Book Description

Includes previously unpublished interviews and photos: “His research is extensive, but the overall pace through these two hundred pages is breezy and entertaining.” —Vintage Rock At a time when acid rock and heavy metal dominated popular music, The Band rebelled against the rebellion with tight ensemble arrangements, masterful musicianship, highly literate lyrics, and a respect for the musical traditions of the American South. Comprised of Canadians Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson, and Arkansas-born Levon Helm, The Band sparked a new appreciation for America’s musical roots, fusing R&B, jump blues, country, folk, boogie-woogie, swing, Cajun, New Orleans-style jazz, and rock, and setting the foundations for the Americana that would take hold thirty years later. The Band: Pioneers of Americana Music explores the diverse influences on the quintet’s music, and the impact that their music had in turn on contemporary music and American society. Through previously unpublished interviews with Robbie Robertson, Eric Andersen, Pete Seeger, and the late Rick Danko, as well as numerous other sources, Craig Harris surveys The Band’s musical journey from sidemen for, among others, Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan to rock legends in their own right. Touching on the evolution of rock and roll, the electrifying of folk music, unionism, the Civil Rights Movement, changes in radio formatting, shifting perceptions of the American South, and the commercializing of the counterculture, as well as drug dependency, alcoholism, suicide, greed, and the struggle against cancer, Harris takes readers from The Band’s groundbreaking albums, Music from Big Pink and The Band, through their final releases and solo recordings, as well as their historic appearances at Woodstock, the Isle of Wight Festival (with Dylan), Watkins Glen (with the Allman Brothers Band and the Grateful Dead), and the filmed final concert known as the Last Waltz (with an all-star cast). Sixteen previously unpublished photographs, by the author, are included.