THE
BAND
LIVE
AT THE ACADEMY OF
MUSIC
YEAR-END CONCERTS, INCLUDING THE COMPLETE NEW
YEAR’S EVE SET
During
the final week of 1971, The Band played four legendary concerts at New York City Academy Of Music DVD collection. The expansive
new collection features new stereo and 5.1 Surround mixes, including 19
previously unreleased performances and newly discovered footage of two songs
filmed by Howard Alk and Murray Lerner. Live At The Academy Of Music 1971
takes a deep dive into The Band’s historic shows for a definitive document of
the pioneering group’s stage prowess at the apex of their career. The collection’s first two discs will also be
released as a 2CD set.
Live At The Academy Of Music 1971
is presented in a deluxe, 48-page hardbound book with previously unseen photos,
a reproduction of Rolling Stone’s original Rock
Of Ages review by magazine co-founder Ralph J. Gleason, an essay by The
Band’s Robbie Robertson, and appreciations of The Band and the set’s recordings
by Mumford & Sons and Jim James of My Morning Jacket. The collection’s first two discs feature
performances of every song played over the course of the four concerts, and the
New Year’s Eve soundboard mix on discs 3 and 4 puts the listener in the room
for that entire legendary night: Uncut, unedited, taken straight from the
master recordings and presented in full for the first time. The set’s DVD
presents the tracks from discs 1 and 2 in 5.1 Surround, plus Alk and Lerner’s
filmed performances of “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” and “The W.S. Walcott
Medicine Show.”
By
the late 1960s, The Band had become one of the most popular and influential
rock groups in the world. Robertson,
reflecting on the time and the decision to record the Academy Of Music
Of
the set’s complete New Year’s Eve recording, Robertson says, “This is like being there. It was the final night; there was a thrill in
the air. We were excited about New
Year’s Eve, and then Dylan joined us for the encore. When he came out, we thought we could wing
it, and wing it we did. We thought,
‘We’re not gonna fall off this wire.’
That whole night had a bit of magic to it.”
The
Band’s members shared an extensive collaborative history. Between 1960 and 1962, the then-teenaged
multi-instrumentalists Levon Helm (drums, vocals, mandolin), Robbie Robertson
(guitar, piano, vocals), Rick Danko (bass, vocals, fiddle), Richard Manuel
(keyboards, vocals, drums) and Garth Hudson (keyboards, horns) first performed
and recorded together as members of the backing band for Ronnie Hawkins called
the Hawks. In late 1963, the Hawks
struck out on their own and became Levon & the Hawks, playing and recording
under this name in 1964 and 1965.
In
1965, Robertson met with Bob Dylan in New
York U.S. Australia Europe , performing electric sets. Disheartened by the
vocally disdainful ‘folkie purist’ audience response to their first plugged-in
performances with Dylan, Helm left The Band in November 1965.
After
the 1966 tour concluded, The Band spent the next year in upstate New York,
often in the company of Dylan, forging a highly original sound that in one way
or another encompassed the panoply of American roots music: country, blues,
R&B, gospel, soul, rockabilly, the honking tenor sax tradition, Anglican
hymns, funeral dirges, brass band music, folk music, modern rock, fused and
synthesized in ways that no one had ever before thought possible.
Helm
re-joined The Band in 1967, as the group prepared to record their first
full-length album. Released in
1968, Music From Big Pink received glowing reviews; a journalist for
Life magazine wrote that The Band “dipped into the well of tradition and came up with a bucketful of
clear, cool, country soul that washed the ears with a sound never heard
before.” While the album only
reached No. 30 on Billboard’s chart when it was released, it has become
recognised over time as one of the most important albums in the history of
rock.
Between
1968 and 1978, The Band released nine albums.
In 1989, The Band was inducted into the Canadian Juno Hall of Fame; five
years later they were accorded the same honour by the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame. In 2008, The Band was honoured
with The Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Sadly,
three members of The Band, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko and Levon Helm, have
passed away, but The Band’s legacy lives on, in their recordings and in their
tangible influence on popular music since they first hit the scene, wowing not
only Bob Dylan, but many other major players of the day, including Eric
Clapton, George Harrison, and Miles Davis.
Making Americana
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