1957–1964: The Hawks The future members of the Band first played together as the Hawks, the backing group for
rockabilly singer
Ronnie Hawkins, based in Toronto.
Levon Helm began playing with the group in 1957 and became their fulltime drummer after graduating from high school in 1958. Helm journeyed with Hawkins from
Arkansas to
Ontario, where they were joined by Robbie Robertson,
Rick Danko,
Richard Manuel, and finally
Garth Hudson. Later-Band member
Stan Szelest was also in the group at that time. Hawkins's act was popular in and around Toronto and in
Hamilton to the south, and he had an effective way of eliminating his musical competition. When a promising band appeared, Hawkins would hire their best musicians for his own group; Robertson, Danko, and Manuel came under Hawkins's tutelage this way. In the late 1950s, with Helm and Robertson in his band, Hawkins performed regularly at Pop Ivey's Summer Garden Pavilion in
Port Dover, Ontario. In May 1961, he recruited Danko after watching the Simcoe native, who was 17, playing at the Pavilion. At the same venue, Hawkins and other members of the Hawks happened to see Richard Manuel's group Revols perform for the first time. That led Hawkins to take on management of Manuel's band. In September 1961, Hawkins convinced Manuel to leave the Revols and join the Hawks. While most of the Hawks were eager to join Hawkins's group, getting Hudson to join was more difficult. Having earned a college degree, Hudson planned on a career as a music teacher, and was only interested in playing rock music as a hobby. The Hawks admired his wild, full-bore organ style and asked him repeatedly to join. Hudson finally agreed, under the condition that the Hawks each pay him $10 per week to be their instructor and purchase a new state-of-the-art
Lowrey organ; all music theory questions were directed to Hudson. With Hawkins, they recorded a few singles in this period and became well known as the best rock group in the thriving Toronto music scene. Hawkins regularly convened all-night rehearsals following long club shows, with the result that the young musicians quickly developed their instrumental skills. In late 1963, the group split from Hawkins over personal differences. They had grown tired of playing the same songs so often and wanted to perform original material, and they were also wary of Hawkins's heavy-handed leadership. He would fine the Hawks if they brought their girlfriends to the clubs (fearing it might reduce the numbers of "available" girls who came to performances) or if they smoked
marijuana. Robertson later said: Eventually, [Hawkins] built us up to the point where we outgrew his music and had to leave. He shot himself in the foot, really, by sharpening us into such a crackerjack band that we had to go on out into the world, because we knew what his vision was for himself, and we were all younger and more ambitious musically. The group was briefly known as the Levon Helm Sextet, with a sixth member, saxophonist Jerry Penfound after leaving Hawkins. Then it became Levon and the Hawks after Penfound's departure. In 1965, they released a single on Ware Records under the name the Canadian Squires, but they returned as Levon and the Hawks for a recording session for
Atco later that year. Also in 1965, Helm and the band met blues singer and harmonica player
Sonny Boy Williamson. They wanted to record with him, offering to become his backing band, but Williamson died not long after their meeting. Later in 1965, American musician
Bob Dylan hired the group as his backing band for his U.S. tour in 1965 and
world tour in 1966. After the 1966 tour, the group moved with help from Dylan and his manager,
Albert Grossman, to
Saugerties, New York, where they made the informal 1967 recordings that became
The Basement Tapes, the basis for their 1968 debut album,
Music from Big Pink. Because they were always referred to simply as "the band" to various frontmen and the locals in Woodstock, Helm said the name "The Band" worked well when the group came into its own. The group decided on it as their official name and began performing under it from 1968 onward. Dylan continued to collaborate with The Band over the course of their career, most notably in a joint
1974 tour.
