The ultimate edition of Cash at Folsom Prison appears!

Something very, very special appeared under the tree in the last 24 hours...the Legacy Edition of Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison. It had been on my Amazon list since it came out in October 2008.

This is the ultimate edition of Folsom Prison...it has the complete unadulterated, unedited versions of both shows that he did there when he visited the prison in January 1968 -- so you can hear how it played out that day, as if you're a fly on the wall watching the whole thing.

It also contains a bonus DVD with a fascinating 90-minute documentary on everything surrounding the Folsom Prison concerts and what happened in the aftermath of it.

I'm not usually a fan of these sorts of reissued expanded editions of old recordings, but this appears to be an exception to the rule since it appears to be a comprehensive document of his Folsom Prison shows, and the experience is further amplified with the DVD documentary.

I want to perform due diligence and give the discs a thorough listen, and study the documentary before I go into too much detail...so look for a review on this in the near future.

THE REVIEW CORNER -- Grateful Dead: Fillmore West 1969 (The Complete Recordings - 10 CD boxed set)

This is one of those boxed sets that's the rarest of finds. It's probably the most coveted collectible out there in the Dead camp.

Since I can't consider myself a big Dead fan (and therefore certainly not a Deadhead, nor even close), the bulk of this review is to be handed over to someone much more qualified than myself to give the review this release deserves.

I can, however, say that I've seen the Dead live. I caught the band in their last year, in 1994, as Jerry Garcia died one year later. I saw the subculture of the Deadheads, and all the shtick that goes along with it, in its total glory. What an experience it was.

I own about a dozen Dead recordings, the majority of them live, however I haven't completely dove into their catalog. I had plenty of exposure to them in college, as lots of guys I know were really into them; but at the time it was more of the hip thing to do, and I wasn't really into "being hip" with my music - let alone with anything - as I've always preferred the more unpredictable route. So recognizing this pseudo-hippie Deadhead trend amongst my peers back in the day, I decided that I would approach the Dead on my own terms at a later time.

As a musical connoisseur, I keep evolving into new and different things all the time. That being said; with time I see myself getting deeper into the Dead, and perhaps they'll end up as one of my favorite bands in the long run as I discover more and more. I'm actually quite surprised I haven't gone through a bona-fide "Dead phase," in true and deep earnest.

I know enough about the Grateful Dead to understand there's a treasure trove of material to be discovered from this iconic band. Some great discoveries lie ahead, including noodling through the recording highlighted in this review; which by all accounts appears to be the Taj Mahal of all Dead recordings.

Grateful Dead
The Complete Recordings Fillmore West 1969
Grateful Dead Prod 10-CD
Rhino 3-CD
2005

