Levon And The Hawks - Flying High (1965)

The Hawks started out with Ronnie Hawkins as Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks, but also recorded in the studio on several occasions on their own, with Levon Helm taking the vocal duties. One of the earliest sessions took place during September 1961 with Rick Danko on bass, Levon Helm on drums and vocals, Robbie Robertson on guitar, Ronnie Hawkins on vocals and Jerry Penfound on saxophone. The sessions were produced by Henry Glover at Bell Sound Studio in New York City, and resulted in tracks like Jimmy Reed’s 'You Know I Love You', 'Further On Up the Road' and Muddy Waters' 'Nineteen Years Old', which featured Roy Buchanan on rhythm guitar. After leaving Hawkins in 1964, the group was briefly known as the Levon Helm Sextet, with sixth member sax player Jerry Penfound, and then as Levon and the Hawks after Penfound's departure. The band toured extensively, with personnel changing periodically, but by the time they next went into the studio all the members of the group that would go on to become the Band were in place. Hawkins' producer at Roulette, the legendary Henry Glover, brought them into Bell Studios in New York to record two fine Robbie Robertson originals, 'Leave Me Alone' and 'Uh Uh Uh', in the spring of 1965, and Glover released these on the Ware label in the U.S., and on Apex in Canada under the name of The Canadian Squires. In 1964 some members of the band (Robertson, Hudson and Helm) joined bassist Jimmy Lewis, a young Michael Bloomfield on piano and Charlie Musselwhite on harmonica to record an electric blues session with John Hammond Jr., which would become his Vanguard album 'So Many Roads', released at the beginning of 1965. In late 1964 to early 1965, the band recorded in the studio on a few occasions with producers Duff Roman and Henry Glover respectively, with The Roman sessions, as they became known, resulting in fine examples of early Robertson compositions such as 'Bacon Fat' and 'Robbie’s Blues'. 

In September they recorded two further Robertson originals, the soulful 'He Don’t Love You' and 'The Stones I Throw', and these were released as the first single under the Levon And The Hawks banner on the Atco label, but all this was overshadowed by their meeting Dylan in late summer of 1965. The band were recommended to him by John Hammond Jnr., who remembered them helping him out on his album, and after hearing the band play and meeting with Robertson, Dylan invited Helm and Robertson to join his backing band. After two concerts backing Dylan, Helm and Robertson told Dylan of their loyalty to their bandmates and told him that they would continue with him only if he hired all of the Hawks. Dylan accepted and invited Levon and the Hawks to tour with him. With Dylan, the Hawks played a series of concerts from September 1965 through May 1966, billed as Bob Dylan and the Band. From this point on their lives became inextricably linked with Dylan's, and Levon And The Hawks essentially ceased to exist, although in late 1968, Atco dug up another song that was recorded at the September 1965 sessions, and released 'Go Go Liza Jane' in 1968 as a Levon And The Hawks single, recycling 'He Don’t Love You' for the flip. This album collects all of the studio recordings by the band, plus a couple of live tracks, one featuring Dylan, to show just why they were considered one of the hottest bar bands in North America and Canada in the early 60's. 

Track listing

01 What A Party (recorded at Bell Sound Studio 1961)
02 Farther Up The Road (recorded at Bell Sound Studio 1961)
03 She's Nineteen (recorded at Bell Sound Studio 1961)
04 You Don't Know Me (Texas 1964)
05 Leave Me Alone (single by The Canadian Squires 1964)
06 Uh Uh Uh (b-side of 'Leave Me Alone')
07 Bacon Fat (studio recording 1965)
08 The Stones I Throw (single 1965)
09 He Don't Love You (And He'll Break Your Heart) (b-side of 'The Stones I Throw')
10 Robbie's Blues (studio recording 1965)
11 Number One (studio out-take 1965, with Bob Dylan)
12 Honky Tonk (studio recording 1965)
13 Go Go Liza Jane (single, recorded 1965, released 1968)

The Band - Endless Highway (1973)

