The Band Web Site

News and Updates

The perfect gift for Band fans: 40th anniversary edition of Elliott Landy's Woodstock Vision, signed by the legendary photographer!

Carol Caffin's interviews and inside stories: John and Bill Scheele Terry Danko Jorma Kaukonen Colin Linden David Fishof Jonathan Taplin Jonas Fjeld D.A. Pennebaker Mickey Jones Ronnie Hawkins Eric Bazilian Steve Forbert Jim Weider Eric Andersen

Feb.09.2010

• Our old friend, The Band's and Levon Helm's road manager, our favorite upstate NY baker, the unstoppable Butch Dener, is 60 years young today. Happy birthday!

Feb.02.2010

• Facebook users: Join the group "Nominate Rick Danko for Canada's Walk of Fame" now! Or you may go directly to the CWoF web site and nominate Rick there.

Feb.01.2010

• Congratulations to Levon Helm for winning his second consecutive Grammy, for Electric Dirt, in the category of Best Americana Album of 2009! Levon received the recording industry's highest honor at the 52nd Grammy Awards. The other nominees in this category were Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Wilco and Lucinda Williams!

Jan.30.2010

• Added a late '90s photo of Levon with Amy Helm and some old road manager. Thanks to Butch Dener for sending the pic.

Jan.26.2010

• Thanks to Watt Casey, Jr. for sending us these 21 previously unpublished photos of The Band on stage in Austin, TX, September 1976.

Jan.24.2010

• Join the Levon Helm Street Team to help spread the word about Levon's music and tours!

Jan.23.2010

• Press release from Garth and Maud Hudson yesterday:

  GARTH and MAUD HUDSON at the SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL!
  Garth and Maud are on their way to the Sundance Film Festival right now. Oasis Entertainment has invited them to perform this Sunday evening, January 24th (time 10pm) at The Sundance Film Festival as part of the "Synchronize Concert Series" in support of Soliya at Crown on Main in Park City, Utah. Please RSVP while there are still tickets. Watch and listen LIVE too at synclive.com (webcast is free, but you must register to use it).

Jan.21.2010

• Sad news at the beginning of the new decade:

  R.I.P. Maurice Danko Jr.
  Rick Danko's brother, Maurice Danko Junior, 69, of R.R. 6, Simcoe, Ontario, passed away 19 Jan 2010. He is survived by his wife and best friend for 49 years, Joyce Howick, their children Lori, Maurie and Sue, three grandchildren, and brothers Dennis and Terry. Junior was predeceased by his parents Maurice Senior("Tom") and Leola, and his brother Rick. Cremation has taken place.

Jan.20.2010

• "Down Home with The Band: Country-Western Music and Rock" -- academic 1976 article about The Band's music. Thanks to "Brown Eyed Girl" and her friend David Lewis for sending us this one.

• "Jim Weider's Project Percolator: Pulse" -- 6-star review from Blurt Magazine.

• New concert dates for Jim Weider's PRoJECT PERCoLAToR.

Jan.18.2010

• From Carol Caffin's Rick Danko tribute site:

  Rick Danko: Artist Without a Genre

  I've always found it interesting that The Band was--and is--referred to as a "rock group." Actually, I haven't always found it interesting--I sometimes catch myself referring to them that way, even now. Old habits die hard, but the truth is, The Band was not a rock group. And Rick Danko was not a rock artist.

  The Band was much more complex, subtle--and pure--than rock and roll. And though, when I was younger, long before I ever knew him, I had thought of Rick as a "rock star," I realized quickly after I met him just how ill-fitting that moniker was.

  First of all, Rick was a country boy--born and raised in the country, and with a country mentality and a country sensibility. Second, the music he grew up loving--really loving--was country music. Later, Rick developed a love for the blues and, still later, R&B, but, by the time rock and roll was considered a genre, Rick was a teenager. His formative years were spent listening to country radio stations and daydreaming about the Grand Ol Opry. And his first instrument was not a guitar, but a four-string tenor banjo; not your typical rock-star axe.

  So, while early rock and roll did affect him and influence him to an extent, it was by no means his driving musical force. And, like many other elements of his life and his career, his musical persona was rife with contradiction, a study in contrast. On the one hand, there was this backwoods bumpkin singing Burl Ives campfire singalongs on a tiny lonesome stage, and on the other, there was this ultra-cool longhaired rebel with sunglasses and a cigarette and black leather boots helping Dylan set the music world on fire by going electric.

  The dichotomy helped define Rick and his music over the years, yet, at the same time, kept him from being pigeonholed. It also kept him from becoming a "household name"--but it's just as well. That's the way God, or fate, or the cards, or the universe intended it.

  It's why The Band was a nightmare from a promotional and marketing perspective, and why they endure and mystify decades after so many of their contemporaries have fallen by the wayside. It's why "Somebody to Love" sounds dated and "Long Black Veil" seems timeless, why a great song like "A Whiter Shade of Pale" sounds like a 60s song, while a great song of the same era, "The Weight," sounds at once brand-new and eternal. It's why Rick could yodel while wearing a pink shirt and a gambler's hat on The Ed Sullivan Show while his cohorts were blowing out amps and wearing Nehru jackets and love beads. It's why he could sing "Lucky Old Sun" to a beer-drinking crowd and nobody laughed, and why he could sing "It Makes No Difference" to the same crowd and everybody cried.

Jan.17.2010

• John Scheele sent us this photo in honour of "that low-key marvel of a songwriter", the late Bobby Charles -- "he was famously no publicity seeker": Charles and Neil Young, 1975.

• Five more photos from Watt Casey, Jr of The Band in Buffalo, NY, 1974.

Jan.16.2010

• Added four 1974 photos from a gig where The Band opened for Eric Clapton. Thanks to Watt Casey, Jr for sending us the scans.

• "Bobby Charles, Louisiana songwriter, dies at 71". Link provided by Jonathan Katz.

Jan.14.2010

• May you rest in peace, Bobby Charles.

Jan.07.2010

• New photos from Levon's New Years' Eve Ramble.