Five musicians, one Capitol rhythm section, and the roots-rock record that DJ Premier and the Beastie Boys both went digging in.
The Band was Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson, four Canadians and one Arkansan who spent the early 1960s as Ronnie Hawkins' backing group and then as Bob Dylan's band on the road in 1965 and 1966. Music from Big Pink arrived in 1968 on Capitol and carried "The Weight." The self-titled album followed in September 1969, and it is the one collectors and producers keep returning to.
That second album is where hip-hop comes in. "Up on Cripple Creek" supplied the rhythm track for Gang Starr's "Beyond Comprehension" on Step in the Arena in 1991, and the Beastie Boys worked a replayed piece of its vocals into "High Plains Drifter" on Paul's Boutique. Nobody was mining a Woodstock-era Americana record for breaks, which is exactly why the groove still sounds fresh under a drum machine. Levon Helm's drumming is the reason it works.
The catalog runs through Stage Fright in 1970 and Cahoots in 1971, the live Rock of Ages in 1972, and The Last Waltz, the 1978 three-LP farewell on Warner Bros. Helm, Danko and Manuel are gone, and Robertson died in 2023. For collectors, the trap is the budget line. In 1980 Capitol reissued the self-titled album in its 16000 Series with two tracks cut, "When You Awake" and "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)." Read the track list before you assume you are getting the complete record.
Compare live listings for these records on Discogs, eBay, CDandLP, and Turntable Lab:
Search The Band vinylLinks to Amazon, eBay, CDandLP, and Turntable Lab are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what we show you or how results are ordered. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.