The band

The Band generated mythic status from the start. Crashing on the scene as Bob Dylan's anonymous-but-not-for-long backup band on his controversial and thrilling electrified tours of 1965-66, the group emerged fully formed, capable of both intense and experimentalist noise and tight, basic rock and roll.

The group's history went back nearly as far as the Beatles, to 1958 (just about the time that the formative Beatles gave up skiffle for rock & roll). Ronnie Hawkins, an Arkansas-born rock & roller who aspired to a real career, put together a backing band that year that included his fellow Arkansan Levon Helm (born May 26, 1940), who played drums (as well as credible guitar) and had led his own band, the Jungle Bush Beaters. The new outfit, Ronnie Hawkins & the Hawks, was recording by the spring of 1958 and gigged throughout the south and also up in Ontario, Canada, where the money was better than in their native American south.


About 1965, Bob Dylan decided to change his sound. He was ready to "go electric" and wanted "The Hawks" to help him fire it up. The boys signed on to tour with Dylan but unfortunately Dylan's die-hard folk fans resisted. Night after night of constant booing left Levon without the pleasure of seeing his audience enjoy themselves.

Woodstock residents called them "the band," so they kept the moniker. The name "The Band" fit.