Band - by Craig Harris (Hardcover)

About the Book

The Band: Pioneers of Americana Music explores the diverse influences on the quintet's music, and the impact that their music had in turn on contemporary music and American society. Through previously unpublished interviews with Robbie Robertson, Eric Andersen, Pete Seeger, an...

Book Synopsis

The Band: Pioneers of Americana Music explores the diverse influences on the quintet's music, and the impact that their music had in turn on contemporary music and American society. Through previously unpublished interviews with Robbie Robertson, Eric Andersen, Pete Seeger, and the late Rick Danko, as well as numerous other sources, Craig Harris surveys The Band's musical journey from sidemen for, among others, Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan, to rock legends in their own right.

Review Quotes

Craig Harris has an obvious passion for Americana music in general, and for The Band in particular. This detailed account of one of our most iconic musical entities, and the scene that surrounded them, should be on the shelf of every fan of American roots music.

Craig Harris paints his masterpiece, guiding us through five decades of music history as seen by The Band. Drawing on interviews with Band members and their colleagues, Harris takes us with them to see how the Band and the music scene shaped each other from the 1960s to the 21st Century.

Harris dissects each of The Band's albums, the individual member's solo releases, other's contributions and lists songs that showed up later in various places. His research is extensive, but the overall pace through these 200 pages is breezy and entertaining. I really loved The Band: Pioneers of Americana Music, but then again I love The Band. Their story surely needed to be told beyond just all that wonderful music they made. Harris tells it wonderfully.

I love simple hard won stories like this, histories of groups that reveal as much about the musicians featured as it does the times they worked in. There are not many stones left un-turned here--there's particular good stuff on Dylan 'going electric'--and lots about the individual members of this five piece as well as Harris really looking deeply into the individual songs. Craig Harris tells their story brilliantly in just about 200 pages of his book The Band: Pioneers of American Music.

In this book, veteran music writer Craig Harris goes way beyond the basic facts, telling almost everything that happened each step off the way. Although Harris is a fan, this is not a fan book; he tells the truth about the band, the good and the bad. It's a fascinating read, if you love the work of The Band, as I do, and it's maybe the best introduction to the group you'll find if you're aren't already familiar with them and their work. . . .There's a lot of material out there on The Band. Craig Harris's book doesn't just join the parade, it leads it.

In The Band: Pioneers of Americana Music, Harris traces the music back through the folk movement, the Civil Rights struggle, and into the rock era. He also takes readers through each of The Bands' albums and the historic performances at Woodstock, the Isle of Wight and Watkins Glen. In addition to the music, the author examines the factors that shaped society and helped form the counterculture. All of it plays a role in how The Band came to be the unique musical outfit it was.

It is difficult, if not impossible or inadvisable, to consider Bob Dylan and The Band separately. Theirs was an artistic event horizon that changed much of music afterwards. Writer and percussionist Craig Harris has lovingly committed to pixels The Band: Pioneers of American Music, the thoroughly researched and considered story of the Band, and necessarily, its relationship with Dylan. In doing so, he gives a succinct history of the surrounding aural terrain: Arkansas Delta Blues, singer Ronnie Hawkins, late-1950s' territory bands, Dylan's 1965 electric-acoustic schism, the rise of FM AOR (album-oriented rock) dominance in the early 1970s and essential ephemera like that. Harris' writing style is very user friendly. While his in-text references are voluminous, they never get in the way of the writing or the story he tells. Neither does his impressive research ever bog down the reading. He has honed his story to the bare essentials and in doing so, show the bright gleam of that brief decade that defined and then changed so much of American popular music. . . . The importance of the band cannot be overstated and Harris' taut account does the band proper justice.

About the Author

Music provides a thread for author, educator, percussionist, and photographer Craig Harris. His work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Sing Out, Dirty Linen, Global Rhythm, All Music Guide, and he is the author of The New Folk Music (1991) and The Heartbeat, Warble and The Electric Powwow: Native America's Musical Tapestry (forthcoming). In addition to performing in concert and/or recording with Rod MacDonald, C. J. Chenier, Jonathan Edwards, Greg Brown, and the late Rick Danko, among others, he has presented his Drum Away the Blues program throughout New England.