The Band

The Band's critically acclaimed career-spanning box set, A Musical History, executive produced by Robbie Robertson, is the most comprehensive collection ever created for the group. Robertson has again partnered with Capitol/EMI Music Catalog Marketing to present a new collection of choice cuts from the box set, titled The Band: The Best Of A Musical History. To be released April 24 in CD and deluxe CD/DVD packages and digitally, the physical release booklets feature cover art photos by renowned rock photographer Elliott Landy and several other classic Band photos. The CD contains 19 tracks, including live and demo recordings that until now have only been available on the box set. The deluxe edition's DVD adds six 1970s filmed performance clips from the box set.

The Best Of A Musical History's release follows Capitol/EMI Music Catalog Marketing's comprehensive restoration campaign for The Band's entire Capitol Records catalog. In 2000 and 2001, The Band's original Capitol albums were remastered and reissued with bonus tracks: Music From Big Pink (1968); The Band (1969); Stage Fright (1970); Cahoots (1971); Rock Of Ages (1972); Moondog Matinee (1973); Northern Lights-Southern Cross (1975); Islands (1977). USA Today's Edna Gundersen noted, "Few reissues by defunct rock groups merit headlines, but when the band is The Band, fans take notice."

Released in September 2005 by Capitol/EMI Music Catalog Marketing, The Band: A Musical History's five CDs and one DVD document The Band's entire recording career from 1963 to 1976. Among the set's 111 audio and video tracks, presented in a 108-page hardcover book brimming with previously unseen photos and memorabilia, are 37 previously unreleased recordings and film clips captured live and in-studio. The definitive collection features a cover painting of The Band by world-renowned artist Ed Ruscha and extensive biographical liner notes by the Grammy-winning writer Rob Bowman. In-demand producer partners Cheryl Pawelski and Andrew Sandoval, who also teamed for The Band's in-depth catalog restoration, joined Robertson on the project.

Time magazine called A Musical History "A very gifted box set," and in his five-star review for Rolling Stone magazine, Anthony DeCurtis noted that the set "makes vividly clear how extraordinary an ensemble The Band were." The set was named the "Best Reissue of the Year" by MOJO and was #2 on Rolling Stone's "Top 10 Reissues" list for 2005.

By the late 1960s, The Band was one of the most popular and influential rock groups in the world, and the group's members shared an extensive collaborative history dating back to the late 1950s and early '60s. Between 1958 and 1962, the then-teenaged multi-instrumentalists Levon Helm (drums, vocals), Robbie Robertson (guitar, piano, vocals), Rick Danko (bass, vocals), 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, just as Dylan was seeking an electric guitarist for his touring band. The Band was born, with all of the former Hawks backing Bob Dylan on the road from October 1965 through 1966 as he incensed audiences in the U.S., Australia and 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 woodshedded for the next year in upstate New York, often in the company of Bob 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 thought possible before. Levon Helm re-joined The Band in 1967, as the group prepared to record their first full-length album, Music From Big Pink. The Band's line-up remained intact until they disbanded in November 1976, following the live recording and Martin Scorsese's filmed documentation of their final concert for The Last Waltz.

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," and icons such as Eric Clapton and George Harrison extolled the virtues of the album in print. While it only reached the #30 slot on Billboard's album charts when it was initially released, over time it has become recognized as one of the most important and classic albums in the history of rock.

Between 1968 and 1976, The Band released seven albums, and two additional releases followed in 1977 and 1978. The aforementioned Music From Big Pink (1968) was adorned with an original folk art cover painting by Bob Dylan. The eponymous album The Band (1969) sailed into Billboard's Top 10 and is hailed as one of rock's seminal releases. Stage Fright (1970) was recorded at the Woodstock Playhouse without an audience (due to local government's worries about a potential fan rush on the town from the greater Northeast), and climbed to #5 on the album charts, the highest position any Band album would ever attain. Cahoots (1971) peaked at #21 on the chart. The double live album Rock Of Ages (1972) peaked at #6 on Billboard's album charts. Moondog Matinee (1973) was a collection of covers recorded in Bearsville and Hollywood which reached #28 on the chart. Northern Lights-Southern Cross (1975), which peaked at #26, was The Band's first studio recording of original material since 1971 (1974 had seen a studio album collaboration with Bob Dylan, Planet Waves, and a live album from their subsequent tour, Before The Flood). Islands (recorded in 1975 and released in 1977) was The Band's final studio album, a collection of odds and ends they had not intended for a specific album. The Last Waltz, filmed in 1976 by Martin Scorsese and recorded live with all-star ensemble of guest performers, was theatrically released with an accompanying 3-album soundtrack in 1978, capping The Band's original recorded legacy.