1965–1967: With Bob Dylan In late summer 1965, Bob Dylan was looking for a backup band for his first U.S. "electric" tour. Levon and the Hawks were recommended by blues singer
John P. Hammond, who earlier that year had recorded with Helm, Hudson and Robertson on his
Vanguard album
So Many Roads. Around the same time, one of their friends from Toronto, Mary Martin, was working as secretary to Dylan's manager,
Albert Grossman. She told Dylan to visit the group at Le Coq d'Or Tavern, a club on
Yonge Street, in Toronto—though Robertson recollects it was the Friar's Tavern, just down the street. Her advice to Dylan: "You
gotta see these guys." After hearing the Band play and meeting with Robertson, Dylan invited Helm and Robertson to join his backing band. After two concerts backing Dylan, Helm and Robertson told Dylan of their loyalty to their bandmates and told him that they would continue with him only if he hired all of the Hawks. Dylan accepted and invited Levon and the Hawks to tour with him. The group was receptive to the offer, knowing it could give them the wider exposure they craved. They thought of themselves as a tightly rehearsed rock and
rhythm and blues group and knew Dylan mostly from his early acoustic folk and protest music. Furthermore, they had little inkling of how internationally popular Dylan had become. With Dylan, the Hawks played a series of concerts from September 1965 through May 1966, billed as "Bob Dylan and The Band". The tours were marked by Dylan's reportedly copious use of
amphetamines. Some, though not all, of the Hawks joined in the excesses. Most of the concerts were met with heckling and disapproval from
folk music purists. Helm was so affected by the negative reception that he left the tour after a little more than one month and sat out the rest of that year's concerts, as well as the world tour in 1966. Helm spent much of this period working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. During and between tours, Dylan and the Hawks attempted several recording sessions, but with less than satisfying results. Sessions in October and November yielded just one usable
single ("
Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?"), and two days of recording in January 1966 for what was intended to be Dylan's next album,
Blonde on Blonde, resulted in "
One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)", which was released as a single a few weeks later and was subsequently selected for the album. On "One of Us Must Know", Dylan was backed by drummer
Bobby Gregg, bassist Danko (or
Bill Lee), guitarist Robbie Robertson, pianist
Paul Griffin, and
Al Kooper (who was more a guitarist than an organist) playing organ. Frustrated by the slow progress in the New York studio, Dylan accepted the suggestion of producer
Bob Johnston and moved the recording sessions to Nashville. In Nashville, Robertson's guitar was prominent on the
Blonde on Blonde recordings, especially in the song "
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat", but the other members of the Hawks did not attend the sessions. During the European leg of their 1966 world tour,
Mickey Jones replaced Sandy Konikoff on drums. Dylan and the Hawks played at the
Free Trade Hall in
Manchester on May 17, 1966. The gig became legendary when, near the end of Dylan's electric set, an audience member shouted "
Judas!" After a pause, Dylan replied, "I don't believe you. You're a liar!" He then turned to the Hawks and said, "Play it fucking loud!" With that, they launched into an acidic version of "
Like a Rolling Stone". The Manchester performance was widely
bootlegged (and mistakenly placed at the
Royal Albert Hall). In a 1971 review for
Creem, critic
Dave Marsh wrote: My response is that crystallization of everything that is rock'n'roll music, at its finest, was to allow my jaw to drop, my body to move, to leap out of the chair ... It is an experience that one desires simply to share, to play over and over again for those he knows thirst for such pleasure. If I speak in an almost worshipful sense about this music, it is not because I have lost perspective, it is precisely because I have found it, within music, yes, that was made five years ago. But it is there and unignorable. When the concert finally saw an official release as
The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert in 1998, critic
Richie Unterberger declared the record "an important document of rock history." On July 29, 1966, while on a break from touring, Dylan was injured in a motorcycle accident that precipitated his retreat into semi-seclusion in
Woodstock,
New York. For a while, the Hawks returned to the bar and roadhouse touring circuit, sometimes backing other singers, including a brief stint with
Tiny Tim. Dylan invited the Hawks to join him in Woodstock in February 1967, and Danko, Hudson, and Manuel rented a large pink house, which they named "
Big Pink", in nearby
West Saugerties, New York. The next month (initially without Helm) they commenced recording a much-bootlegged and influential series of demos, initially at Dylan's house in Woodstock and later at Big Pink, which were released partially on LP as
The Basement Tapes in 1975 and
in full in 2014. A track-by-track review of the bootleg was detailed by
Jann Wenner in
Rolling Stone, in which the band members were explicitly named and given the collective name "the Crackers". While Helm was not involved in the initial recording, he did perform in later sessions and in overdubs recorded in 1975 before the album's release.