When the Grateful Dead originally released their live album Europe 72, it was issued in a three-lp set on vinyl for dual reasons. One was to accommodate the breadth of one of their concerts, the other to fulfill their contractual obligations with Warner Bros in one fell swoop and allow the group to go independent of the corporate record biz.
Had the Dead not been in such dire financial straits at the time of the 1969 release of Live /Dead, it too might have been expanded beyond its double LP size for musical reasons alone. Regardless, the title quickly became and remains one of the definitive live releases in rock as well as wearing extremely well in the face of the multitude of Grateful Dead archival concert pieces released in the thirty-year plus interim.
Now, however, two sets of cds from the same Fillmore West 1969 appearances effectively render Live /Dead obsolete. Most of the three-disc compilation (culled from the 10-cd package) appeared on that earlier album, but if you listen to the entire two sets as now constituted, the flow of the show contains nary a wasted note or beat. Reading long-time Dead publicist and historian Dennis McNally's liner notes, it's not surprising to learn how carefully the band was choreographing this string of concerts on their home turf.
Perhaps not quite the laissez faire hippies of the stereotype, the Dead wanted the optimum conditions for these shows, having spent months preparing and rehearsing the material, original (�Cosmic Charlie, "Mountains of the Moon") and traditional ("Morning Dew, We Bid You Goodnight," the two of which bookend this collection). In addition, through its sound man Owsley Stanley, the group had become ultra-conscious of sound quality for their live music and with a sixteen-track recorder (one of the first available) at their disposal, the stars seemed to be aligned in their favor.
Archivist David Lemieux and engineer Jeffrey Norman have the luxury of hindsight plus the resources of the entire run to create. in the Rhino package, what is arguably the definitive Grateful Dead concert recording. As the band, including two drummers plus Tom Constanten on keyboards, moves from the rootsy likes of "Good Morning Little School Girl," sung, of course, by the inimitable Pigpen, and the reworked folk tune "Dupree's Diamond Blues," into the deeper space of "Dark Star,"� "St Stephen"� and "The Eleven” (those three tunes orchestrated as a massive suite), the sequencing appears utterly logical and complete.
What distinguishes Fillmore West, however, and differentiates it profoundly from Live/ Dead, is the performance included on the third cd of the compilation. While such deliberate deconstruction of their music, including "That's it for the Other One"� "�Alligator" and "Caution Do Not Stop on Tracks"� may leave some listeners cold (even Deadheads who prefer the tighter structure of songs the likes of which the band was just beginning to write at this point), it is nevertheless fascinating to follow the probing for new themes: the expeditions most often led by Garcia, bassist Phil Lesh is never far behind and often in the foreground, but drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, even apart from their own drum interlude, offer ideas all around. The Dead's interaction here is not altogether unlike a ballet.
The experience of hearing this is akin to sitting on the floor of the stage in the middle of the band as they played. The HCDC remastering offers so much clarity and dynamic depth that, for instance, not only are all of Lesh’s bass notes audible, but also contain an almost tactile clarity. The same is true of the drums and percussion of Kreutzmann and Hart, the lightest touch of which come through with proportionate presence.
Grateful Dead aficionados as well as dilettantes have equal odds for epiphany working their way through all the sets from this entire four-night run at the fabled rock venue. The band’s grasp of dynamics isn’t applied just to the jams, as demonstrated by the flow of 2/27’s “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl�: their performance here suggests the band learned much about dynamics playing the blues following Pigpen’s lead, as Jerry Garcia’s howling lead guitar drops out in the blink of any eye to allow the whispering reentry of the vocal and the equally soft sound of the harp.
“Doin’ that Rag� is one of the guitarist’s earliest songwriting collaborations with Robert Hunter, whose philosophy of positivism, as it evolved over the years, is noteworthy even at this stage. The Dead find the tune equally useful as a warm-up exercise on the first night and the precursor of a cool-down toward the end of the first sets on 2/28 and 3/1. In later years, any number of songs served the same purpose, but while the Dead’s repertoire was perhaps never so constricted as these nights at the Fillmore, their improvisational approach expanded in proportion to the shrinking of the number of selections.
The aforementioned suite of songs including “Dark Star,” â€�St. Stephen” and “The Elevenâ€� is a listening experience in itself: the swirl of sound in the former tune is the sonic equivalent of what light shows of the time were attempting to portray visually. and it’s a small but profound pleasure to hear the seamless segue of the middle tune, with its wash of gong, without the abrupt edit as contained on Live/Dead.
But this box set does further justice to the Dead’s eye for detail as it exhibits how their other compositions set up this triad of well-known material. The ominous undertow of “Dupree’s Diamond Blues� is deepened by the eerie organ tones of Constanten, especially as it alternates with the comparatively lighter texture of acoustic guitar on “Mountains of the Moon,� the imagery of which carries its own foreboding rooted in the name of this band:�…hi-ho the carrion crow…�

“Fillmore West 1969 offers tremendous insight into the evolution of a great band and the art of musical improvisation in general.”

