Stage Fright [Extra tracks, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered]

The Band | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 29, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B00004W50Z
• Also Available in: Paperback  |  Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,040 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #13 in Music > World Music > North America > Canada

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The Band's third studio album is also their third-best studio album, and that isn't bad. It's not as synchronous as Music from Big Pink or as overpowering as The Band, but that's part of its appeal. The quintet's first two albums were such towering achievements that the group came to lean on its songs, turning the lion's share of them into concert staples. Stage Fright is littered with lesser-known Robbie Robertson compositions possessing more modest charms than the overplayed likes of "The Weight" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." The title track is uncommonly hard-eyed and modern; Richard Manuel's vocal, like most of his turns at the mic, is sparkling. (Manuel also shines on the reflective "Sleeping" and the uptempo "Just Another Whistle Stop"). "All La Glory" is a gorgeous lullaby, while "Time to Kill" sounds like the Band doing Creedence Clearwater Revival. This isn't the place to discover this great North American band, but it's definitely a stop worth taking before your exploration is completed. --Steven Stolder

Product Description

Their top-charting album ( sans Dylan) from 1970. Includes alternate mixes of Time to Kill (by Glyn Johns) and The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show (by Todd Rundgren), plus an alternate take of Daniel and the Sacred Harp and a radio spot!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

145 of 153 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Robertson vs. Manuel in a life and death struggle February 8, 2003

By John Stodder

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

The conventional wisdom is right: Pound for pound, "Big Pink" and "The Band" are more complete successes for this group, and I love them both. But I love "Stage Fright" more. It is the album where this group drops its masks and speaks directly to the audience about themselves and each other.

The Band is really two duos: Helm and Danko, who are usually paired as singers on some of the group's best-loved material, and Robertson and Manuel, who are engaged in a sort of musical and spiritual dialogue that often forms much of the depth, richness and mystery of this group. That dialogue is the dominant theme of "Stage Fright" in its many evocations of the theme of self-destructiveness, especially the self-destructiveness of a great artist.

My theory is, Richard Manuel was the artistic soul of the The Band. He was their best singer, by far. His "feel" approach to playing the many instruments he played, especially piano, gave the Band a funky, soulful "bottom" that contrasted with the highly intellectual approaches of both Robertson and Hudson. Manuel was responsible, on their first three albums, for some of their very best songs as writer or co-writer: "Tears of Rage," "In A Station," "Lonesome Suzie," "Whispering Pines," "Across the Great Divide," and, on this album, "Sleeping" and "The Shape I'm In" were at least partly his. But...Richard Manuel was not a particularly responsible person. He was, in fact a drunk, and an unmotivated writer. He was a sadly vulnerable man, for whom, as Robertson writes in "Sleeping," "the world was too sore to live in." In some ways, being in the Band destroyed him. At the same time, it created a place for him to hide.

Robertson, ever the brilliant control freak, clearly admired and loved Richard Manuel, and was also exasperated with him. Robertson was basically in charge of the business of The Band, and also the artistic direction of The Band as its most prolific songwriter. He wanted Manuel to play a bigger role, but eventually saw that he couldn't, or wouldn't. And so, according to my theory, he wrote songs to reach him when nothing else would work.

It is no accident that the leadoff track is "Strawberry Wine," a fun but desperate track in which Levon Helm sings (brilliantly) the part of a drunk who wants to be left alone to "feel good all the time." This is followed by the album's first masterpiece, "Sleeping," which at first seems to be about life as a musician on the road, but expands into a poem about isolation and hiding. This song, one of Manuel's most treasured performances, almost seems like a dialogue between the two men, with Robertson acknowledging that perhaps life on the road, in which "to be called by noon, is to be called too soon" is part of the drill if you're performing before crowds of people "searching" for something special every night. Maybe, Robertson seems to suggest, that's why Richard is such a juicer; it's the road's fault. But then, the song seems to say, that's not why. He would be living this way on his own, even if he weren't part of The Band. Maybe the rock and roll lifestyle isn't killing him; maybe it's really keeping him alive.

I won't go through every song, but themes of drunkenness, fear, isolation, and hiding take some form in almost every remaining track. Even the two songs that have the "old-timey" historic and mythic resonances of their prior albums, "Daniel and the Sacred Harp" and "W.S. Walcott's Medicine Show" are tales full of personal symbolism. Richard Manuel plays the role of the music-mad Daniel who sells his soul to play the sacred harp, but Levon Helm sings the part of the narrator who becomes horrified at Daniel's fate: "When he looked to the ground, he noticed no shadow did he cast." Again, this is Robertson assessing the cost of the music career to himself and his bandmates, especially Manuel. "Walcott" reinterprets the rock and roll touring lifestyle as a 19th century medicine show, in which alcohol-laced snake oil and other mind altering substances are purveyed to the dazzled crowds as the keys to health--which, back in '69 is about right. Manuel just happened to be the guy who kept sampling the stock.

