The project captures the outfit performing during a four-night series of shows at the Academy of Music in New York City during the final days of 1971.
The Band are sharing several performance videos from the December 30 show filmed by Howard Alk and Murray Lerner; they have been newly-upscaled and are now available for the first time, including “Don’t Do It,” a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Baby Don’t You Do It,” and their own classics, “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” and “The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show.”
The former video was originally released on the 2005 anthology, "The Band: A Musical History", while the latter two were released on the DVD included in the "Live At The Academy Of Music 1971" box set.
Writing in that album’s liner notes, Robbie Robertson provided some insight into the footage: “Filmmakers Howard Alk and Murray Lerner shot a few songs of the concert on the 30th. It was just an experiment, because to do a full shoot at the Academy you had to set it up with the Unions. I think some Union guys even showed up and threatened to destroy our equipment and break cameras if it wasn’t organized through them.”
In addition to the video footage, a series of never-before-seen photos taken by celebrated and influential photographer, Ernst Haas during the run have been made available to view for the first time.
The photos vividly capture the group of Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, and Robbie Robertson in their prime on New Year’s Eve, 1971, joined by special guest Bob Dylan, who helped usher in the new year by performing with his longtime friends who once backed him as The Hawks when he went “electric” in 1965.
Several of Haas’ photos were included in the “Rock Of Ages” album, and additional shots were featured in the 2013 release, “Live At The Academy Of Music 1971”, an expansive box set that added a soundboard recording of the entire New Year’s Eve performance to newly mixed versions of the “Rock Of Ages” tracks.
View the previously unreleased photos exclusively at UDiscover Music.
See also:
The Band stream expanded 50th anniversary edition of Cahoots
The Band detail expanded 50th anniversary editions of Cahoots
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Search The Band at hennemusic
