The Band did not come from Woodstock — they came to it, and in doing so, they made the town a creative landmark. The group — Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, and Levon Helm — began as the Hawks, the backing band for rockabilly wild man Ronnie Hawkins, touring the Canadian bar circuit in the early 1960s. When Bob Dylan hired them for his controversial 1965-66 electric world tour, they became the tightest, most versatile rock ensemble on the planet.
Big Pink and the Basement Tapes
After Dylan’s motorcycle accident near Woodstock in July 1966, the group followed their employer to the Catskills. Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, and Richard Manuel rented a house at 56 Parnassus Lane in West Saugerties — a pink-sided dwelling they simply called Big Pink. Levon Helm, who had left during the tumultuous Dylan tours, rejoined in late 1967. Through 1967 and into 1968, Dylan and the group recorded dozens of songs in Big Pink’s basement — the legendary Basement Tapes sessions that would not see official release until 1975 but circulated as the most famous bootleg in rock history.
Music from Big Pink
The group’s debut album, Music from Big Pink, was released in July 1968 on Capitol Records, with cover art painted by Dylan himself. It contained “The Weight,” a song that became an American standard, and announced an entirely new direction in rock music — rootsy, communal, steeped in Appalachian and gospel traditions at a time when psychedelia dominated. Eric Clapton later said the album made him want to quit Cream.
Their self-titled second album, The Band (1969), deepened the approach. Songs like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” and “Rag Mama Rag” drew on American mythology with a specificity that was unprecedented in rock. Time magazine put them on its cover — a nearly unheard-of honor for a rock group at the time.
The Last Waltz and Legacy
On November 25, 1976, The Band staged their farewell concert at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. The Last Waltz, directed by Martin Scorsese, featured guest appearances by Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, and Eric Clapton. It became the most celebrated concert film ever made.
The Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and reunited that same year to perform at Woodstock ’94 in Saugerties — a homecoming to the landscape that had shaped their most important work. For Upstate New York, The Band represents the moment when the region’s rural beauty became inseparable from the sound of American rock and roll.