While the ten-disc collection is not assembled in book form like the three-disc distillation, its formatting in separate digi-paks for each evening lends itself to inspection of the consecutive night’s set lists. And how differently the Grateful Dead approach each night! The second evening’s first set, in contrast to the previous show, finds the Dead as a dance band pure and simple, with Pigpen upfront throughout, clearly hearkening back to the group’s earliest days in 1965 and 1966. This choice may then, in turn, explain why the band alters its entry into “The Other One,’ and, by extension, into the suite: the Grateful Dead glide as if in free fall as the flavor Garcia’s guitar is nothing but the blues, while its structure is nothing like it whatsoever.
A member of the San Francisco band for a comparatively brief period of time, keyboardist Constanten’s contribution is most notable for the way his organ bubbles under the action of the two guitarists, the fluid played off against the staccato. But his keyboards also bring out the Elizabethan sounds in songs such as the bridge of “St. Stephen� where Kreutzmann and Hart actually have their best moments as a team, navigating the turbulence just before the music morphs in “The Eleven’ on 2/28.
There is definite progression apparent on Fillmore West 1969 The Complete Recordings from one night to the next. The band becomes increasingly comfortable as the run goes on, allowing themselves to stretch out in ways it couldn’t or wouldn’t the first night. It’s worth pondering how much early equipment issues affected the group mindset, but a few bum notes and all, this is generally magnificent stuff, the likes of which shakes the ass and the intellect equally roundly. The Grateful Dead charge to a close on a wave of feedback, “We Bid You Goodnight� marred by a hum that detracts form the quietude of lullaby it’s supposed to present (and does on the final night of March 2nd).
The first of March find the Grateful Dead radiating an authority and confidence that states they know they’re on the right track. Validating Dennis McNally’s perception of this show as the pinnacle of the Fillmore run, the band proceeds with equal amounts purpose and focus, all captured on just two compact discs, suggesting comparative brevity can translate into breadth. After an earthy start that suggests the group is primed for adventure, the Dead display a surety of touch through “Starâ€�/”Stephen”/â€�Eleven,â€� the hours Jerry Garcia spent practicing banjo in the bluegrass mode manifesting themselves in the various progressions and transitions contained here, his eloquence matched phrase for phrase by Phil Lesh.
The plethora of photos contained in the booklet accompanying Fillmore West includes some stage shots from other performances in 1969, but the most notable of all are those that picture Lesh and Garcia juxtaposed on stage, rhythm guitarist Bob Weir not in between them literally (or figuratively as happened later on during the Dead’s career). Especially on the final night, the interplay between the two musicians’ takes on a heightened intensity the likes of which is rare in the Dead history, if only because the bassist is as prominent a figure in the sound as the lead guitarist. In hindsight, this dynamic presages Lesh’s modern day preeminence as the standard-bearer of the kind of exploratory musicianship epitomized by the Dead at their best throughout their career and captured on this set.
The California rock-icons-to-be are absolutely ebullient on the final night, which no doubt accounts for an even more fearless approach that generates generous stretching out at the beginning and the end of the set. With no worries about equipment and by this time bearing an instinctive familiarity with the material, the group radiates a ‘mission accomplished’ air that in and of itself retools their accomplishments as they envisioned them when this all started thee nights before. With due affection, the group sucker punches the audience with “Doin’ That Rag,� before embarking on an expedition into space via “The Other One,� that leads all in attendance even further afield via a drum interlude and a free-form improvisation the likes of which appeared only once before (and oddly enough, very rarely throughout the Grateful Dead’s history).
As much as the group was in the moment as they played during their stay at the Fillmore, they were also anticipating the future. Garcia’s sweet upper-register runs foreshadow his short-lived love affair with the pedal steel that began later in 1969. The guitarist repeatedly quotes the main melodic motif of “Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad� in the latter stages of the set on disc three, a precursor of what came to be one of Grateful Dead’s greatest show-closers and crowd-pleasers as their career evolved.
McNally alludes to Miles Davis’ Plugged Nickel and John Coltrane’s Vanguard sets in discussing Fillmore West The Complete Recordings and it’s not an inaccurate comparison.The good ol’ Grateful Dead may not hold much attraction for jazz purists, and it’s evenarguable if this grand release will tempt anyone other than completists (though its limited 10,000 piece run sold out months before it was shipped).
But as with Phish’s Island Tour and various Allman Brothers’ concert recordings (archive and recent vintage), to delve into these recordings is to avail yourself ofsome potentially great insight into the art of musical improvisation. Generally speaking, and specifically in reference to the Dead @ Fillmore West 1969 , casting aside the red herrings of preconception may be the biggest favor truly open- minded listeners can offer themselves.
Visit Grateful Dead on the web