1968–1972: Initial success as The Band The sessions with Dylan ended in October 1967, with Helm having rejoined the group by that time, and the Hawks began writing their own songs at Big Pink. When they went into the recording studio, they still did not have a name for themselves. Stories vary as to the manner in which they ultimately adopted the name "The Band". In
The Last Waltz, Manuel claimed that they wanted to call themselves either "The
Honkies" or "The
Crackers" (which they used when backing Dylan for a January 1968 concert tribute to
Woody Guthrie), but these names were vetoed by their record label; Robertson suggests that during their time with Dylan everyone just referred to them as "the band" and the name stuck. Initially they disliked the moniker, but eventually they grew to like it, thinking it both humble and presumptuous. In 1969,
Rolling Stone referred to them as "the band from Big Pink". Their debut album,
Music from Big Pink, was released in July 1968 and was widely acclaimed. It included three songs written or co-written by Dylan ("
This Wheel's on Fire", "
Tears of Rage" and "
I Shall Be Released") as well as "
The Weight", which became one of their best-known songs after it was used in the 1969 film
Easy Rider. While a thematic continuity ran through the music, the musical style varied from song to song.
Pink Floyd's
Roger Waters deemed it the second "most influential record in the history of rock and roll", and music journalist
Al Aronowitz called it "country soul... a sound never heard before". In early 1969, after the success of
Music from Big Pink, the Band went on tour, starting with an appearance at
Winterland Ballroom. They performed at the
Woodstock Festival (their performance was not included in the famed
Woodstock film because of legal complications), and later that year they performed with Dylan at the UK
Isle of Wight Festival (several songs from which were subsequently included on Dylan's
Self Portrait album). That same year, they left for Los Angeles to record their follow-up,
The Band (1969). From their rustic appearance on the cover to the songs and arrangements within, the album stood in contrast to other popular music of the day. Several other artists had already made similar stylistic moves, notably Dylan, on
John Wesley Harding (1967), which was written during the
Basement Tapes sessions, and
the Byrds, on
Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968), which featured two
Basement Tapes covers.
The Band featured songs that evoked old-time rural America, from the
Civil War in "
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" to the
unionization of farm workers in "
King Harvest (Has Surely Come)". These first two records were produced by
John Simon, who was practically a group member: he aided in
arrangements in addition to playing occasional piano and
tuba. Simon reported that he was often asked about the distinctive
horn sections featured effectively on the first two albums: people wanted to know how they had achieved such memorable sounds. Simon stated that, besides Hudson (an accomplished saxophonist), the others had only rudimentary horn skills, and achieved their sound simply by creatively using their limited technique.
Greil Marcus's articles in
Rolling Stone contributed to the Band's mystique. The Band was also featured on the cover of
Time (January 12, 1970), the first rock group after the Beatles, over two years earlier, to achieve this rare distinction.
David Attie's unused photographs for this cover—among the very few studio portraits taken during The Band's prime—have only recently been discovered, and were featured in Daniel Roher's
Robbie Robertson documentary
Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band, as well as having their own four-page spread in
Harvey Kubernik and his brother, Ken Kubernik's "The Story of The Band: From
Big Pink to
The Last Waltz" (Sterling Publishing, 2018). A critical and commercial triumph,
The Band, along with works by the Byrds and
the Flying Burrito Brothers, established a musical template (dubbed
country rock) that paved the way to the
Eagles. Both
Big Pink and
The Band also influenced their musical contemporaries.
Eric Clapton and
George Harrison cited the Band as a major influence on their musical direction in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Clapton later revealed that he wanted to join the group. While he never did join, he recruited all of the members of the Band as well as other roots rock performers for his 1976 album
No Reason to Cry. After their second album, The Band embarked on their first tour as a lead act. The anxiety of fame was clear, as the group's songs turned to darker themes of fear and alienation: the influence on their next work is self-explanatory.
Stage Fright (1970) was engineered by musician-engineer-producer
Todd Rundgren and recorded on stage at the iconic
Woodstock Playhouse. As with their previous, self-titled record, Robertson was credited with most of the songwriting. Initial critical reaction was positive, but it was seen as a disappointment from the previous two albums for various reasons. After recording
Stage Fright, The Band was among the acts participating in the
Festival Express, an all-star rock concert tour of Canada by train that also included
Janis Joplin, the
Grateful Dead and future Band member
Richard Bell (at the time he was a member of Joplin's band). In the concert documentary film, released in 2003, Danko can be seen participating in a drunken jam session with
Jerry Garcia,
Bob Weir,
John Dawson, and Joplin while singing "Ain't No More Cane". About that time, Robertson began exerting greater control over the Band, a point of contention between him and Helm. Helm charged Robertson with
authoritarianism and greed, while Robertson suggested that he made increased efforts to guide the group in part because Danko, Helm, and Manuel were becoming more unreliable due to their heroin usage. Robertson insists he did his best to coax Manuel into writing more songs, only to see him descend into addiction. Despite mounting problems among the group members, The Band forged ahead with their next album,
Cahoots (1971).
