Today in Music (1969): The Band released their self-titled sophomore album

The Band The Band

Released: September 22, 1969 Peak: 9 US, 25 UK, 2 CN, 18 AU Sales (in millions): 1.0 US Genre: folk rock/Americana/roots music

Tracks: Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Across the Great Divide (Robertson) [2:53] Rag Mama Rag (Robertson) [3:04] (2/14/70, 57 BB, 50 CB, 44 HR, 14 CL, 16 UK, 46 CN, 23 DF) The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Robertson) [3:33] (10/18/69: B-side of “Up on Cripple Creek,” 7 CL, 10 CN, 3 DF) When You Awake (Robertson, Manuel) [3:13] Up on Cripple Creek (Robertson) [4:34] (10/18/69, 25 BB, 26 CB, 20 GR, 27 HR, 4 CL, 10 CN, 5 DF) Whispering Pines (Robertson, Manuel) [3:58] Jemima Surrender (Robertson, Helm) [3:31] Rockin’ Chair (Robertson) [3:43] Look Out Cleveland (Robertson) [3:09] Jawbone (Robertson, Manuel) [4:20] The Unfaithful Servant (Robertson) [4:17] King Harvest Has Surely Come (Robertson) [3:39] (39 CL) Total Running Time: 43:50 The Players: Rick Danko (bass, vocals) Levon Helm (drums, vocals) Garth Hudson (organ) Richard Manuel (piano, vocals) Robbie Robertson (guitar)

Rating: 4.455 out of 5.00 (average of 22 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

The Ultimate Americana Group “Think of roots music, and you think of The Band – four Canadians and a small-town guy from Arkansas who delivered deeper meditations on rural America than any scholar’s research could.” EW’93 In fact, their blend of quintessential American music forms such as blues, country, gospel, rock, and soul made this primarily Canadian group the most celebrated champions of what has come to be known as Americana music. By creating a sound which was “deliberately against the grain,” NRR The Band offered “an image of America largely absent in the popular music of its time.” NRR This was ‘a glimpse into a mythic rural America that may or may not have existed.” TM Critic Greil Marcus said The Band’s self-titled album “felt like a passport back to America for people who had become so estranged from their own country that they felt like foreigners even when they were in it.” CM The Group’s History Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, and American Levon Helm came together in Ontario in 1967 after first working for eight years as bar band The Hawks backing rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins. In 1966, they backed Bob Dylan on his infamous gone-electric trou and then rechristened themselves as The Band. They also recorded with Dylan, resulting in a bootleg series known as The Basement Tapes which eventually saw official release in the mid-1970s. In 1968, The Band released its first album, Music from Big Pink. It was a “ramshackle musical blend and songs of rural tragedy” AM which “defined the back-porch rootsiness that remains a central inspiration for the ‘alternative country’ movement.” TL In fact, at the time of the album’s release, Time magazine declared The Band “the new sound of country rock.” RV The Second Album That second outing “was a more deliberate and even more accomplished effort” AM featuring “even better songwriting and ensemble playing.” NRR It was “a one-two punch the likes of which rock and roll hasn’t seen since.” TM Part of the success in the album is that the group “never forgot to have the sometimes-wistful fun you’ll find on every cut of their most satisfying album.” EW’93 Part of this was attributed to The Band’s laid-back style of “passing their instruments around like it was a hootenanny.” TL All five members were, after all, multi-instrumentalists. “The arrangements were simultaneously loose and assured, giving the songs a timeless appeal.” AM The studio “looked like a moonshiner’s hideout.” CM Some have even called this a concept album because of “the songs focusing on people, places, and traditions associated with an older version of Americana.” WK “It’s as if an itinerant old-time medicine show somehow skipped a few generations, pulled off a two-lane Arkansas highway in 1910, and woke up in 1968.” TM It’s a place where accordions wheeze soft and low and honest voices gather into a ragged choir of the devoted, singing just for the communal joy of it.” TM The Players The performances are marked by Levon “Helm’s (and occasionally Manuel’s) propulsive drumming to Robertson’s distinctive guitar fills and the endlessly inventive keyboard textures of Garth Hudson,” AM who “manipulates his Lowrey organ in ways that continue to boggle the ear.” RV It was “all topped by the rough, expressive singing of Manuel, Helm, and Rick Danko that mixed leads with harmonies.” AM As Bruce Springsteen stated in the documentary Once Were Brothers, any of the three were capable of leading a group. OB Interestingly, though, it isn’t really any of the vocalists who were “the leader of the Band,” but Robbie Robertson, who took the reins here as the writer or co-writer on all 12 songs. He proved to be a “superb storyteller.” RV Though Canadian, he “tackled the astonishing scope of this American life” TL with lyrics painting “portraits of 19th century rural life (especially Southern life, as references to Tennessee and Virginia made clear), its sometimes less savory aspects treated with warmth and humor.” AM The Songs Songs keyed in on “a series of American archetypes from the union worker in King Harvest Has Surely Come and the retired sailor in Rockin' Chair to, most famously, the Confederate Civil War observer Virgil Cane in The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” AM The latter song, which became a hit for Joan Baez, attempts “to convey why and how the notion that the South will rise again has survived for more than 100 years.” CM Regarding “King Harvest,” Robertson said, “That’s when life begins, not in spring, but in the autumn. In the fall that’s when the harvest is in and the carnival is in town.” CM The song’s “steady loping rhythms…have the sense of the weather rolling across the Great Plains and the hope and fear in the voice of the farmer who has be the farm on the promise of rain.” CM “The album effectively mixed the kind of mournful songs that had dominated Music from Big Pink” AM with “the achingly wistful Whispering Pines” TL and When You Awake with “rollicking uptempo numbers” AM like “the joyful hoedown Rag Mama Rag” TL “and Up on Cripple Creek.” AM Helm takes the lead on the most notable songs – “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” and “Rag Mama Rag,” as well as Jemimah Surrender. Richard Manuel takes the lead for “King Harvest Has Surely Come,” “Whispering Pines,” “Rockin’ Chair,” Across the Great Divide, and Jawbone. Meanwhile, Rick Danko is the lead vocalist for “When You Awake,” Look Out Cleveland, and The Unfaithful Servant. Helm said in the Classic Albums documentary that they’d each try out the vocals on the songs and the group would decide which worked best. CA Notes: A 2000 reissue added six alternate takes and an outtake of the song “Get Up Jake,” which had been released as a B-side.

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for the Band AM AllMusic.com review by William Ruhlmann CA Classic Albums (documentary series) (1997). The Band: The Band CM Toby Creswell & Craig Mathieson (2012). 100 Best Albums of All Time. Hardie Grant Books. Page 70. EW’93 Entertainment Weekly (10/29/1993). “100 Greatest CDs: A Love-It-Or-Loathe It Guide to the Essential Disc Library” TM Tom Moon (2008). 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. Workman Publishing Company, Inc.: New York, NY. NRR National Recording Registry OB Once Were Brothers (documentary) (2020) RV The Review (Oct./Nov. 2001). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Clarke Speicher TL Time Magazine (11/13/2006). “All-TIME 100 Albums” by Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light WK Wikipedia First posted 9/22/2012; updated 11/6/2024.