Tracks:10 Disc set
Disc One 2/27/69 1 Good Morning Little Schoolgirl 2 Doin' That Rag 3 That’s It for The Other One - Cryptical Envelopment -The Other One -Cryptical Envelopment Disc Two 1 Dupree's Diamond Blues 2 Mountains Of The Moon 3 Dark Star > 4 St. Stephen > 5 The Eleven > 6 Turn On Your Lovelight 7 Cosmic Charlie
Disc Three 2/28/69 1 Morning Dew 2 Good Morning Little Schoolgirl 3 Don’ That rag 4 I’m A King Bee 5 Turn on Your Lovelight
Disc Four 1 That’s It for The Other One - Cryptical Envelopment -The Other One -Cryptical Envelopment 2 Dark Star > 3 St. Stephen > 4 The Eleven > 5 Death Don’t Have No Mercy
Disc Five 1 Alligator> 2 Drums> 3 Jam > 4 Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks) > 5 Feedback > 6 We Bid You Goodnight
Disc Six 3/1/69 1 That's It For The Other One -Cryptical Envelopment -The Other One -Cryptical Envelopment 2 New Potato Caboose > 3 Doin’ That Rag > 4 Cosmic Charlie >
Disc Seven 1 Dupree’s Diamond Blues 2 Mountains of the Moon 3 Dark Star > 4 St. Stephen > 5 The Eleven > 6 Turn On Your Lovelight 7 Hey Jude
Disc Eight 3/2/69 1 Dark Star > 2 St. Stephen > 3 The Eleven > 4 Turn On Your Lovelight
Disc Nine 1 Doin’ that Rag 2 That's It For The Other One> - Cryptical Envelopment > -The Other One> - Cryptical Envelopment 3 Death Don’t Have No Mercy 4 Morning Dew
Disc Ten 1 Alligator> 2 Drums> 3 Jam > 4 Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks) > 5 Feedback > 6 We Bid You Goodnight

Tracks:3 Disc set
Track listing
Disc One 1 Morning Dew 2 Good Morning Little Schoolgirl 3 Doin' That Rag 4 I'm A King Bee 5 Cosmic Charlie 6 Turn On Your Lovelight
Disc Two 1 Dupree's Diamond Blues 2 Mountains Of The Moon ) 3 Dark Star > 4 St. Stephen > 5 The Eleven > 6 Death Don't Have No Mercy
Disc Three 1 That's It For The Other One Cryptical Envelopment The Other One Cryptical Envelopment 2 Alligator > 3 Drums > 4 Jam > 5 Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks) > 6 Feedback > 7 We Bid You Goodnight
Personnel:[ Tom Constanten: Organ; Jerry Garcia: Lead Guitar, Vocals; Mickey Hart: Drums; Bill Kreutzmann: Drums; Phil Lesh: Electric Bass, Vocals Ron “Pigpen” McKernan: Vocals, Harmonica, Percussion, Organ; Bob Weir: Rhythm Guitar, Vocals

by Doug Collette, from allaboutjazz.com

THE REVIEW CORNER -- Chrome, Smoke & BBQ: The ZZ Top Box. 2003 issue, Warner Brothers.

This was a boxed set I'd been eying for a few years now, and I finally picked it up today with some birthday cash.

I even found the limited edition box (designed to mock a Texas roadhouse shack), as you can see here... very cool, corrugated iron Tejas style, with a "menu" booklet inside and little figures of the band you can cut out to create a sort of mini-model scene on your work desktop... it conjures up a memory of models on my old HO train track set, where I built urban landscapes around the train track -- just to wipe everything out with a train calamity... you know, boy stuff.

So now I can harken back to my childhood and pair my ZZ Top action figures with my old eagle-eye G.I. Joe... there's even a little cactus and picnic bench included with the figures, for some real life ZZ Top scenarios. Great, it's so good that I now know how these guys live their day to day lives... that's soooooo important...

Then there's a flipbook showing the band twirling their guitars and doing that thing with their hands, like they did in the video of "Legs" back in the day... you know, the one with the flashy red car, remember?

Oh, and there's music in the box set too, I almost forgot. 4 CDs spanning the band's time with Warner Brothers...

However, I must admit that I did pick up the roadhouse shack box set partially with a purpose in mind---in that being the alphabetizing freak that I am, I can now place this nicely on the far right side of my alphabetized box sets on the shelf as a sort of "ZZ Top bookend." So I'm a happy camper... if there's room on the shelf I may even set up the action figures, along with my Rush and Dwight Schrute bobbleheads---a sort of "trio-off" if you will...

Anyhow...

For those who know ZZ Top through their 70s pre-long beard period, or through MTV and the flashy red car videos of the 1980s, this box will cover the whole spectrum for you and showcases the growth of this bluesy Texas trio.

Here's a review of the box set from the All-Music Guide. Since I hit a bit of a wall, not being very familiar with their early material, I'll let them take it from here. S

Prior to 2003's Chrome, Smoke & BBQ, ZZ Top's catalog was crying out for a comprehensive retrospective.

