The Band

The Band
Studio album by The Band
Released	September 22, 1969
Recorded	Early-to-mid 1969
Genre	Rock
Length	43:50
Label	Capitol
Producer	John Simon
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Rolling Stone link
The Band chronology
Music from Big Pink (1968) The Band (1969) Stage Fright (1970)

The Band is the eponymous second album by The Band, released on September 22, 1969. It is often called The Brown Album, in the spirit of the Beatles' The Beatles.

Album details

The Band peaked at #9 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. In 2000, it recharted on Billboard's Internet Albums chart, peaking at #10. The singles "Rag Mama Rag" and "Up on Cripple Creek" peaked on the Pop Singles chart at #57 and #25 respectively.

The album includes many of The Band's best-known and critically acclaimed songs, including "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", which Rolling Stone named the 245th greatest song of all time. In 2003, the album was ranked number 45 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 1998 Q magazine readers voted The Band the 76th greatest album of all time. TIME magazine included it in their unranked 2006 list of the 100 greatest albums.

According to the liner notes to the 2000 reissue of "The Band" by Rob Bowman, the album, "The Band", has been viewed as a concept album, with the songs focusing on people, places and traditions associated with an older version of Americana.^[1]

On The Band, Robbie Robertson emerged as The Band's primary songwriter. While Robertson and Richard Manuel largely shared songwriting duties on the prior Music From Big Pink, Robertson wrote or co-wrote every song on The Band (with Manuel receiving co-writing credit on three tracks.) Robertson would write the majority of The Band's material after this album. Robertson's songwriting also gained new sophistication and complexity, drawing from historic themes for "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" , "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" and Richard Manuel's "Jawbone" (which was composed in the unusual 6/4 time signature.)

Track listing

1. "Across the Great Divide" (Robertson) – 2:53
2. "Rag Mama Rag" (Robertson) – 3:04
3. "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" (Robertson) – 3:33
4. "When You Awake" (Manuel, Robertson) – 3:13
5. "Up on Cripple Creek" (Robertson) – 4:34
6. "Whispering Pines" (Manuel, Robertson) – 3:58
7. "Jemima Surrender" (Helm, Robertson) – 3:31
8. "Rockin' Chair" (Robertson) – 3:43
9. "Look Out Cleveland" (Robertson) – 3:09
10. "Jawbone" (Manuel, Robertson) – 4:20
11. "The Unfaithful Servant" (Robertson) – 4:17
12. "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" (Robertson) – 3:39

Bonus tracks from 2000 CD re-release

13. "Get Up Jake" (outtake - stereo mix) (Robertson) – 2:17
14. "Rag Mama Rag" (alternate vocal take - rough mix) (Robertson) – 3:05
15. "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" (alternate mix) (Robertson) – 4:16
16. "Up on Cripple Creek" (alternate take) (Robertson) – 4:51
17. "Whispering Pines" (alternate take) (Manuel, Robertson) – 5:09
18. "Jemima Surrender" (alternate take) (Helm, Robertson) – 3:48
19. "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" (alternate arrangement) (Robertson) – 4:28

Personnel

• Rick Danko – bass, fiddle, trombone, Vocals
• Levon Helm – drums, mandolin, rhythm guitar, Vocals
• Garth Hudson – organ; clavinet; piano; accordion; melodica; soprano, tenor and baritone saxophones; slide trumpet; bass pedals
• Richard Manuel – piano, drums, baritone saxophone, harmonica, Vocals
• Jaime Robbie Robertson – guitars, engineer
• John Simon – producer, tuba, electric piano, baritone horn, tenor saxophone, "high school and peck horns", engineer
• Tony May – engineer
• Joe Zagarino – engineer
• Elliot Landy – photography

Charts

Album - Billboard (North America)

Singles - Billboard (North America)

References

See also

• Classic Albums