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Music CD - The Band: Stage Fright
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Music CD: Stage Fright
Artist: The Band
List Price: $11.98
Our Price: $6.36
Your Save: $ 5.62 ( 47% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Capitol
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Tracks:
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1. Strawberry Wine - The Band, Helm, Levon
2. Sleeping - The Band, Manuel, Richard
3. Time to Kill
4. Just Another Whistle Stop - The Band, Manuel, Richard
5. All La Glory
6. The Shape I'm In
7. The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show
8. Daniel and the Sacred Harp
9. Stage Fright
10. The Rumor
11. Daniel and the Sacred Harp
12. Time to Kill
13. The W.A. Walcott Medicine Show
14. Radio Commercial - The Band,
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0724352539529
Format: Extra tracks
Label: Capitol
Manufacturer: Capitol
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Capitol
Release Date: 2000-08-29
Studio: Capitol
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not THAT Good
Comment: This is a good album, but it pales in comparison to "Music From Big Pink" or the self-titled "The Band".
The sound represents a slightly darker side of The Band's career than the period of the first two albums. It is melodic, and musically well-done. But, it is dark (for The Band) and pessimistic. The sound is metallic-tinged and sharp. The words are certainly not jovial, and you can hear a distraught, hurt tone in many of the vocals. At the most peppy and spunky moments, its aura is at best ambivalent. This is not to knock this album, again I repeat, it is good musically. Just don't try to cheer yourself up with it.
The best tracks in my opinion are Strawberry Wine, Time To Kill, The Shape I'm In, The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show, and Stage Fright.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Frightened into A Different Band
Comment: Critics labeled this as "good, but not as good as the first two" and many fans agree. I completely disagree with such an idea, and I believe this album is completely uncomparable to the first two.
This album, as it has been described many times before, is purely a confessional piece of work, said nervously and memorably. Manuel, Danko and Helm have all been abusing drugs like there is no end, and leave the writing to Robertson, who writes all tracks except for the two Manuel contributions and the Helm contribution, both of which Robertson co-wrote. For just this feat, Robertson deserves a 5 star rating for quality songwriting.
For the first time, since the Band's inception, Robertson, the de-facto leader of the Band, becomes an upfront guitarist, bringing many pieces of great songs like Just Another Whistle Stop and Time to Kill into memorable classics in the Band catalogue.
Another first in the Band catalogue, is that the three main singers of the Band do not attempt to add their harmonies whenever they can. The three part Danko-Helm-Manuel harmony suddenly dissapeared from tracks and was no longer a main part of The Band sound.
Two of my favorite Band songs have come out of this album, namely the beautiful waltz Sleeping and the Rumor, which contains one of the greatest musical breakdowns in my Band collection. Sleeping contains soulful Richard Manuel chords and vocals, with great guitar work, bass work and energy, bringing the song upfront, and making it very memorable. The Rumor, with its great vocal interplay between Helm and Danko, has an instrumental break around 2:40 which gives me chills. The arrangment is funky and well chosen, and has more memorable Robertson guitar work.
The only bad song on the album is Strawberry Wine. Through any official story, Helm sang this song, the first time released to the public, while under the influence of heroin, and offers a very worn out vocal performance. The track was "amazingly played in one take," which from the muddled sound to the unsure playing, makes it the worst on the album.
The rest of the songs are of the highest quality (except one): All La Glory is a beautiful, country blue-tinged piece that Robertson wrote about the birth of his child. The Shape I'm In is an "in your face" confession which is funky and has great Manuel vocals, as well as good examples of how to play a Fender Rhodes. Time To Kill is an upbeat song about boredom, which is definitely not boring and worth many listens. Just Another Whistle Stop has great guitar breaks, fine bass playing and superb vocals. The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show is an upbeat rocker which has been played too many times on my cd player, whilest Stage Fright delivers one of Danko's best vocal performances in his career. Daniel And the Sacred Harp has beautiful Autoharp work, fuels their country Americana image, has great lyrics and good vocal interplay.
This album is a must in any music fan's collection and is worth every penny!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great, underrated Band album
Comment: Almost every song on this album is a winner. A few of the best songs are only available on this album, having never been put in a Greatest Hits Collection or in The Last Waltz (movie of Band's last concert). The tune, "Ala Glory" is a subtle stunner. Regarding The Last Waltz, buy it and watch/listen to the greatest band in rock n' roll history--no hyperbole, The Band is the one musical entity or person that can truly be called GREAT.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Best of the First 3
Comment: The strain of being pressured into making another masterpiece like the first 2 records, constant touring and heavy partying was starting to make the group weary and this album is a beautiful masterpiece of struggle, it's a treat that we have it forever on record. The most underrated Band record and the best of the magical first 3.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing, overlooked album--Gold CD has better mix than this one
Comment: 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!
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Editorial Reviews:
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Limited Edition Japanese "Mini Vinyl" CD, faithfully reproduced using original LP artwork including the inner sleeve. Features most recently mastered audio including bonus tracks where applicable.
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