Bob dylan biography liner notes the band

Biography by Bruce Eder

For roughly half a decade, from 1968 through 1975, the Band was one of the most popular and influential rock groups in the world, their music embraced by critics (and, to a somewhat lesser degree, the public) as seriously as the music of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Their albums were analyzed and reviewed as intensely as any records by their one-time employer and sometime mentor Bob Dylan, and for a long time, their individual personalities were as recognizable to the casual music public as the members of the Beatles.

Although the Band retired from touring after The Last Waltz and disbanded several years later, their legacy thrived for decades, perpetuated by the bandmates' respective solo careers as well as the enduring strength of the Band's catalog.

The group's history dates back 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 ca