The Band
The Band was a Canadian-American rock band formed in Toronto, Ontario, in 1967. It consisted of Canadians Rick Danko (bass, guitar, vocals, fiddle), Garth Hudson (organ, keyboards, accordion, saxophone), Richard Manuel (piano, drums, vocals), Robbie Robertson (guitar, songwriting, vocals, piano, percussion), and American Levon Helm (drums, vocals, mandolin, guitar, bass). The Band combined elements of Americana, folk, rock, jazz, country, influencing musicians such as George Harrison, Elton John, the Grateful Dead, Eric Clapton and Wilco.
For other uses, see Band (disambiguation).
The Band
The Hawks
Levon and the Hawks
Canadian Squires
The Crackers
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Woodstock, New York, U.S.
- 1967–1977
- 1983–1999
Between 1958 and 1963, the group was known as the Hawks, a backing band for rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins. In the mid-1960s, they gained recognition for backing Bob Dylan and the 1966 concert tour was notable as Dylan's first with an electric band. After leaving Dylan and changing their name to "The Band", they released several records to critical and popular acclaim, including their debut album Music from Big Pink in 1968. According to AllMusic, the album's influence on several generations of musicians has been substantial: musician Roger Waters called Music from Big Pink the second-most influential record in the history of rock and roll,[2] and music journalist Al Aronowitz called it "country soul ... a sound never heard before".[3] Their most popular songs included "The Weight", "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", and "Up on Cripple Creek".
The Band performed their farewell concert on November 25, 1976. Footage from the event was released in 1978 as the concert film The Last Waltz, directed by Martin Scorsese. It would be the last performance of the original five members. After five years apart, Danko, Hudson, Helm, and Manuel reunited in 1983 (without Robertson) for a reunion tour. Robertson had taken up a second career as a successful producer and composer for film soundtracks. Manuel died in 1986, but the remaining three members would continue to tour and occasionally release new albums of studio material until 1999, when, upon the death of Danko, the remaining members decided to break up for good. Helm would go on to a successful solo career, winning multiple Grammy Awards in the folk and Americana categories until his 2012 death, while Hudson found a second career as a featured session musician. Robertson died in 2023, leaving Hudson as the only living member of the original lineup.
Music critic Bruce Eder described the Band as "one of the most popular and influential rock groups in the world, their music embraced by critics ... as seriously as the music of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones."[4] The Band was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.[5][6] In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked them 50th on its list of the 100 greatest artists of all time,[7] and ranked "The Weight" 41st on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.[8] In 2008, the group received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.[9] In 2014, they were inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.[10]
Copyright controversy[edit]
Robertson is credited as writer or co-writer of the majority of the Band's songs and, as a result, has received most of the songwriting royalties generated from the music. This would become a point of contention, especially for Helm. In his 1993 autobiography, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band, Helm disputed the validity of the songwriting credits as listed on the albums and explained that the Band's songs were developed in collaboration with 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."[71] Robertson denied that Helm had written any of the songs attributed to Robertson.[72] The studio albums recorded by Levon Helm as a solo artist—Levon Helm (1978), American Son, Levon Helm (1982), Dirt Farmer, and Electric Dirt—contain only one song crediting him as songwriter ("Growin' Trade", co-written with Larry Campbell).[73][74]
Legacy[edit]
The Band has influenced numerous bands, songwriters and performers, including the Grateful Dead; Eric Clapton; George Harrison; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young;[75] Led Zeppelin;[76] Elvis Costello;[77] Elton John;[78] Phish;[79] and Pink Floyd.[80]
The album Music from Big Pink, in particular, is credited with contributing to Clapton's decision to leave the supergroup Cream. In his introduction of the Band during the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert, Clapton announced that in 1968 he had heard the album, "and it changed my life."[81] The band Nazareth took their name from a line in "The Weight". Guitarist Richard Thompson has 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.[82][c] George Harrison said that his song "All Things Must Pass" was heavily influenced by the Band and that, while writing the song, he imagined Levon Helm singing it.[83] Meanwhile, the Music from 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 didn't 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."[84]
In the 1990s, 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 songs by the Band during live performances, such as "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", which appears on their DVD/CD Freak 'n' Roll into the Fog.[85] 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.[86] Rick Danko and Robbie Robertson are name-checked in the lyrics of "The Swish" from the Hold Steady's 2004 debut album Almost Killed Me.[87] Also that year, southern rock-revivalists Drive-By Truckers released the Jason Isbell penned track "Danko/Manuel" on the album The Dirty South.
The Band also inspired Grace Potter, of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, to form the band in 2002. In an interview with the Montreal Gazette, Potter said, "The Band blew my mind. I thought if this is what Matt [Burr] meant when he said 'Let's start a rock 'n' roll band,' ... that was the kind of rock 'n' roll band I could believe in."[88]
A tribute album, entitled Endless Highway: The Music of the Band, released in January 2007, included contributions from 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, Rosanne Cash, and others.
Members of Wilco, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the Shins, Dr Dog, Yellowbirds, Ween, Furthur, and other bands staged The Complete Last Waltz in 2012 and 2013.[89] Their performances included all 41 songs from the original 1976 concert in sequence, even those edited out of the film. Musical director Sam Cohen of Yellowbirds claims "the movie is pretty ingrained in me. I've watched it probably 100 times."[89]
An incarnation of the Band's legacy, The Weight Band, originated inside the barn of Levon Helm in 2012 when Jim Weider and Randy Ciarlante, both former members of the Band, were performing "Songs of the Band" with Garth Hudson, Jimmy Vivino and Byron Isaacs. In July 2017, PBS's Infinity Hall Live program began airing a televised performance by the Weight Band, featuring Band covers and new music by the band.[90]
Every year on the Wednesday before and the Friday after Thanksgiving, Dayton, Ohio NPR affiliate WYSO and The Dayton Art Institute host a tribute to The Last Waltz.[91] Frequently selling out, the show features more than 30 local musicians. A similar event takes place annually in Madison, Wisconsin, on the Saturday night after Thanksgiving.
The Band are the subjects of the 2019 documentary film Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band, which premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.[92]
The Band is the subject of an extensive historical podcast, The Band: A History, currently covering the entire history of the group.[93]