Cahoots featured Dylan's "
When I Paint My Masterpiece", "4% Pantomime" (with
Van Morrison), and "
Life Is a Carnival", the last featuring a horn arrangement by
Allen Toussaint. Toussaint's contribution was a critical addition to The Band's next project, and the group would later record two songs written by Toussaint: "
Holy Cow" on
Moondog Matinee and "You See Me" on
Jubilation. In late December 1971, The Band recorded the live album
Rock of Ages, which was released in the summer of 1972. On
Rock of Ages, they were bolstered by the addition of a horn section, with arrangements written by Toussaint. Dylan appeared on stage on
New Year's Eve and performed four songs with the group, including a version of "When I Paint My Masterpiece".
1973–1975: Move to Shangri-La In 1973, the Band released the
covers album Moondog Matinee. There was no tour in support of the album, which garnered mixed reviews. However, on July 28, 1973, they played at
Summer Jam at Watkins Glen, a massive concert that took place at the Grand Prix Raceway outside
Watkins Glen, New York. The event, which was attended by over 600,000 fans, also featured the Grateful Dead and
the Allman Brothers Band. It was during the event that discussions began about a possible tour with Bob Dylan. By late 1973, Danko, Helm, Hudson and Manuel had joined them, and the first order of business was backing Dylan on his album
Planet Waves. The album was released concurrently with their joint 1974 tour, in which they played 40 shows in North America during January and February 1974. Later that year, the tour was documented on the live album
Before the Flood. During that time, the Band brought in
Planet Waves producer
Rob Fraboni to help design a music studio for the group. By 1975, the studio,
Shangri-La, was completed. That year, the Band recorded and released
Northern Lights – Southern Cross, their first album of new material since 1971. All eight songs were written solely by Robertson. Despite comparatively poor record sales, the album is favored by critics and fans. Levon Helm regards this album highly in his book, ''
This Wheel's on Fire: "It was the best album we had done since The Band''." The album also produced more experimentation from Hudson, switching to synthesizers, showcased on "Jupiter Hollow".
1976–1978: The Last Waltz By the mid-1970s, Robbie Robertson was weary of touring. After
Northern Lights – Southern Cross failed to meet commercial expectations, much of the group's 1976 tour was confined to theaters and smaller arenas in secondary markets (including the
Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, the
Long Island Arena and the Champlain Valley Expo in
Essex Junction, Vermont), culminating in an opening slot for the ascendant
ZZ Top at the
Nashville Fairgrounds in September. In early September, Richard Manuel suffered a severe neck injury in a boating accident in Texas, prompting Robertson to urge The Band to retire from live performances after staging a "farewell concert" known as
The Last Waltz. Following an October 30 appearance on
Saturday Night Live, the event, including
turkey dinner for the audience of 5,000, was held on November 25 (
Thanksgiving Day) of 1976 at the
Winterland Ballroom in
San Francisco and featured a horn section with arrangements by Allen Toussaint and an all-star lineup of guests, including Canadian artists
Joni Mitchell and
Neil Young. Two of the guests were fundamental to The Band's existence and growth: Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan. Other guests they admired (and in most cases had worked with before) included
Muddy Waters,
Dr. John, Van Morrison,
Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton,
Ron Wood,
Bobby Charles,
Neil Diamond, and
Paul Butterfield. The concert was filmed by Robertson's friend, filmmaker
Martin Scorsese. In 1977, the Band released their seventh studio album
Islands, which fulfilled their record contract with Capitol so that a planned
Last Waltz film and album could be released on the
Warner Bros. label.
Islands contained a mix of originals and covers, and was the last with the Band's original lineup. Also in 1977, the group recorded soundstage performances with country singer
Emmylou Harris ("Evangeline") and gospel-soul group
the Staple Singers ("The Weight"); Scorsese combined these new performances—as well as interviews he had conducted with the group—with the 1976 concert footage. The resulting
concert film–
documentary was released in 1978, along with a
three-LP soundtrack. Helm later wrote about
The Last Waltz in his autobiography, ''This Wheel's on Fire'', in which he made the case that it had been primarily Robbie Robertson's project and that Robertson had forced The Band's breakup on the rest of the group. Robertson offered a different take in a 1986 interview: I made my big statement. I did the movie, I made a three-record album about it—and if this is only my statement, not theirs, I'll accept that. They're saying, "Well, that was really his trip, not our trip." Well, fine. I'll take the best music film that's ever been made, and make it my statement. I don't have any problems with that. None at all. The original quintet performed together one last time: on March 1, 1978 after the late set of a Rick Danko solo show at
The Roxy, the group performed "Stage Fright", "The Shape I'm In", and "The Weight" for an encore.
