Known to fans and collectors alike as "The Brown Album", The Band's second studio release arrived on September 22, 1969, via Capitol Records - less an album than a sepia-toned scrapbook of mythic Americana.
In the liner notes to the 2000 reissue, music historian Rob Bowman frames it as a kind of concept album, though not in the strict sense. Rather, these songs feel like dispatches from a half-remembered past: dusty rail towns, failing harvests, Civil War ghosts, and bar room philosophers.
Tracks like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” hum with the weight of history, while “Jawbone,” with its off-kilter 6/4 rhythm, teeters like a drunk trying to dance and testify at the same time.
The Band wasn't just chronicling a bygone America - they were conjuring it.
SIDE A
"Across the Great Divide" - 2:53
"Rag Mama Rag" - 3:04
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" - 3:33
"When You Awake" (Manuel, Robertson) - 3:13
"Up on Cripple Creek" - 4:34
"Whispering Pines" (Manuel, Robertson) - 3:58
SIDE B
"Jemima Surrender" (Helm, Robertson) - 3:31
"Rockin' Chair" - 3:43
"Look Out Cleveland" - 3:09
"Jawbone" (Manuel, Robertson) - 4:20
"The Unfaithful Servant" - 4:17
"King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" - 3:39
MUSICIANS
Rick Danko – bass guitar, fiddle, trombone, vocals
Garth Hudson – organ, clavinet, piano, accordion, melodica & more
Richard Manuel – piano, drums, baritone saxophone, harmonica, vocals
Robbie Robertson – electric and acoustic guitars
RECORDED TO TAPE
April 1966 – November 1966
Pool house in Holywood Hills - California, The Hit Factory - New York City
Label: Capitol Production: John Simon
BOOKLET CONTENT
Containing our traditional collection of all analog print treasures and memorabilia.
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