After this album, Manuel had many more wonderful performances ahead of him, but he wrote no more songs. From the Last Waltz and everything one can read about the Band, he appears to have not taken the bootstrap advice of the singer in "Stage Fright" who "when he gets to the end, wants to start all over again." He went on, and kept singing because that kept him afloat long enough to get the next drink. He began the long, slow retreat that to the people who knew him best and admired his talent was probably an agonizing spectacle to watch. I see "Stage Fright" as a collection of songs in which Robbie Robertson alternately rages at, laughs at, cries about, and tries to save, Richard Manuel--and in which Richard Manuel finally escapes Robertson's tender mercies. And, as great as the first two Band albums might have been, they don't have this kind of intimacy and depth. This album is hardly the coda or afterthought to a classic period--it may be its culmination.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, overlooked album--Gold CD has better mix than this one November 29, 2006

By Elliot Knapp

Format:Audio CD

Let me start by saying this: The material recorded on this CD merits a solid, worthy 5 stars. Fans of the first two Band albums should definitely buy this, since it's ever so close to being as classic as those two albums. The reason I rated this CD 4 stars is because the band sent the tapes to 2 different mixing engineers, resulting in two completely different mixes. This CD issue contains the (in my and most people's opinions) inferior of the two mixes. The mix on this album drowns out some instruments on some songs (piano, for example, on the high-energy romp "Time To Kill"), and is plagued by too much reverb that makes it production seem like the Band was going for a slick pop sound. The more expensive Gold CD release from 1994 (as well as some earlier, lower-quality CD issues) uses the alternate mix, which sounds much livelier, like you're in the room with 5 guys jamming on their instruments and singing in harmony--just like the first two albums! The bonus tracks don't really add anything much either (like bonus tracks usually don't). However, you can get this CD pretty cheap new from Amazon, and REALLY cheap used (something like $2), so it's certainly worth the minimal purchase to hear this great music for the first time.

Regarding the music on the album itself, I don't really completely buy into the mythology that the spotlight reviews are trying to perpetuate--Stage Fright isn't a concept album about "Manuel's life or death struggle with Robertson" anymore than The Band was a concept album about the finer points of having fun in the Wild West--why do we need to assign these kinds of categories to such category-defying music? Likewise, Robertson in the liner notes back-projects some sort of self-aggrandizing story about how he was trying to reach Richard Manuel with his songs. According to common sense and Levon Helm's autobiography, Robertson may have been encouraging Richard to write more and get everybody to participate, but Richard's real big problems didn't really surface until the late 70's and his eventual suicide, over 15 years after this album was created. It's pretty egotistical for Robbie and critics/reviewers to claim that this entire album was intended as an indictment/diagnosis of the problems the band was facing due to their stardom. Sure, those themes are (kind of) there in songs like "Stage Fright" and "The Shape I'm In," but to claim that Robbie was trying to "communicate with Richard through the music" is pretty absurd, not to mention pathetic (if he really wanted to reach him, there were probably better ways). Instead of completely backwardly misinterpreting songs like "Strawberry Wine," "Time To Kill," and "W.S. Walcott Medicine Show" to fit some romanticized legend about the band members' secret feelings, I propose to take the music (and what great music it is) at face value:

This album is chock full of rock and roll, upbeat jams, good times, great lyrics, and some wicked guitar. Despite his many ego-related shortcomings, Robbie Robertson still possessed quite a songwriting muse at the time of this album. It may have been because he was increasingly taking more creative control of the band, but there is also some increasingly gnarly, wicked guitar from Robertson on this album. Most of these songs are the same caliber as songs of the first two albums (some of them are better). At face value, "Strawberry Wine" is a party song about a guy who just loves his wine. It's funny and fun, with great organ from Garth Hudson. "Sleeping" is catchy as hell, and funny as well. "Just Another Whistle Stop" marks a milestone in the complexities of Robertson's composition, and some gritty guitar. "The Shape I'm In" and "Stage Fright" are often talked about classics. One of my personal favorites is "The Rumor," which closes the album with one of Richard Manuel's most soulful vocals ever.

Overall, Stage Fright clocks in shorter than The Band's first two albums, but it's packed with great moments. Garth Hudson's piano, organ and saxophone are ON, as usual. Levon Helm turns in some great vocals (despite his documented drug problems of the time), Rick Danko's got classical vocals as well as some fat fretless bass lines, and Richard Manuel is in fine vocal form and contributes some fine songwriting (his last on any Band albums). I don't agree with most of the romanticized interpretations of this album and prefer to take it as it is: a record full of good times and human feeling like the two albums before it. Once you get to know this record, you may notice that Robertson was consciously trying to emulate those good feelings and human moments, but they weren't coming quite as easily or naturally as on the first two albums. Stage Fright still hits hard as one of the Band's greatest and most overlooked records. It's worth owning both versions, so once you get to know and love this album, you may want to check out the Gold CD version from 1994--it's more expensive, but totally worth it. I hope you purchase and enjoy this excellent music!

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Crystal clarity and some of the best songs ever written... November 22, 2004

By Leslie Karen Rigsbey

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

Yeah, all of the Band's albums are dark, and some are intense to

say the least, but this record has Robbie and the other guys at

their peak. This time, though, they are playing ROCK AND ROLL!

Every track is a marvelous piece of lyricism, and the music is

equally good. "The Rumor" has to be one of the ten best songs

ever written anywhere by anybody, and The Band drive it home with

just the right amount of plot and passion. Don't pass this up,

because music like this isn't created anymore. It may not be their BEST ALBUM, but everything by the Band is brilliant and just wait until you hear the sonic clarity here. Never in my life

have I heard music that has this much atmosphere and intelligence. OH, YOU DON'T KNOW how good this record is!!!