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Amazon.com essential recordings: Popularly known as the "Brown Album," this is the collection people first think of when this august outfit's name is mentioned. The four-parts Canadian, one-part Arkansan quintet's sophomore effort boasts more soon-to-be-staples than any other Band studio recording, what with the likes of the Joan Baez hit "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "Across the Great Divide," and "Up on Cripple Creek" standing out among the dozen uniformly memorable tracks. Lesser-known group originals such as the achingly lovely "Whispering Pines" and the cryptic "Unfaithful Servant," however, play crucial roles in giving this 1969 classic its unique flavor. Given the high standard established by The Band and its better-still 1968 predecessor, Music from Big Pink, it's not surprising the Band peaked early as a recording group. As with all the 2000 Band reissues, this remastered reissue boasts a number of bonus tracks, though all but "Get Up Jake" are alternate takes of album selections. --Steven Stolder Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-13
One of the greatest albums ever
The Band is the BAND and this is their best album. Every song is a gem. I almost regret that this version of the album, with added tracks, has been issued since the original with its 12 perfect songs doesn't need any additions. But don't let that stop you. From rollicking good time music like Rag Mama Rag and Jemima Surrender to the melancholy of Whispering Pines and Rocking Chair the Band does something very few albums or novels can do well: bring to a life a cast of characters from another time and make them human.
While every song is great, King Harvest stands at the top of the Band's work with its desperate farmer pleading for nature to save his crops. The ensemble playing is incredible. The highest achievement in songwriting and performance. Rating: 
Date: 2008-03-27
One in Every Crowd
I just never really got these guys. I remember when they hit the scene and everybody when banannas about the purity of the music and the "back to basics" stuff. Yeah I know that Dylan loved them and that is where the world first saw Robbie Robertson and the rest, but I just never could get excited about it all. I also own Stage Fright and several of Robertson's solo efforts. Nothing from these guys ever struck me as anything other than mediocre and never creative or artistic. They are just a band, The Band, they got that name. Oh well. Rating:
Date: 2008-02-17
American Masterpice
"A Customer", I couldn't have done a better review of this one if I tried. I was in college, grooving to Cream, Hendrix and the SF sound when I heard "The Gilded Palace of Sin"... Changed my musical life. Then came "The Brown Album" and that sealed it. Two absolute musical essentials. The Band was the greatest American band of the past 50 years and "The Band "was their masterpiece Rating: 
Date: 2008-02-07
Tobacco Spit
If you are as immensely fond of Robbie Robertson's mature, intense, post-"The Band" solo projects as I am, how on earth can you look back at this "primitive," self-titled Band album with any other emotion than disgust? From first track to last, this is stumblebum "wino" music as slovenly and repellent as the visuals in a Sam-Peckinpah-directed Western. "The Band" is a master piece all right: a highfalutin spittoon. "Catch the spirit. Catch the spit." Rating:
Date: 2007-12-25
The extra tracks don't add too much, but a classic is a classic
This is the third time I bought this album; first in vinyl a long time ago, then in a CD, which got lost somewhere, so I rebought it because of Look out Cleveland and Jawbone. Hadn't heard it in years; still their best studio album. Like the Band??? Buy it. | 
