After unsuccessfully attempting sessions at a studio in New York, the Band set up shop in the pool house of a home rented by the group in the Hollywood Hills located at 8850 Evanview Drive in Los Angeles, California. The home was then owned by Sammy Davis Jr.[3] and was previously owned by Judy Garland and Wally Cox. According to Robbie Robertson, the location was chosen to give the songs a Basement Tapes–like feel in what was termed "a clubhouse concept".[4] The last song to be recorded at the pool house was "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)," as The Band had to leave to perform for three nights at Winterland in San Francisco. Afterwards, they recorded the final three songs to finish the album ("Up on Cripple Creek", "Whispering Pines" and "Jemima Surrender") at The Hit Factory in New York City, at the time operated by Jerry Ragavoy. Joe Zagarino would also take over most of the engineering for the final three tracks they would record, untrusting of Robertson and Simon's engineering skills. The outtake "Get Up Jake" was also recorded during these sessions in New York.[5]
According to co-producer John Simon, Robbie Robertson took over most of the engineering for the record, "hungry for knowledge ... I showed him how to make an album from a technical point of view."[6]
Release
The album was originally released on September 22, 1969.[7] A 1980 "Capitol 16000 Series" budget vinyl reissue of the album omitted "When You Awake" and "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)".
After several reissues on vinyl, cassette tape, and compact disc, the album was remastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 2000, in a process overseen by Robertson.
The Band was reissued in 2009 by Audio Fidelity as a limited edition gold CD. The reissue included a single B-side, "Get Up Jake", as a bonus track. "Get Up Jake", which also appears on the 2000 reissue, was slated for inclusion on the original album but was dropped from the lineup at the last minute, either because the band felt it was too similar to another track on the album or because there physically was not enough room on the album.[8][9] It also was suggested that the underdeveloped status of the song made them decide against inclusion in the album. A reworked version of "Get Up Jake" was later included in many of the Band's live performances in the early 1970s and also on the 1972 live album Rock of Ages.
In 2019, a 50th Anniversary Edition was released, with an entirely new stereo mix of the album by Bob Clearmountain, mastered by Bob Ludwig, as well as several outtake tracks and the Band's entire live set from the Woodstock festival.
The album includes many of the Band's best-known and critically acclaimed songs, including "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", which Rolling Stone named the 245th-greatest song of all time in 2004[20] and the 249th-greatest song of all time in 2010.[21] In 2003, the album was ranked No. 45 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list.[22] In the 2020 update of that list, it was ranked No. 57.[23] In 1998, Q readers voted The Band the 76th greatest album of all time. Time included it in their unranked 2006 list of the 100 greatest albums. Robert Christgau, having been disappointed with the Band's debut, had expected to dislike the record and even planned a column for The Village Voice to "castigate" their follow-up. Upon hearing the record, however, he declared it better than Abbey Road, which had been released four days following, writing that the Band's LP is an "A-plus record if I've ever rated one".[19] He ranked it as the fourth-best album of the year in his ballot for Jazz & Pop magazine's annual critics poll.[24] The album was later included in his "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981).[25]
It was voted No. 45 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000).[26]
The Band peaked at No. 9 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. In 2000, it charted on Billboard's Internet Albums chart, peaking at No. 10. The singles "Rag Mama Rag" and "Up on Cripple Creek" peaked on the Pop Singles chart at Nos. 57 and 25 respectively. The "Rag Mama Rag" single performed better in the UK, where it reached No. 16.[27] It was the band's highest-charting album in their native Canada, peaking at number two on the Canadian Albums Chart.
On Metacritic, the expanded 50th anniversary edition of the album has an aggregate score of 96 out of 100, based on six reviews, a rating that the website defines as indicating "universal acclaim".[28]
PopMatters critic David Pike rated "Rockin' Chair" as one of the "41 essential pop/rock songs with accordion."[29]
^Helm, Levon (March 25, 1993). This Wheel's On Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of The Band (1st ed.). United States: William Morrow. p. 195.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
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