While most of their contemporaries were focusing on the future, The Band turned even further towards history and tradition for the album that followed their pioneering debut Music From Big Pink. With others lost in psychedelia, The Band adopted the simplest name and were depicted in the cover’s black and white shot as throwbacks to pioneering days.
Lyrical subjects ranged from the raw ruralism of ‘Up On Cripple Creek’ to the American Civil War in ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’, with Robbie Robertson emerging as a sensitive songwriter and guitar-player of depth and aplomb. With this album, rock music started getting real again.