Sold Date: December 10, 2022
Start Date: December 3, 2022
Final Price: $40.03 (USD)
Bid Count: 9
Seller Feedback: 955
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You are bidding on a 4 LP lot on vinyl from “The Band”, featuring Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, Rick Danko, and the silver voiced Richard Manuel.  These albums are from the 1960’s, and 1970’s.  (See listing below).

We purchased these decades ago, played them (and enjoyed them), and they have been sitting in our home (vertically) for the last few decades. 

Please remember that these albums were well taken care of, but were played as part of our record collection decades ago.  We have tried to show the condition on the photos included with this listing.

This item has been stored at room temperature, in a smoke free home.  Please see photos of actual item being sold. 

“The Band” 4 Vinyl LP Lot:   

“The Band”:  (Capital EMI STAO-600132; 1969)

This LP, the Band’s second album, was released in 1969 and contains major songs such as “Up On Cripple Creek,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Rag Mama Rag,” and one of the most sad and beautiful songs ever, “Whispering Pines.” This is truly a five star album, and appears on many “Greatest LLP’s Ever” lists.

Our copy appears to be a later pressing, (Record Club of America release). The Club name appears on labels and cover. There is a Gold Record Award stamp on front cover. Label has catalog # STAO-6132, and is released on an orange Capitol label.. The cover is in very good condition, with wear on the spine and the corners. The cover is a gatefold, and many years ago, on the top right corner of the rear cover, the owner (me) wrote initials to identify his copy. The vinyl is in excellent condition.    (See Photos)

“The Band, the group's second album, was a deliberate and accomplished effort, partially because the players had become a more cohesive unit, and partially because guitarist  had taken over the songwriting, writing or co-writing all 12 songs. Though a Canadian,  focused on a series of American archetypes from the union worker in "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" and the retired sailor in "Rockin' Chair" to, most famously, the Confederate Civil War observer Virgil Cane in "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." The album effectively mixed the kind of mournful songs that had dominated , here including "Whispering Pines" and "When You Awake" (both co-written by ), with rollicking up-tempo numbers like "Rag Mama Rag" and "Up on Cripple Creek" (both sung by  and released as singles, with "Up on Cripple Creek" making the Top 40). As had been true of the first album, it was The Band's sound that stood out the most, from 's (and occasionally 's) propulsive drumming to 's distinctive guitar fills and the endlessly inventive keyboard textures of , all topped by the rough, expressive singing of , , and  that mixed leads with harmonies. The arrangements were simultaneously loose and assured, giving the songs a timeless appeal, while the lyrics continued to paint portraits of 19th century rural life (especially Southern life, as references to Tennessee and Virginia made clear), its sometimes less savory aspects treated with warmth and humor.

“Stage Fright” (Capital EMI; SN-16006; 1970) This LP was released in 1970, and immediately followed the “Band” album.  Our copy appears to be a 1980 reissue.  The LP includes “Stage Fright,” “The Shape I’m In,” and others. The engineers the album include and .

The cover is in excellent condition with very slight wear on the corners; The vinyl is in excellent condition. The label is “blue/turquoise.”

“Stage Fright, the Band's third album, sounded on its surface like the group's first two releases,  and , employing the same dense arrangements with their mixture of a deep bottom formed by drummer  and bassist , penetrating guitar work by , and the varied keyboard work of pianist  and organist , with , , and 's vocals on top. But the songs this time around were far more personal, and, despite a nominal complacency, quite troubling. Only "All La Glory," 's song about the birth of his daughter, was fully positive. "Strawberry Wine" and "Sleeping" were celebrations of indolence, while "Time to Kill," as its title implied, revealed boredom while claiming romantic contentment. Several of the album's later songs seemed to be metaphors for trouble the group was encountering, with "The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show" commenting on the falseness of show business, "Daniel and the Sacred Harp" worrying about a loss of integrity, and the title song talking about the pitfalls of fortune and fame. "The Shape I'm In" was perhaps the album's most blatant statement of panic. The Band was widely acclaimed after its first two albums; Stage Fright seemed to be the group's alarmed response, which made it their most nakedly confessional. It was certainly different from their previous work, which had tended toward story-songs set in earlier times, but it was hardly less compelling for that. 

Cahoots: (Capital EMI; SMAS 651; 1971) This LP was released in 1971.  Our copy appears to be a 1971 pressing, but we can’t confirm that it is a first edition.  The album includes contributions from Van Morrison, and includes the “Life Is A Carnival,” a Dylan cover, “Masterpiece,” and closes with the beautiful “River Hymn.”

The Cover is in very good condition with wear on the corners.  The cover is a gatefold, and many years ago, on the top right corner of the rear cover, the owner (me) wrote initials to identify his copy. The vinyl is in excellent condition.  This issue contains a plain white inner-sleeve.   (See Photos)

“The Band weren't planning on making an album when they started work on their fourth LP, 1971's Cahoots. Their manager, , was building a recording studio in Woodstock, New York, where the members of the Band lived, and he invited them over to try the place out as finishing touches were being put on the studio. Their experiments eventually coalesced into Cahoots, and the album's genesis is borne out in a final product that's often mired in a sense of ennui and a lack of direction. Titles like "Where Do We Go from Here" and "Thinking Out Loud" practically howl over the decline in the group's songwriting process -- while the opener, "Life Is a Carnival," is a corker, "Last of the Blacksmiths" could thematically pass for a parody of the compelling Americana of  and , "4% Pantomime" is a meditation on getting drunk that's unmemorable beyond a guest vocal from , and the most joyous song here, "When I Paint My Masterpiece," was gifted to them by . Most of the album was recorded without all five members in the studio at once, and while the performances are both expert and soulful -- these musicians were essentially incapable of playing any other way -- the cohesion of their best work seems just out of reach on Cahoots, without the taut fire of which they were capable. (The drug and alcohol problems that would haunt the Band were beginning to make their presence known as well.) And yet, the Band simply didn't know how to make a bad album, and there are moments on Cahoots that connect strongly enough to make that clear, with the LP rallying on its final three cuts, the emphatic "Smoke Signals" and "Volcano" and the sweetly elegiac "The River Hymn." Prior to Cahoots, it seemed the Band could do no wrong in the studio, and though there are many good things here, it pales in comparison to what they offered just a few years earlier.

Islands:  (Capital EMI; SO 11602; 1977) This LP was released in 1977, and though the Band sounded tired, and at the end of their run, there are some great songs such as “Georgia,” “Livin’ In A Dream,” and “Right As Rain.  Our copy appears to be a 1977 pressing, but possibly not the very first pressing.  The Cover is in Very Good condition with some wear on the corners. The vinyl is in Very Good condition.  On the top right corner of the rear cover, the owner (me) wrote initials to identify his copy. 

“Theoretically, even though the Band had given up touring as of Thanksgiving 1976, they were going to keep making records, and Islands was the first album released in the new era. Only it wasn't; it was the album they scraped together to complete their ten-LP contract with Capitol Records and the last new full-length album the original five members ever made. The playing, as ever, was impeccable, and the record had its moments, notably a  vocal on the chestnut "Georgia on My Mind" that had been released as a single in 1976 to boost Georgia governor Jimmy Carter's successful run for the presidency. But the songwriting quality was mediocre, and the Band had set such a standard for itself in that department that Islands couldn't help suffering enormously in comparison”.