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The Band Web Site

News and Updates

Please note: The Band web site is no longer active. It is preserved on the web as an archive/museum, with no more updates.

[Updates 2001] [Updates 2002] [Updates 2003] [Updates 2004] [Updates 2005] [Updates 2006] [Updates 2007] [Updates 2008] [Updates 2009] [Updates 2010] [Updates 2011] [Updates 2012] [Updates 2013] [Updates 2014] [Updates 2015] [Updates 2016] [Updates 2017] [Updates 2018] [Updates 2019]

March.19.2021

Feb.10.2021

Jan.22.2021

Jan.13.2021

Jan.02.2021

Dec.10.2020

  • Looks like the 50th Anniversary Edition of The Band's third album, Stage Fright, has been postponed until February 2021:

  • Twenty-one years ago today, on December 10, 1999, one of the sweetest souls of rock'n'roll left us. Read Carol Caffin's tribute "The Flame Still Burns: A Dedication to Rick".

Dec.09.2020

Oct.25.2020

Oct.04.2020

  • Added 400+ photos downloaded from social media this autumn.

Sep.17.2020

Sep.09.2020

Sep.08.2020

Sep.07.2020

  • Connell Miller has published two Levon & the Hawks tracks on YouTube, recorded live in January 1965:

    Miller posted the following on FaceBook about the recordings:

    "In January of 1965, Dayton Stratton called (I was in Oklahoma and no longer living in Fayetteville) to tell me that Levon (now as 'Levon and the Hawks') would be playing that weekend at the Fondalite Club in Tulsa. I lugged my 47-lb. Wollansak tape recorder up to the club where I -- even with Bill Avis' help -- was, unfortunately, not able to set my two mics up in a good position (not very good quality because of that, which gave me the inclusion of lots of crowd noise and 'clinking' of glasses, plus there's been some degradation of the 55-year-old tape itself). It is what it is, but at least I came away with 18 songs of the most arranged and rehearsed, killer bar band on the planet! Still a few months away from hooking up with Dylan and three years from their shedding the 'bar band' tag with their (Inter)national debut as The Band."

  • New article from Rolling Stone: "Flashback: Bob Dylan Guests at 1983 Rick Danko/Levon Helm Club Gig".

Aug.26.2020

  • The Band ~ Warner Brothers agreement ~ copy ~ 1977 -- the six-album contract that fell through.

  • An interesting article appeared in the Dutch newspaper deVolksrant last week:
    Robbie Robertson Interview: "I've always looked for some kind of brotherhood"
    This interview was published in connection with the cinematic premiere in Europe of Once Were Brothers: The Story of Robbie Robertson and The Band. A few quotes from the article:

    • "[Levon Helm and myself] never really reconciled. But I visited him when he was sick. When I arrived, he was already unconscious."

    • "I know they tried, twice, with a whole film crew to get [Garth Hudson] to give his side of the story, but his health wouldn't allow it. You have to maintain some respect for a person, otherwise it wouldn't accurately portray him."

    • If not for corona, then [Robertson and Martin Scorsese] would now have been finishing Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorcese's most recent movie.

    • ...the second part of [Robertson's] autobiography... should be done at the end of this year.

    • ...[Robertson] will have a Zoom meeting with a scenario writer about a future film on The Band. "No documentary but drama. I really hope I still get to see its release."

    Thanks to Imar Koutchoukali for translating the interview for us.

Aug.23.2020

Aug.22.2020

Aug.21.2020

Aug.17.2020

Aug.14.2020

Aug.13.2020

Aug.02.2020

  • [photo]
    It's Garth Hudson's 83rd birthday today! We send our best wishes to Garth and Sister Maud Hudson.

Jul.26.2020

  • We're looking forward to this one:
    The Band's '70s road manager and long-time collaborator with everyone-and-his-uncle in rock'n'roll and the film industry, Jonathan Taplin, will be releasing his memoirs titled The Magic Years : Scenes from a Rock-and-Roll Life in March 2021. Available for pre-order from Amazon.

Jul.17.2020

  • Added 200 photos downloaded from social media this spring/summer.

Jul.08.2020

  • Recently published on YouTube: Concert for Hospice 1990 -- 27-minute long concert video with Levon Helm, Jim Weider and The Cate Brothers Band, from a benefit gig for the Arkansas hospital that nursed Levon's mother Nell:

Jul.05.2020

Jul.03.2020

  • This week, Rolling Stone published a "50 Greatest Bassists of All Time"-list. Rick Danko, #20 on the list, is quoted saying:
    "I feel about bass playing as I do about background singing. It's nice to leave the top of the beat for the vocal and spread the other parts around the beat. That gives the music a sort of Ferris-wheel effect and carries it along."

  • This one had gone under our radar:
    Rick Danko guested on one track on Norwegian(!) band Green Cortinas' 1995 album Sleep. The track with Danko is available on YouTube, well worth a listen:

Jul.01.2020

Jun.28.2020

  • New 40-minute long audio interview published by Rolling Stone yesterday:
    "Robbie Robertson Looks Back on the Band" -- "Robertson discusses his fraught relationship with Levon Helm, whether the group's story was a triumph or tragedy, their work with Bob Dylan, and much more."

Jun.22.2020

Jun.20.2020

  • The first French book on The Band is here, Bertrand Bouard's The Band!

Jun.12.2020

  • A bit of a surprise in the British newspaper the Daily Mail yesterday: A new, lengthy and rather tabloid article about Levon Helm, with loads of illustrations, titled:
    "Levon Helm 'Couldn't Take' Playing with Bob Dylan Due to Clashing over Their Different Sounds".

    The article was spawned by the upcoming release of Sandra B. Tooze's biography Levon: From Down in the Delta to the Birth of The Band and Beyond. If you read this article, it is worth noting what Wikipedia has to say about the Daily Mail:

    "In February 2017, the Daily Mail became the first source to be deprecated as an 'unreliable source' to use as a reference on the English Wikipedia. Its use as a reference is now 'generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist'. Support for the ban centred on 'the Daily Mail's reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism, and flat-out fabrication'."

Jun.9.2020

Jun.7.2020

May.26.2020

  • Our dear and deeply missed Levon, the greatest singing drummer in the history of rock'n'roll, should've been 80 today.

May.24.2020

May.23.2020

May.20.2020

May.16.2020

May.01.2020

Apr.27.2020

Apr.20.2020

Apr.19.2020


Levon Helm, May 26, 1940 -- Apr 19, 2012
Eight years gone
The music will live forever

Apr.15.2020

  • Neil Young's "lost album" from the mid-70s, Homegrown, is scheduled to finally be made available on June 20, 2020, according to Wikipedia and several other sources. The album will include "White Line," a previously unreleased track recorded in England in September 1974 as an acoustic duet with The Band's Robbie Robertson. The recording was done a few days before Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Wembley show, where The Band was one of the opening acts. Levon Helm also appears on Homegrown, playing drums on "The Old Homestead". This track was recorded in December 1974 at Quadraphonic Sound Studios in Nashville, and later released on 1980's Hawks and Doves.

Apr.12.2020

Apr.01.2020

Mar.28.2020

Mar.05.2020

Mar.04.2020

Feb.26.2020

Feb.25.2020