THE BAND PHOTOGRAPHS 1968 - 1969

Woodstock / Milwaukee: Backbeat Books, 2015. 1st edition. Hardcover. very good/good. A Landy Vision Book, Backbeat Books, 2015 Hardcover, 12.5" x 12.5", 160 pp. Very good condition, dj has some shelf wear to the edges and some creasing and a small 1/2" repair on the top of the front cover. Pages are all very clean.

THE BAND PHOTOGRAPHS 1968 - 1969 features over 200 photographs, over half of which have never been published before, documenting this iconic group's first two albums, 'Music from Big Pink' and 'The Band'. Also included is a commentary from John Simin, who produced The Band's first two albums and was considered the sixth band member, and an introduction by Jonathan Taplin, tour manager for the band from 1969 to 1972.

Once in a while a photographer gains the trust of an artist or a band, and his work fuses with that of the artist in such a way that the two become married in the public consciousness. One can think of David Duncan's pictures of Picasso at work or Alfred Wertheimer's pictures of Elvis backstage in 1956. Elliott Landy's chronicle of The Band from 1968-1969 is of similar importance. He was trusted so deeply that this group of photographs is as intimate a portrait of a group of musicians inventing a new music as you are ever likely to come across.

Today we call that music "Americana " and it is played all over the world by everyone from Mumford and Sons to the Zac Brown Band. But in 1968, when Elliott first started making these pictures, it was played by six musicians in the town of Woodstock, New York - Bob Dylan and a group called The Hawks. They later changed their name to The Band. They had been The Hawks for five years when Bob Dylan pulled them out of Tony Mart's dive bar on the Jersey Shore to be his band. (from the introduction by Jonathan Taplin).