By Max Grieve

The Band – an introduction

Most people – at least most Americans – will recognise “The Weight”, the Band’s most notorious composition, covered by Aretha Franklin amongst others, but are shaky when it comes to their vast discography beyond that. Their story - as a down-and-out bar-gigging outfit in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, supporting band for Bob Dylan during his electric rebirth and major recording group and concert act in the ‘70s - is legendary, and a testament to the meritocratic spirit of the American music business at the time.

Writer Bruce Elder once stated that the Band were ‘one of the most popular and influential rock groups in the world, their music embraced by critics […] as seriously as the music of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.’ Their first two albums - Music from Big Pink (1968) and their self-titled record, The Band (1969) - perhaps acted as the principal agents behind such momentous praise, the first of which Roger Waters of Pink Floyd maintained ‘affected [us, Pink Floyd] deeply, deeply, deeply.’

The Band’s third studio album, Stage Fright, was released in August of 1970 to mixed reviews; and failing to generate the same intense buzz in the music world as its predecessors, Stage Fright was dragged unfairly into the obscurity of the most ardent Band fan’s record collection. Yet in February of this year, Robbie Robertson, leading songwriter and axe-man of the Band, rereleased the album, having remixed it with Bob Clearmountain; reorganised the track listing; and added alternate takes, musical sketches recorded on tour, and a second disc comprising the group’s June 1971 concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. This rerelease – celebrating fifty years of Stage Fright – I would argue, is worth your listening time, and – if you are so inclined - a hard copy on CD or vinyl. It is quite conceivably the ultimate confirmation of critic John Bauldie’s belief that Stage Fright ‘may even surpass Big Pink and The Band.’

The Band in the basement of Rick Dano’s House, 1969.Photo copyright © Elliott Landy. All rights reserved — The Band in the basement of Rick Dano’s House, 1969.
Photo copyright © Elliott Landy. All rights reserved

Composed of four Canadians – Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel – and one Arkansan, Levon Helm, the Band made a name for itself by creating an earthy, folk-infused genre of rock in the backdrop of the more popular hard psychedelia of Jimi Hendrix and the Cream. This musical innovation has been dubbed by later critics as ‘Americana’, and thus, the Band have become known as ‘The Fathers of Americana.’ Music from Big Pink’s tracks were largely born in a rose-coloured house in Woodstock, home to several members in ‘67 and ‘68, some composed with their mentor, Bob Dylan, who, together with the Band, has been attributed with changing the course of American music forever during this period. When it was released in July of 1968, the album had such a profound effect on guitarist Eric Clapton that he dismantled Cream in pursuit of a more authentic, roots-based sound. The result was the classic album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.

The Band followed soon after, an album of equal, if not greater, success among critics and the musical laity alike, containing staples of rock like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”. These two behemoths of music history were significant for two reasons: firstly, that they rebelled against contemporary hard rock, a music of dissonant chords and bizarre guitar-pedals. Secondly – and in this, they did not stray far from psychedelia – their music incorporated a gentle strain of poetry, ballads revolving around certain semi-fictional characters. These characters, however, were refreshingly unorthodox for popular music at the time, plucked from the history of the common American man. They were so evocative of a lost age of hardship and hope as to cause Martin Scorsese, renowned filmmaker, to compare the albums’ textures and ambiances to classic American literature.

The Band outside Big Pink, 1968. Photo copyright © Elliott Landy. All rights reserved.

Stage Fright – rereleased and revitalised

Stage Fright is a different kettle of fish. By 1970, the Band had played major concerts and festivals – including Woodstock ‘69 - and their albums were providing a steady stream of income through sales and royalties (Danko’s contribution to the lesser-known song, “This Wheel’s on Fire”, earned him $500k alone). With this new-found fame and success grew anxiety; with anxiety, and a narcotic epidemic in Woodstock, grew serious drug habits. Three out of the five – Helm, Danko and Manuel – developed acute heroin addictions, with Manuel’s perhaps being the most devastating. Before, where he had been a major component in the composing engine of the Band, Stage Fright now saw Manuel’s last two official compositions for the group, whilst Robertson wrote the majority of the songs on the album (supposedly). It is in this context – substance abuse and changed, even strained, relationship dynamics – that Stage Fright was recorded.

As of the 2021 rerelease, the album has changed in form, notably in the track listing. “Strawberry Wine”, composed by Robertson and Helm, was placed first on the 1970 release. Robertson has relegated it to the ninth position, and the Manuel/Robertson-penned compositions, “Sleeping” and “Just Another Whistle Stop”, have also been pushed further down the list. Why this has been done remains unclear: some have suggested Robertson’s somewhat notorious ego, whilst others opine that it was the order initially intended for the 1970 album, changed last-minute to emphasise Helm and Manuel’s songwriting contributions.

