The Music
Music from big pink
— July 1, 1968 —
"Every year since 1963 we have all singled out one album to sum up what happened that year. It was usually the Beatles with their double barrels of rubber souls, revolvers and peppers. Dylan has sometimes contended with his frontrunning electric albums. Six months are left in this proselytizing year of music; we can expect a new Beatles, Stones, Hendrix…but I have chosen my album for 1968. Music from Big Pink is an event and should be treated as one." -Al Kooper, Rolling Stone, 1968
Listen now"…The Band (1969) shot them past everyone, Dylan included. This was southern Gothic, blues comedy and Confederate melodramas played by five hard-bitten roadhouse veterans. From the cracked sadness of Manuel's broken chorister's cry on Whispering Pines to The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, they swapped unexpected instruments, and their three great vocalists - Helm, Manuel and Danko - blended in ragged harmony. It still sounds like rock's biggest miracle." -Nick Hasted, 2015
Stage Fright
— August 17, 1970 —
"To call an album a group's third best would usually be faint praise, but not where The Band are concerned: 1970's Stage Fright arguably ranks slightly behind its two predecessors in their catalog, but that's only because those earlier records are their classic Music from Big Pink debut and their even better eponymous sophomore LP. In this group's discography, third best is still good enough to put an album on a par with the finest releases of its era." -Jeff Burger, 2021
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"From the first seconds of the opening "Life Is a Carnival", it was clear that Cahoots was no ordinary album by The Band. The quintet's first three albums had established them as major proponents of the rootsy genre that would later be called "Americana". But now, the sound blasting from the speakers was one of sheer funk: simultaneously dark and joyful, aggressive yet inviting." -Joe Marchese, 2022
Cahoots
— September 15, 1971 —
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Rock Of Ages
— August 15, 1972 —
"There are several live testaments of The Band. Aside from Rock of Ages, there is the revelatory Before the Flood (with Bob Dylan), the most excellent The Last Waltz and Live At Watkins Glen...all testify to the power of The Band live in concert. The original LP release of Rock of Ages is a totally integrated and balanced statement of what The Band was all about and a musical entity. It may be the most perfect live recording in this list." -C. Michael Bailey, All That Jazz, 2012
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Moondog Matinee
— October 15, 1973 —
"The Band essentially went back to being the Hawks of the late '50s and early '60s on this album of cover tunes. They demonstrated considerable expertise on their versions of rock & roll and R&B standards like Clarence 'Frogman' Henry's 'Ain't Got No Home', Chuck Berry's 'The Promised Land,' and Fats Domino's 'I'm Ready.'" -William Ruhlmann, AllMusic
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Before The Flood
— June 20, 1974 —
"I will spare you any further long-winded analysis, and simply mention that the Band are brilliant here beyond words, particularly Garth Hudson, whose crazed keyboard work is possessed of a ghostly mysterioso that frames Dylan in a spooky splendor at times even more appropriate than the backings on the classic originals…it is the stuff, quite literally, of legend." -Steve Simels, Stereo Review, 1974
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The Basement Tapes
— June 26, 1975 —
"Music of this quality transcends fashion. The poetic range is from rollicking good humor to strange quickness to mystic aspirations, and the music is that quintessential blend of toughness and sly complexity that has always marked this collaboration [Bob Dylan and The Band]. An absolutely indispensable album." -The New York Times, 1975
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"The wait…is finally over, and the Band's fans can rejoice. Northern Lights — Southern Cross is not merely the first true Band album in four years, but, crucially, the most consistent and penetrating Band album since the group's classic The Band in 1969. There is a sureness and strength in both the songwriting and musical execution that reclaims the Band's position of leadership in rock. While there is no need to view the album as more than simply a collection of interesting, entertaining songs, Robbie Robertson is such an accomplished and purposeful lyricist that his songs invite the listener to look for some deeper meanings and unifying factors." -Robert Hilburn, Los Angeles Times, 1975
Northern Lights - Southern Cross
— November 1, 1975 —
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The Last Waltz
— April 7, 1978 —
"New bands will come and old ones will go. Some of the new ones will be good. Given time, they'll become Band fanciers too, a good percentage of them. This is one last waltz I expect will go on a long time, for the Band is preserved on records (and on film with Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz). Regardless of what rock fad is cycling in from behind, I expect the world will rediscover the Band from time to time and marvel at the style with which some of us did things back in the Sixties and Seventies." -Noel Coppage, Stereo Review, 1978
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Jericho
— November 2, 1993 —
"The Band chose their material well. Bruce Springsteen's 'Atlantic City' is a superlative rendition. The Band proved that their 1993 incarnation could rock. Springsteen considered this track a definitive version…Bob Dylan's 'Blind Willie McTell' was the first Dylan song they had recorded since 1971. Hudson's harmonica contributions propel this song in a very melodic direction. The Band veered from their usual sound with two straight blues tunes. 'Stuff You Gotta Watch' by Muddy Waters, and 'The Same Thing' by Wilie Dixon, with a fine vocal by Levon Helm, are nice counterpoints to the rest of the album." -David Bowling, 2008