1983–1989: Reformation and the death of Richard Manuel The Band resumed touring in 1983 without Robertson. An accomplished musician from
Woodstock, New York, Jim Weider, became lead guitarist. Robertson had found success with a solo career and as a
Hollywood music producer. As a result of their diminished popularity, they performed in theaters and clubs as headliners and took support slots in larger venues for onetime peers such as the Grateful Dead and
Crosby, Stills and Nash. After a performance in
Winter Park, Florida, on March 4, 1986, Manuel
hung himself, aged 42, in his motel room. He had suffered for many years from alcoholism and drug addiction and had been clean and sober for several years beginning in 1978 but had begun drinking and using drugs again by 1984. Manuel's position as pianist was filled by old friend Stan Szelest (who died not long after) and then by Richard Bell. Bell had played with Ronnie Hawkins after the departure of the original Hawks, and was best known from his days as a member of Janis Joplin's
Full Tilt Boogie Band. The Band was inducted into the
Canadian Music Hall of Fame at the
1989 Juno Awards, where Robertson was reunited with original members Danko and Hudson. With Canadian country rock superstars
Blue Rodeo as a back-up band,
Music Express called the 1989 Juno appearance a symbolic "passing of the torch" from The Band to Blue Rodeo.
1990–1999: Final recording and death of Rick Danko In 1990, Capitol Records began to re-release the records from the 1970s. The remaining three members continued to tour and record albums with a succession of musicians filling Manuel's and Robertson's roles. The Band appeared at
Bob Dylan's 30th anniversary concert in New York City in October 1992, where they performed their version of Dylan's "
When I Paint My Masterpiece". In 1993, the group released their eighth studio album,
Jericho.
Jericho was their first album recorded since
The Last Waltz 17 years prior, and also their first studio album since
Islands. Without Robbie Robertson as primary lyricist, much of the
songwriting for the album came from outside of the group. Also in the same year, The Band, along with
Ronnie Hawkins, Bob Dylan, and other performers appeared at President
Bill Clinton's 1993 "Blue Jean Bash" inauguration party. In 1994, The Band performed at
Woodstock '94. Later in 1994, Robertson appeared with Danko and Hudson as The Band for the second time since the original group broke up. The occasion was the induction of The Band into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Helm, who had been at odds with Robertson for years over accusations of stolen songwriting credits, did not attend. In February 1996, The Band with
the Crickets recorded "
Not Fade Away", released on the
tribute album Not Fade Away (Remembering Buddy Holly). The Band released two more albums after
Jericho:
High on the Hog (1996) and
Jubilation (1998), the latter of which included guest appearances by Eric Clapton and
John Hiatt. Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1998 and was unable to sing for several years but he eventually regained the use of his voice. In 1998, the group revealed they were working on a follow-up album to
Jubilation that has not been released. The final song the group recorded together was their 1999 version of Bob Dylan's "
One Too Many Mornings", which they contributed to the Dylan tribute album
Tangled Up in Blues. On December 10, 1999, Rick Danko died in his sleep at the age of 55. Following his death, The Band broke up for good. The final configuration of the group included Richard Bell (piano), Randy Ciarlante (drums), and Jim Weider (guitar).
Later developments In 2002, Robertson bought all other former members' financial interests in the group (with the exception of Helm's), giving him major control of the presentation of the group's material, including latter-day compilations. Richard Bell died of
multiple myeloma in June 2007. The Band received a Lifetime Achievement
Grammy Award on February 9, 2008, but there was no reunion of former members. In honor of the event, Helm held a
Midnight Ramble in Woodstock. Levon Helm died at the age of 71 on April 19, 2012, after a prolonged battle with throat cancer. Robbie Robertson died at the age of 80 on August 9, 2023, after battling prostate cancer. Garth Hudson, the last living original member of the Band, died at the age of 87 on January 21, 2025. ==Musical style==