The Band The group of five musicians that eventually became known as “The Band” began to gather in Toronto, Canada, in 1957.  However, it wasn’t until 1968 – after working as the backup group for the Canadian rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins and then Bob Dylan – that the band became “The Band.”  As “The Band,” the group recorded and released ten studio albums, becoming one of the most popular and influential rock ‘n’ roll ensembles of their time. Bruce Eder (born 1955), journalist, film writer, and audio/video producer whose work has appeared in the Village Voice, Newsday, Current Biography, Interview, the Oxford American, AllMusic, and AllMovie describes The Band as: “one of the most popular and influential rock groups in the world, their music embraced by critics as seriously as the music of The Beatles and the Rolling Stones.” An exaggeration?  No.  The Band were the darlings of Rolling Stone magazine, which lavished more attention on them than any other group in the magazine’s history.  On January 12, 1970, The Band appeared on the cover of Time magazine, only the second rock group – after the Beatles – to be so honored.  Both George Harrison and Eric Clapton claimed that The Band had exerted […]