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"Meanwhile, the boys from Woodstock, who you may remember ceased operations earlier in the year - and held a million dollar bash in San Francisco to convince everybody of the fact - have gone and made another album! A good job too, because while almost every other 'established' band in America has become hopelessly erratic, or splintered off into a thousand and one nebulous side-trips, The Band remain constant, as reassuring an outfit as there's ever been in rock music." -Andy Childs, Zig Zag, 1977
Islands
— March 15, 1977 —
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Live At Watkins Glen
— April 4, 1995 —
"This famously wet festival performance of '73 — and its resulting chaos — inspired a most joyful noise, indeed. There are nice surprises here, including a crackling 'Time to Kill,' and one spontaneous eruption ('Jam'), proving that The Band is rock & roll's greatest ensemble." -Bryan Brown, Entertainment Weekly, 1995
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"Maybe it shouldn't be such a surprise that Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Garth Hudson have been able to thrive without their former leader. Helm, Danko and the late Richard Manuel handled the vocals in the Band's heyday, so the voices are still there; the rock-solid rhythm section is still there and so are Hudson's inimitable, intoxicating keyboard parts - which were even more crucial to the group's signature sound than Robertson's guitar licks. All the survivors needed to recapture the old magic was some good songs, and if one of your biggest fans is Bob Dylan, you have a head start in that department." -Geoffrey Himes, New Country Magazine, 1996
High On The Hog
— February 27, 1996 —
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Jubilation
— September 15, 1998 —
"Jubilation stands apart from The Band's other post-Robbie Robertson/Richard Manuel releases for the way, once again, rich worlds are revealed in each song. Recorded in Levon Helm's converted Woodstock barn, the settings are mostly acoustic, but full of live rock 'n' roll spontaneity, colliding voices and instruments...the material feels passionately close to the musicians' hearts." -No Depression, 1998
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A Musical History
— September 27, 2005 —
"A Musical History, the five-disc/one-DVD set executive produced by Robertson, follows the quintet from their roots in the Canadian rockabilly scene to Woodstock to The Last Waltz, distilling more than 15 years down to five discs and 102 tracks, of which nearly 40 are either previously unreleased or unavailable on CD...The Band was no more or less than those five men, who were united in their mission to make music not as pop culture, but as American culture." -Stephen Deusner, Pitchfork, 2005
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Live At The Academy Of Music 1971
— September 17, 2013 —
"Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel closed 1971 with four nights at New York City's Academy of Music...Live at the Academy of Music: The Rock of Ages Concerts, a 4-CD/1-DVD box set chronicles these shows in unprecedented detail. Housed in a 48-page hardbound book, Live at the Academy presents new stereo and 5.1 surround mixes of the music of Rock of Ages, including 19 more previously unreleased performances and newly discovered footage of two songs filmed by Howard Alk and Murray Lerner." -Joe Marchese, 2013
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The Basement Tapes Complete The Bootleg series vol 11
— November 4, 2014 —
"This massive collection is an archipelago all of its own. It deconstructs the 1975 album and, in six discs of material, instead presents us not with an edited album but rather with a chronological trip through all the recordings they could salvage made by Dylan and the Band at Big Pink. The album is sequenced according to Garth Hudson's documentation of the order of recordings, and it feels — for the first time — like we're finally being let in on a process..." -Matthew Fiander, Pop Matters, 2014
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Music from Big Pink (Deluxe)
— August 31, 2018 —
"I haven't been without a copy of 'Big Pink' since the day I purchased it — good lord — a half a century ago...The lavish golden-anniversary reissue of “Big Pink features a new remix created by Bob Clearmountain, along with a CD version of the remix, a Blu-ray disc featuring a 5.1 mix, a two-LP 45 rpm rendering of the stereo mix, and a remixed 45 rpm single of 'The Weight.'" -Chris Morris, Variety, 2018
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The Band (Deluxe)
— November 15, 2019 —
"...includes a super deluxe two-CD/Blu-ray/two-LP/7" vinyl boxed set with a hardbound book, a two-CD package, a digital release, a 180-gram two-LP black vinyl edition and a limited-edition 180-gram 'tiger's eye'-color two-LP vinyl package. The releases were overseen by Band guitarist Robbie Robertson, and feature a new stereo mix by Bob Clearmountain from the original multi-track masters...a total of six previously unreleased outtakes and alternate recordings from The Band sessions are included on the expanded editions, as well as the group's never-before-released performance at Woodstock." -Nick DeRiso, Ultimate Classic Rock, 2019
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Stage Fright (Deluxe)
— February 12, 2021 —
"The new 50th-anniversary reissue restores the album to its ostensible original running order, appends a typically epochal live concert from the following year, and retrieves an intimate set of early demos recorded on a long night in a Calgary hotel. None of this is uninteresting and some of it is indispensable, but it’s ultimately a long way around towards building up the reputation of an LP that never really needed defending. Like Dylan’s New Morning from the same year, the relatively small stakes of Stage Fright are inextricable from its charm. Sometimes music needs to carry the weight, and other times it needs to feel weightless." -Elizabeth Nelson, Pitchfork, 2021
Listen now Cahoots (Deluxe)
— December 10, 2021 —
"The Cahoots 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition remix builds up steam like the best albums by The Band and winds up on a powerful inspiring note. The vinyl pressing included in the in the set sounds terrific. The 180-gram vinyl is thick, dark, quiet and well centered." -Mark Smotroff, Audiophile Revew, 2022
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