Not that the band hadn't been anthologized before: they had two hits collections, with notably different track listings, and in 1987's Six Pack, they even had a makeshift box set, but all three of these were hampered by limited focus and haphazard execution.

Chrome, Smoke & BBQ addresses both of these concerns by focusing on the trio's 20 years at Warner -- from 1970's ZZ Top's First Album to 1990's Recycler -- picking the best 70 or so songs from these ten albums and spreading them over the course of a lavish four-disc, 80-track box set.

This is the first logical approach to ZZ Top's career yet, and while it isn't a perfect collection, it comes tantalizingly close to that ideal. The primary problem is that by the time the fourth disc rolls around, the collection has lost considerable momentum -- and that's without even touching any material from the forgettable albums the band waxed for RCA in the '90s.

With its robotic beats and flattened production, Recycler pointed the way toward those RCA records, yet it did have some excellent songs -- "Give It Up," "My Head's in Mississippi," and "Doubleback" -- that harked back to the group's strengths, something that would have been more apparent if these songs appeared at the end of disc three, after the Afterburner material.

Instead, they're stranded on the fourth disc, along with four other songs from Recycler, for a grand total of seven of ten songs from that album, to which are added six "Medium Rare" tracks -- the obligatory obscurities that are included on each box set, this time being a pretty cool Spanish version of "Francene," an OK live take on "Cheap Sunglasses" from a 1980 promo single, and four 12" remixes, none of which are very good. This disc is required listening only for diehards.

Fortunately, the other three discs are damn near perfect, containing six to seven songs from each of their albums except their debut (nearly all of those records had a mere ten tracks, making this a very generous sampling) along with three tracks from guitarist/vocalist Billy Gibbons' first band, the Moving Sidewalks, and a single, "Miller's Farm"/"Salt Lick," from the "embryonic" ZZ Top, before bassist Dusty Hill or drummer Frank Beard joined forces with Gibbons.

All the hits and classic rock radio staples are here, of course, along with a wealth of album tracks that illustrate that even if the band didn't have much range -- whether the production was raw and greasy as it was on "La Grange" or clean and sleek, like the Police playing the Rolling Stones, as on "Pearl Necklace," they rarely strayed from either fast blues boogie or slow blues -- they did have strong songwriting chops, witnessed by such buried treasures as the raucous "Brown Sugar" and "Just Got Paid," the monster groove of "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide," the sweet "Leila," the crawling "Blue Jean Blues," and the unspeakable sleaze of the oozing "Mexican Blackbird" and smirking "I Got the Six." All this and more (including a radio commercial for Deguello) spread out over three addictive discs that truly do condense ZZ Top's records to their very best.

It would be nice to have the good Recycler songs sandwiched onto the third disc and top the set off at three discs -- it would have been a nice symmetry, with one disc for each band member -- but it's easy enough to ignore the last disc and revel in how good the rest of the set is. Basically, Chrome, Smoke & BBQ is all the ZZ Top you'd ever need. [Chrome, Smoke & BBQ was released in two editions, both containing a terrific book, filled with great photos -- including early shots of Gibbons in the Moving Sidewalks, without the beard -- testimonials by the likes of Billy Bob Thornton, Dwight Yoakam, Ann Richards, and of all people, David Lynch (who immortally proclaims "ZZ Top = the fast track to cool"), an excellent history by Tom Vickers, and track-by-track notes by Gibbons, Hill, and Beard, as told to Bob Merlis.

The limited edition is quite fancy in its own right, encased in a mock roadhouse shack and containing a booklet shaped as a menu, a sheet of ZZ Top paper dolls (no perforations, however; this is for display purposes only), and a flipbook that finds the trio doing their signature twirling guitars and hand gestures. It's a little elaborate, but it's fun, particularly because the four discs are in jewel cases and can be transported while this sits on the set, next to the other impractical, oversized box sets, such as that Charley Patton box designed as a fake album of 78s, in your collection.]

~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

THE REVIEW CORNER -- The Band: A Musical History box set is the "dark horse" cornerstone to any rock collection. 2005 issue, Capitol Records.

I recently picked up this 5 CD /1 DVD career-spanning set from the local library, and I have to say I'm definitely impressed. I plan on owning it for myself someday.