Either way, the remixing of the album is stellar. From the very first track, “The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show”, the listener can hear the improved lucidity. However, “The Shape I’m In” – a classic I-IV-V rock tune, recounting the story of a man imprisoned then thrown out onto Skid Row, although with clear references to Manuel’s own chaotic state – really brings out the genius of sound engineer Bob Clearmountain. A crispier tone emanates from Robertson’s guitar, and there is more snap on the snare and bass of Helm’s kit; with an augmented clarity in both Hudson’s organ and Danko’s bass-guitar chops, the straight, punching rhythm drives the song with an inimitable attitude and style. Richard Manuel’s surging baritone transfixes the mix with such gripping candour that when he sings lines like ‘Out of nine lives, I spent seven/ Now, how in the world do you get to Heaven?’, and ‘I just spent sixty days in the jailhouse/ For the crime of having no dough/ Now here I am back out on the street/ For the crime of having nowhere to go’, the anguish of his own situation is palpable.

Stage Fright inside sleeve photo, 1970. Photo copyright © Norman Seefe. All rights reserved.

Hudson’s virtuosic organ-playing is further brought to the fore in track #3, “Daniel and the Sacred Harp”, by Clearmountain’s skills, in which Manuel switches to drums and secondary vocals, and Helm takes on the lead. The bittersweet narrative is reflective of the Band’s own situation: just as Daniel acquires a magical musical instrument, so too did the Band acquire a special talent, and just as Daniel becomes overwhelmed and cowered by the results of his wondrous harp, so too did the Band struggle to deal with the reaction to their music.

This self-exposing use of metaphors extends into song #4, the album’s title track, “Stage Fright”, sung with the beautifully melancholic timbres found only in Rick Danko’s voice. The character this time is a talented youth, ripped from his simple childhood into the belligerent world of the entertainer, and has been suggested to be a biography of either Manuel, Danko, or perhaps even Robertson himself. The effect of the remixing is to sanitise again the sound of Hudson’s organ and Manuel’s piano, but also allow the fragile subtleties of Danko’s voice to become more detectable – a true delight for his admirers. What Ross Johnson has called the “unintentionally […] confessional” nature of the album defines the majority of its content: as opposed to previous albums, where subjects were often more abstract, “Stage Fright” is deeply personal, honest to the horrors of Richard Manuel’s difficulties in particular.

The most exciting novelty of the rerelease is not the remixed original album, however, nor the alternate takes or Calgary sessions, but (on the Deluxe edition) a second disk preserving one of, if not the, best live performances of the Band in history: live at the Royal Albert Hall, June 1971. Nineteen tracks, comprised of the classics established in Big Pink and The Band and complemented by a slew of recent numbers from the Stage Fright album, see every member in absolute top-form.

Robbie Robertson and Rick Danko, 1971. Photo copyright © Michael Putland. All rights reserved.

Manuel’s blazing version of “The Shape I’m In” perhaps exceeds the studio version in quality, and his treatment of the Dylan/Band classic, “I Shall Be Released”, is tender, desperate and ethereal. Robertson’s piercing guitar solos are top-quality examples of the late ‘60s style he helped pioneer, and his solo on the Marvin Gaye tune, “Don’t Do It”, perhaps exemplifies this better than any other. Helm drives his Arkansan roar to full capacity, as evident in “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and his very own “Strawberry Wine”; Danko’s bass is in perfect syncopation with Helm throughout, and his lead on “The Unfaithful Servant” is as tender as Manuel’s on “I Shall Be Released”. The encore, “Rag Mama Rag”, showcases all members, but none more so than Hudson, whose ragtime piano reaches technical heights which, it is likely safe to say, are unprecedented within the genre.

Stage Fright’s implications for the history of rock music are immense, precisely because they are so important in the history of the Band. It marks a turning point in the trajectory of the group, particularly concerning Manuel and his use of heroin, his dependency on which ultimately drove Robertson to end the Band after The Last Waltz concert and film in 1976. 1976 bookmarked a mythical era in popular music, an era focused on other-worldly, yet earthy folk-rock, epitomised in the Grateful Dead, Neil Young, and, on the highest tier of the pantheon, the Band. The decline of this era, perhaps, might therefore be traced back to 1970, when things started to become difficult for the American-Canadian supergroup, an episode testified in Stage Fright itself.

For the Band’s established devotees, the album is greatly significant in the group’s personal and musical canon, namely in documenting the tragic struggles of Helm, Manuel and Danko, who have (rightfully) developed cult-level statuses in the classic rock community. The Robertson/Clearmountain remix vitally hones the intense emotions of these three musicians – their instruments and voices, blending in those distinct three-layer harmonies – but also serves as an emphatic reminder of the album’s existence, one saturated with imagery and emotion, just as the two before it and the others after it, and well worth, therefore, an hour or so of listening - perhaps even £10, if you feel so inclined.

ST.ART does not own the rights to any images used in this article.