Given the countless Band compilations released over the years, plus the exhaustive bonus-track-laden reissues of the proper albums in 2000 and 2001, it's easy to be suspicious of the six-disc A Musical History, especially since it's the third Band box set released in the CD era. It would seem that all the worthwhile previously unreleased music has been excavated and that the Band's career has been anthologized in every possible way, but A Musical History proves that's not true. As its title implies, the set is a biography ...
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Given the countless Band compilations released over the years, plus the exhaustive bonus-track-laden reissues of the proper albums in 2000 and 2001, it's easy to be suspicious of the six-disc A Musical History, especially since it's the third Band box set released in the CD era. It would seem that all the worthwhile previously unreleased music has been excavated and that the Band's career has been anthologized in every possible way, but A Musical History proves that's not true. As its title implies, the set is a biography, tracing the group's career from their early days as the Hawks supporting Ronnie Hawkins, through their stint as Levon & the Hawks, through their time as Bob Dylan's backing band in 1966, through their emergence as the Band in 1968, then through their years of stardom in the early '70s, leading up to their departure at The Last Waltz in 1976. No previous compilation has done this -- they've either picked up the story with Music from Big Pink or offered up the greatest hits, and they've never weaved Ronnie Hawkins or Bob Dylan tracks into the story line -- and this thorough, all-encompassing approach does result in an absorbing narrative that does provide some revelations, most arriving on the spectacular, necessary first disc that traces the evolution of the band before they were the Band. Here, for the first time on a Band album, you get to hear the group's beginning as a rough rock & roll and blues combo, and while some of this material is a bit generic (albeit in the best possible sense, since they were a lean, tough, straight-ahead rock & roll group), this music echoes throughout the four CDs that follow, whether it's in the muscular R&B grooves of Levon Helm and Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson's tight, squealing guitar, or Richard Manual's piano chord clusters, or how the group touched on rockabilly, Motown, New Orleans R&B, country, and folk even on their earliest recordings. In this context, their teaming with Dylan not only seems like a natural outgrowth of their work as the struggling Levon & the Hawks, but it's clear that Dylan helped give the band focus and ideas, inspiring not just the songs that the group wrote for Music from Big Pink, but the whole Americana aesthetic that came to define the Band and made them separate from their rock & roll peers of the late '60s.Once A Musical History hits the second disc, the Band's story enters familiar territory and the revelations start drying up even if the unreleased material doesn't (there are a whopping 32 unreleased tracks on this 102-song set, and there's about ten or so other cuts that could qualify as rarities, as well). All the same, the conventional story line carries more weight here, since the first disc not only provides context, but because the sequencing and song selection are excellent, helping to drive the Band's story in addition to just being flat-out entertaining. Plus, there are some great rarities scattered throughout here, including an exciting, careening live version of Woody Guthrie's "I Ain't Got No Home" with Bob Dylan that was only released on a Woody tribute album, the funky, gritty "Baby Lou," a raucous "Slippin' & Slidin'" from the Festival Express tour in 1970, hard-rocking live versions of "Strawberry Wine" and "Look out Cleveland" from Royal Albert Hall in 1971, a live "Highway 61 Revisited" with Bob Dylan from a 1974 Madison Square Garden show, and Rick Danko's sweet, lazy unreleased "Home Cookin'" from 1976. These not only help keep a familiar story interesting to the hardcore fans (who, after all, are the primary audience for such a lavish set as this), but help fill little details within that story, along with illustrating how good the Band could sound as a band right up until the very end of their career. Despite all this, the arc of their career -- the sudden, glorious beginning and the slow descent into equal parts pretension and lethargy -- can't help but shine through in a biography such as this. No amount...
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Add this copy of A Musical History (W/Dvd) to cart. $95.28, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Emerald rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by Capitol.
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Seller's Description:
Very good. Providing great media since 1972. All used discs are inspected and guaranteed. Cases may show some wear. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of A Musical History (W/Dvd) to cart. $95.29, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Emerald rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by Capitol.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Providing great media since 1972. All used discs are inspected and guaranteed. Cases may show some wear. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of A Musical History (W/Dvd) to cart. $95.29, very good condition, Sold by HPB Inc. rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by Capitol.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Providing great media since 1972. All used discs are inspected and guaranteed. Cases may show some wear. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
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