Until recently, this rock "band" was mostly a mystery to me---sorta like the shadowy figures of THE BAND depicted on the cover of this handsome box set (the hardcover "music book" that you see here to the left). Over 100 pages of stories, rare photos, and anecdotes are included along with the 6 discs nestled nicely in pages at the rear... gives it an old family photo album sort of feel.

Gracing us with perhaps the simplest name in rock history, THE BAND even predated the Beatles in an early incarnation known at The Hawks. Comprising of Canadians and Americans, the changed and final name you know them by today came from the time that they backed Dylan on his tours in the mid-60s. At that time Dylan was billed as "Dylan and the band," so afterwards the name stuck.

They didn't last long, disbanding in 1976 due to internal conflicts over songwriting credits; Robbie Robertson (lead guitarist) I guess decided to take all the credit. From what I can gather, it seems like an unfair maneuver of an egomaniac; as many of the other members were stated as having contributed to the music if not the overall songwriting process. This fact is only proven in the DVD, which shows the band at a pink house in Woodstock, New York (not the actual music festival) "woodshedding" to craft their sound. Hence, the name of their debut album, which we'll get to in a second...

Listening to their sound, one can tell that more than just Robertson contributed to it. It's one of those situations in which they were definitely greater than the sum of their parts.

...and for what it's worth, these guys are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They were one of its first inductees, going in in 1994.

These guys are very rootsy, salt-of-the-earth and unpolished---which acutally is very refreshing. They're like a can of soup, as I hear lots of elements fused together when I put these guys on. I hear a hodge-podge of the blues, rockabilly, country, folk, gospel, soul, funk, southern roots, psychadelia, a little jazz, and I even heard some ragtime piano somewhere in there. They also sport 3 singers; my personal favorite being the bass player Rick Danko, who died just before the turn of the new millennium in December 1999. I also totally dig their keyboard /organ player Garth Hudson---if you get your hands on the box set, check out "The Genetic Method" (live) on CD 4---noodling on that funky Lowrey Organ. Ohhhh yeahhh.

Check out their site The Band, or just check them out at your local library if you're curious. If you go for individual albums, the big 3 by them would be their first album Music from Big Pink (with the famous abstract album cover painted by Bob Dylan, pictured to the left), their eponymous second album The Band, and the album showcasing their final live performance in 1976, The Last Waltz (available in both 2 CD versions and a 4 CD deluxe edition set)... and of course the career-spanning box set shown at the top of this post, which makes for a handsome "music book" if you will on your shelf. All their old albums have been digitally remastered for optimal sound quality. The latter live classic has guest performances by several folks including Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Neil Young.

THE BAND were more popular with journalists and fellow musicians than the general public. Their talent, virtuosity, and the multi-instrumental abilities of the individual members cannot be denied.

However, unless someone had an older sibling to dial them in, it's understandable how anyone born after the mid-1960s would fail to have this rock group on their radar. I consider myself quite a music buff, and an armchair historian to boot---and it basically took me until now to check these guys out. I'm puzzled as to why they never made much more of an impression; I'm guessing much of it had to do with their short successful run, their grassroots sound, and the fact that they're mainly resigned to the 1960 and 1970s.

You probably know the song "The Weight" from the radio---but that's about all you'll hear these days of THE BAND on the airwaves---at least in my experience... Maybe "Stage Fright," "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "Don't Do it," or "Life is a Carnival"---but I can't conjure up a radio memory of those latter songs.

They're definitely a throwback. They wouldn't really appeal to a youngster growing up in the 70s as much as more in-your-face bands like Kiss, Aerosmith, or David Bowie. You have to dig a little deeper to discover these guys---plus in my opinion their name throws off many folks today and puts them in the position of getting dismissed more than they should.

When you first hear them, they may remind many of you of a Saturday Night Live house band---probably because they played in the mid-70s on the show---and I'm guessing the show modeled their house band after THE BAND, something that continues to this day (or at least they still attempt to, in a cheesier and more bastardized fashion).

That is in no way a dig to THE BAND, as they were true originals.

Anyone who likes "southern rock" should definitely take to these guys... I hear where Skynyrd got some ideas, and I hear some Phish... and newer bands like My Morning Jacket... but they're sound goes way beyond that.

Don't make the same mistake I made by dismissing them and waiting to check them out---they're worth your time. Put something by them on your holiday wish list.

I give A Musical History by The Band 4.5 out of 5 stars. S