The Band

The Hawks and Dylan

The Band grew out of the Hawks, the Toronto backing group of the rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins. Levon Helm, from Arkansas, began playing with Hawkins in 1957 and became the full-time drummer in 1958. Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson followed, all Canadian. Danko was recruited in 1961, and Manuel left his own group that September to join. Hudson agreed on condition that each of the others pay him $10 a week to be their instructor and that they buy a new Lowrey organ. In late 1963 they left Hawkins, wanting to play original material.

In 1965 Bob Dylan hired them for his first electric tour, and the Hawks also played his 1966 world tour. In February 1967 Danko, Hudson and Manuel rented a pink house in West Saugerties, New York, which they named Big Pink. From March they recorded a long series of demos with Dylan, first at his house in Woodstock and later at Big Pink. Parts were released in 1975 as The Basement Tapes, and the whole set in 2014. Their manager, Albert Grossman, approached Capitol Records, which signed them under the name the Crackers.

Big Pink and the brown album

Music from Big Pink came out on 1 July 1968, produced by John Simon. Sessions began at A&R Studios in New York and finished at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles. When Simon asked how they wanted it to sound, the group answered, in Robertson's words, "Just like it did in the basement." Dylan painted the cover and supplied three songs, among them Tears of Rage. The Weight reached 63 in the United States and 21 in Britain. The album peaked at 30 on the Billboard chart, but its reputation grew. Al Kooper's Rolling Stone review ended by saying it was recorded in approximately two weeks. Eric Clapton has cited it as what convinced him to leave Cream, and Roger Waters ranked it second only to Sgt. Pepper for influence.

For The Band (1969) they set up a studio in the pool house of a rented Hollywood Hills home that had belonged to Sammy Davis Jr., with equipment supplied by Capitol, and finished three songs at the Hit Factory in New York. It reached 9 in the United States and 2 in Canada. Its songs include The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Up on Cripple Creek and Rag Mama Rag. Robert Christgau declared it better than Abbey Road, and it entered the National Recording Registry in 2009.

Stage Fright to Rock of Ages

Stage Fright (1970) was made at the Woodstock Playhouse, produced by the group and engineered by Todd Rundgren. It reached 5 and went gold. Reviewers at the time found it more anxious and less communal than its two predecessors, and later critics reappraised it kindly. On Cahoots (1971) Allen Toussaint arranged the horns for Life Is a Carnival, and Robertson then asked him to write charts for a five-man horn section for four nights at New York's Academy of Music at the end of 1971. The result, Rock of Ages (1972), reached 6 and went gold, and Dylan joined them on the last night. Moondog Matinee (1973) was a covers album. In 1974 they toured with Dylan, documented on Before the Flood, and in 1975 they released an album of new songs, all written by Robertson.

The Last Waltz and after

The Band played a farewell concert at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco on 25 November 1976, with guests including Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Muddy Waters and Dylan. Martin Scorsese filmed it, and the film and a three-LP soundtrack followed in 1978. Islands (1977) completed their Capitol contract. Danko, Hudson, Helm and Manuel resumed touring without Robertson in 1983, and the group made Jericho (1993), High on the Hog (1996) and Jubilation (1998). Their last recording was a 1999 version of Dylan's One Too Many Mornings, and the group ended that year.

They entered the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Rolling Stone ranked them 50th on its 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists, and they received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. The critic Mark Deming wrote that they "ushered in the roots-rock of the '70s." Counting Crows, the Wallflowers and the Black Crowes followed in the 1990s, a 2007 tribute album, Endless Highway, gathered other bands, and the documentary Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.