Music From Big Pink introduces a group with a clarity of vision that had never before been heard in rock & roll. Made while the Beatles were downing LSD and writing about tangerine dreams and marmalade skies, Big Pink was remarkably simple and direct, right down to the tiniest details. In the... 

 Robertson and company expanded on their reputation as American storytellers on The Band. Kicking off with the sweeping “Across the Great Divide,” the group’s second album combines uptempo songs (the rural dance tune “Rag Mama Rag” and working-class allegory “Up on Cripple Creek”) wi... 

 With the success of the Band’s first two albums came the by-products of fame: substance abuse, exhaustion, grandiosity, and greed. As a result, Stage Fright found the Band slipping. Robertson’s songwriting took a more personal turn as he dealt with the psychological toll on his group. The hig... 

 Cahoots is a near-total wash. The carnivalesque atmosphere of the music and cinematic sweep of the lyrics never completely gel. Only the lead-off track, “Life Is a Carnival,” “4% Pantomime” (with a guest spot by Van Morrison), and Helm’s gorgeous interpretation of Dylan’s “When ... 

 The Band never completely recovered from the lost innocence of Stage Fright and Cahoots. While Rock of Ages is an excellent double-disc document of the group’s early-Seventies live performances, Moondog Matinee finds the Band retreating to the safety of its collective childhood with a set of in... 

 The Band never completely recovered from the lost innocence of Stage Fright and Cahoots. While Rock of Ages is an excellent double-disc document of the group’s early-Seventies live performances, Moondog Matinee finds the Band retreating to the safety of its collective childhood with a set of in... 

 On Northern Lights–Southern Cross Robertson reclaims his reputation as one of rock’s great songwriters (“Ophelia,” “Acadian Driftwood,” and “It Makes No Difference”), although the synthesizer flourishes date the overall sound.  

 Greatest Hits is a misnomer–“Up on Cripple Creek” was the Band’s only Top Thirty single–but it’s a solid chronological anthology of the group’s best songs, and offers more music than The Best of the Band, an earlier collection. 

 Islands is a barely listenable collection of outtakes the Band released to fulfull its contractual obligations to Capitol Records.  

 When the Band decided to call it quits (at least, for a while), they staged a farewell concert in San Francisco featuring an all-star cast of their musician friends (including Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, the Staple Singers, Muddy Waters, Dr. John, and Emmylou Harris) an... 

 In 1983, the Band (without Robertson) regrouped and began touring small clubs again, but they didn’t record a new album for another decade. Jericho was dedicated to Manuel, who had committed suicide while on the road with the Band in the mid-Eighties. It was a surprising return to form for the ... 

 High on the Hog basically repeats Jericho’s formula, with less successful results.  

 Jubilation finds the reunited Band growing, its mix of acoustic instruments and roughened voices revealing a new, dignified maturity. By 1999, however, the death of Danko effectively put an end to the Band.  

 The Best of the Band, Vol. 2 is a decent overview of the reunited Band’s work.  

 Greatest Hits is a fizzy delight–and a good place for the uninitiated to start.  

 In 2005 the Band released the extraordinary five-CD, one-DVD box set A Musical History. It traces their entire history from their days as Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks to backing Bob Dylan through the original break-up in 1976.