THE BAND
The Band was a Canadian-American roots rock group. The members of the Band first came together as they joined rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins’ backing group The Hawks one by one between 1958 and 1963. Bob Dylan hired them for his U.S. tour in 1965 and world tour in 1966. The group began performing officially as The Band in 1968, and went on to release ten studio albums. The group was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. (More from Wikipedia)
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The simplest possible band name was taken by a group of fine musicians who played back-up for Bob Dylan for many years, most famously in 1967 with what became known as The Basement Tapes. The story that I heard (there are several as to the origin of the name) was that Dylan typically referred to them in conversation as “the band”, and eventually they adopted the name The Band. But that was not their first name. Over a period of several years, the members gradually joined the backing band for rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins, which was called the Hawks. After Hawkins himself left, they were known briefly as the Levon Helm Sextet, but then quickly settled on the name that their fans have often heard, Levon and the Hawks. However, several years later (in 1965), they released a single under the name the Canadian Squires. (Actually Levon Helm was the only member of The Band who was from the U.S.).
(June 2012)
