Canadian rock group. It was led by (James) Robbie Robertson (b Toronto, 5 July 1944; guitar); its other members were Levon Helm (b Marvell, AR, 26 May 1942; drums), Richard Manuel (b Stratford, ON, 3 April 1945; d Winter Park, FL, 4 March 1986; keyboards), Rick Danko (b Simcoe, ON, 9 Dec 1943; d Hurley, NY, 10 Dec 1999; bass guitar, fiddle and mandolin), and Garth Hudson (b Eric Hudson; London, ON, 2 Aug 1942; organ, saxophone and euphonium). Except for Hudson, all members of the group also sang. They first played together as part of Ronnie Hawkins’ group in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Having left Hawkins in 1964, they were engaged the following year by Bob Dylan as his backing group; they took part in his world tour in 1965–6. They developed a style of songwriting that combined Dylan’s allusive lyrics with their own eclectic, stately and enigmatic brand of rock. They recorded a number of songs that showed an extraordinary attention to detail despite the rough quality of the recording; these were widely issued illegally before their commercial release in 1975 on the album The Basement Tapes.
In 1968 the Band recorded Music from Big Pink; this album is notable for the freedom with which the vocal lines intertwine and overlap with one another, in contrast to their later recordings. Before returning to live performances the group recorded its second album, The Band (1969). At this time they were briefly regarded as a country-rock group, but their arrangements, which were characterized by calm tempos, economical playing by Robertson and Helm, and the use of two keyboard instruments, also suggested hymns, parlour songs, Cajun music, brass bands, blues and other American styles.
Between 1971 and 1977 the Band continued to record original and other people’s material in studio and concert performances, and in 1974 they joined Dylan for his album Planet Waves and a tour of America. The group gave its final performance in 1976, which included guest appearances by Dylan, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Neil Young and others, and was documented in Scorsese’s The Last Waltz (1978). During the 1980s the Band reunited a number of times for concert tours without Robertson, and in 1993 Danko, Helm and Hudson recorded the album Jericho.
The Band’s music drew on the basic vocabulary of rock, blues and country, and its restrained style can be seen as a reaction to the musical excesses of the psychedelic rock era. Their first two albums contain deeply felt, carefully crafted rock, but as Robertson’s productivity as a songwriter declined, the group’s music became increasingly formulaic and less consistently satisfying.
G. Marcus: Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ’n’ Roll Music (New York, 1975, enlarged 2/1982)
D. Emblidge: ‘Down Home with the Band: Country-Western Music and Rock’, EthM, xx (1976), 541–52
B. Hoskyns: Across the Great Divide: the Band and America (New York and London, 1993)
JON PARELES