The Band

Issued in August 1970, the ten-track album includes the songs ‘The Shape I’m In’ and ‘Stage Fright’ and was engineered by Todd Rundgren and Glyn Johns. This 50th anniversary reissue presents a new running order (apparently, the originally planned order) and offers a new Bob Clearmountain stereo remix of the album. Alternate mixes of ‘Strawberry Wine’ and ‘Sleeping’ are issued for the first time and also included are seven unearthed ‘field recordings’. These Calgary Hotel Recordings from 1970 offer a fun and loose, impromptu late night hotel jam session between Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel of several Stage Fright songs recorded while the album was in the mixing stage.

One of jazz's finest clarinetists, Artie Shaw never seemed fully satisfied with his musical life, constantly breaking up successful bands and running away from success. While Count Basie and Duke Ellington were satisfied to lead just one orchestra during the swing era, and Benny Goodman (due to illness) had two, Shaw led five, all of them distinctive and memorable. After growing up in New Haven, CT, and playing clarinet and alto locally, Shaw spent part of 1925 with Johnny Cavallaro's dance band and then played off and on with Austin Wylie's band in Cleveland from 1927-1929 before joining Irving Aaronson's Commanders.