Hits (Remastered) · 1968
- Islands (Expanded Edition) · 1977
- The Band (Remastered) · 1969
- The Band (Remastered) · 1969
- Jericho · 1993
- Northern Lights-Southern Cross (Expanded Edition) · 1975
- Greatest Hits (Remastered) · 1975
- Stage Fright (Remastered) · 1970
- Northern Lights-Southern Cross (Expanded Edition) · 1975
- Cahoots · 1971
Essential Albums
- When Bob Dylan finished a worldwide tour in England in 1966, he was too exhausted to entertain The Beatles, passing out in the bathtub rather than talking tunes with his new famous friends. A month later, that enervation would come to a head when Dylan crashed his Triumph motorcycle on the twisting roads near Woodstock, an accident that purportedly almost killed him. The break that followed gave Dylan time to reckon with his head, and allowed the members of The Hawks—the band that had backed him during those brutally polarizing shows—to figure out a sound of their own at last. After struggling to find an affordable practice space in New York City, The Hawks decamped to a garish pink house with four bedrooms and a basement in West Saugerties, setting up a makeshift recording set-up in that lower lair. They’d been there only briefly when Dylan arrived with Robbie Robertson and his dog, Hamlet. Dylan loved their amateur studio, and began returning almost every day between June and October 1967, feeling so at home with Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson that he began leaving his typewriter and Martin guitar there. They played new songs that he or The Hawks wrote on the spot, and dug into centuries of traditional music from the United States and Europe. These sessions were so unfettered and fun that they eventually lured Hawks drummer Levon Helm—who’d become disenchanted with working for Dylan—back into the fold. For nearly a decade, these recordings were whispered about among Dylan fans, existing only in pirated recordings. But in 1975, Robertson eventually compiled a 24-track set dubbed The Basement Tapes, beating the bootleggers at their own game. The album became a road map for the future of roots-rock—for just how far and how wild American music rooted in country, blues, and jazz could go. The origins of The Hawks’ titanic debut, Music from Big Pink, are here in a fitful take on “Tears of Rage” and a magnetic version of “Ain’t No More Cane.” (Of course, by the time Big Pink arrived, The Hawks had become The Band.) And Dylan reaches splendid new levels of experimental absurdity here, from the piano clap-along “Apple Suckling Tree” to the pun-rich “Open the Door, Homer.” Some of his most aching work is here, too, like the brooding testimonial “Nothing Was Delivered” and the haunted “Goin’ to Acapulco.” The sound quality of The Basement Tapes is often rough, and its focus is mostly nonexistent. The release of these songs would prompt existential questions about what it meant to make an album—and what right fans had to the material their heroes had made in private. But more importantly, The Basement Tapes threw the doors open to what folk, rock, jazz, and blues could do when they were treated like a single playground, open to everyone with an imagination and a little place to jam.
- The Band has a log-cabin feel, but it’s way more fun than simple roots-rock. “Across the Great Divide” is a masterful pop tune—part Salvation Army sidewalk serenade, part Motown slide. On “Rag Mama Rag,” the group tries to make a rockabilly song with a Dixieland band’s gear. “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” earns its towering reputation, but the miniature moments have equal impact, like the ethereal lilts of “When You Awake,” the weightless sweet soul of “Whispering Pines,” and the sticky funk-rock of “Jemima Surrender.”
- Though it grew out of jam sessions in the basement of the band’s communal house in upstate New York, Music From Big Pink lures us to otherworldly environments. “I Shall Be Released” and “In a Station” emerge from floating, celestial sounds, while “Lonesome Suzie” is a Curtis Mayfield ballad soaked in tranquilized blues. The Band’s dreamy, hymn-like undertones come to light in “The Weight,” in which the triangulated harmonies of Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, and Levon Helm forge a new form of rustic gospel goodness.
- 1998
Music Videos
Artist Playlists
- The Canadian band backed Dylan—and gave birth to the Americana sound.
- The Americana that followed them, touched with blues and soul.
- Trace the roots of the original Americana masters.
Live Albums
Compilations
About The Band
In the long, vast history of American rock ‘n’ roll, few groups have captured the U.S.’s storied past like The Band. The irony, of course, is that four of the five core members—guitarist/vocalist Robbie Robertson, keyboardist/vocalist Richard Manuel, keyboardist Garth Hudson, and bassist/vocalist Rick Danko—hail from Canada, while drummer/vocalist Levon Helm comes from Arkansas. The quintet first emerged as Levon & The Hawks in 1964 after serving as Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band. In 1965, Bob Dylan hired the group for his groundbreaking “electric” tour, and in 1967, they all banded together in the studio for the now-famous recordings titled The Basement Tapes. The collection, eventually released in 1975, blended roots rock with Americana and alt-country and deeply informed the group’s iconic 1968 debut album, Music From Big Pink, issued under their new name, The Band. The record introduced a psychedelic POV to folk music, and on songs like “The Weight,” the group proved their ability to pen iconic choruses. Just a year later, they returned with The Band, a concept album, which mined Southern folklore to create mesmerizing classics like “Across the Great Divide” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” The funky “Up On Cripple Creek” popularized a New Orleans-style groove that other artists emulated throughout the decade. The group, however, didn’t last that long, disbanding in 1977, a year after the release of their Scorsese-directed farewell concert film, The Last Waltz, though they eventually reemerged without Robertson from 1983 to 1999. The Band’s influence is felt decades later throughout modern rock and Americana music, in the rich, layered harmonies of Fleet Foxes and the Southern charm of outlaw country artists like Sturgill Simpson.
- FROM
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- FORMED
- 1964
- GENRE
- Rock