Most people probably already know the history of The Band, but a brief recap is always handy. The members of the group gradually came together in the Hawks, the backing group for Toronto-based rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins, with a line up of Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson when they eventually left Hawkins' band in 1963. In late summer 1965, Bob Dylan was looking for a backup band for his first U.S. 'electric' tour, and Levon And The Hawks (as they were then known) were recommended by blues singer John Hammond Jr., and although Dylan originally only wanted to hire Helm and Robertson, they told Dylan that out of loyalty to their bandmates that they would only continue with him if he hired all of the Hawks. Dylan accepted and invited Levon And The Hawks to tour with him. The band recorded some tracks with Dylan, and others feature one or two members, but they were mainly employed as his live backing band. On July 29, 1966, while on a break from touring, Dylan was injured in a motorcycle accident that precipitated his retreat into semi-seclusion in Woodstock, New York, and for a while The Hawks returned to the bar and roadhouse touring circuit. In February 1967 Dylan invited The Hawks to join him in Woodstock, and Danko, Manuel and Hudson rented a large pink house, which they named 'Big Pink', in nearby West Saugerties, where they started to record the songs which would later be bootlegged as 'The Basement Tapes'. The Hawks were also writing their own songs by this time, and in 1967 they went into the recording studio, even thouhg they still didn't have a name. After some rejected suggestions Robertson mentioned that during their time with Dylan everyone just referred to them as "the band" and the name stuck. 
'Music from Big Pink' was released in 1968 and was widely acclaimed, being followed by a series of well-received albums throughout the late 60's and early 70's. During the recordings there were usually one or two songs left over, and this album collects all the out-takes from those sessions, along with a few from the Basement Tapes period were the Band recorded without Dylan, but in a different form to the versions released on 'The Basement Tapes'. For 'Orange Juice Blues' Manuel and Danko laid down the basic track in Woodstock in 1967, and the contributions of the rest of the Band were overdubbed eight years later, but this take is the original performance, without overdubbing. It's been suggested that 'Bessie Smith' was recorded sometime between their 1969 second album and 'Stage Fright', although others says that it was recorded by the Band in 1975 in their Shangri-La studio in Los Angeles, as 'The Basement Tapes' was being prepared for official release. 'Long Distance Operator' was written by Dylan, and is an outtake from the 'Music from Big Pink' sessions, even though it appeared on 'The Basement Tapes', but this take is the longer version with an extra verse. The rest of the tracks were recorded by the group between 1971 and 1973 (or 1975 if you think 'Bessie Smith' is a later recording), and as their sound never really changed that much during their career then this album stands up pretty well as a Band record in its own right.  

Track listing

01 Long Distance Operator  
02 Orange Juice Blues (Blues For Breakfast)
03 Get Up Jake   
04 Endless Highway  
05 Baby Lou  
06 Bessie Smith  
07 Don't You Do It  
08 Didn't It Rain  
09 Crying Heart Blues  
10 Shakin'  
11 What Am I Living For   
12 Going Back To Memphis  


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The Band - 'The Basement Tapes'

The Band - Tombstone (1990)

Following their iconic Last Waltz tour in 1978, The Band went their separate ways. By the mid-80's they were missing touring enough to regroup and start playing again, but Robbie Robertson had found a new career in the movies writing soundtracks, and so decided not to join the rest of the group on the tour. Before long the studio beckoned for a new album, and as Robertson was the main songwriter they needed a producer, and eventually chose songwriter Jules Shear, most famous at that time for writing Cyndi Lauper's hit 'All Through The Night'. An album was recorded, with Shear writing some of the songs, but it was rejected by their new label Sony - in fact they never issued anything on the label, with their next official record being 1993's 'Jericho', on the small Pyramid Label. The rustic Americana that The Band are known for is still in evidence, and Rick Danko's vocals as good as ever, but it sounds like Shear also sang on a number of the songs, which could be part of the reason that the album was rejected, as the label might not have been keen on a Robertson-less Band. 'You Don't Know Me' is a live recording from Tokyo in 1983, sung by Richard Manuel.

Track listing

01 Tombstone, Tombstone
02 River Of Honey
03 All Creation
04 Baby Don't You Cry No More
05 The High Price Of Love
06 Long Ways To Tennessee
07 Too Soon Gone
08 Money Whipped
09 Never Again Or Forever
10 You Don't Know Me

Bob Dylan & The Band - The Genuine Basement Tapes (1967)

I put this one together back in 2013, and so recent 'Bootleg Series' releases might have made it a bit redundant, but it was one of my very first efforts, so I've decided to post it anyway. My original notes are below.
I was listening to the excellent Radio 4 documentary on Bootlegs recently, and as I was listening to stories about Dylan's Great White Wonder I got to thinking if there was still a rip of it around anywhere so that I could hear it. Well, the short answer is no, there isn't. I found half of it, but the sound quality was atrocious, so I turned my attention to The Basement Tapes instead. Some investigation revealed that when they were officially released by CBS in 1975 they missed off a number of the best songs, so ever up for a challenge I decided to track them down. I managed to find all the missing tracks in pretty good sound quality, and with a little fading and patching, I don't think it came out too bad.
So what we have here are The Original Basement Tapes, running in the order of the original bootleg, but in the best sound quality available. I have to say, speaking as someone who likes Dylan but is not mad on him, that this is currently my favourite of his albums, just for the fact that him and The Band seem to having so much fun singing these songs.

Track listing

01 Odds And Ends
02 Nothing Was Delivered
03 Get Your Rocks Off
04 Clothes Line Saga
05 Apple Suckling Tree
06 Goin' To Acapulco
07 Tears Of Rage
08 Quinn The Eskimo
09 Open The Door, Homer
10 I'm Not There
11 Million Dollar Bash
12 Yea! Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread
13 Please, Mrs. Henry
14 Crash On The Levee (Down In The Flood)
15 Lo And Behold!
16 Tiny Montgomery
17 This Wheel's On Fire
18 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
19 I Shall Be Released
20 Too Much Of Nothin'
21 Silent Weekend
22 Sign On The Cross