Academic collection of essays, better in print

This is an academic collection of essays, looking at the music and impact of The Band from a scholarly perspective. It's something that might be on a reading list for a university or college course on popular music. When I was a student writing term papers, skimming was the name of the game. You didn't expect to be entertained.

I'm more of a reader, but decided to try the audiobook for this one. You can't skim, unfortunately.

As a huge Band fan, I found it worth the effort to listen to the book, and it added some new perspectives.

Another review I came across used the word "mansplaining." I could understand that. The reader's voice sounds very much like a 1960s newscaster with all the answers: a bit too authoritative, but eventually I got past that.

There were a number of mistakes in the reading, which was disappointing for an academic publisher. If I recall correctly, Rick Danko's birthday was read as December 28, not the 29th. West Saugerties, New York, where Big Pink was located, was pronounced, "West Sugar Ties," though the correct pronunciation is easily found online.

Levon Helm was referred to as Levon Helms on more than one occasion, The first album was referred to a couple of times as Music from "the" Big Pink, and I even heard Ronnie Hawkins referred to as Ronnie Hawkinson.

I suppose these are the equivalent of typos in a printed work, and quite likely the reader simply misspoke, but they do detract from the credibility of the publication. It would have been better if the reader had been more accurate, though I enjoyed the different voices he used for the various members of The Hawks and The Band.

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Disappointing listen

I don’t write negative reviews. In all honestly this is my first.

In a nutshell you could watch The Last Waltz and scroll through The Bands wiki page and leave with more or less the same info. Lots of filler. Tangents that have nothing to do with the band itself and more to do with adding a few pages/paragraphs/chapters. Many points are told 4-5 times…almost verbatim. I get it. Chester was a real guy from Levon’s home town… repeating that 4 times with the same bio/background description of Chester is beyond overkill… also “Pulled into Nazareth”… same anecdotal background/story at least 4 times on that lyric…(spoiler… its not the Nazareth from the Bible but rather the town where Martin guitars are made). Half a chapter on what movies or TV shows The Weight appeared on and the explaining the movies or shows… filler.
This is more an ode to The Weight and then Cripple Creek and Dixie Down. Too much mansplaining on all of them without anything new. Way too much time talking about the same things. Not enough (or any, really) grit. No more than a few paragraphs on why The Band broke up, and even there.. nothing insightful. No mention of Danko passing and Helms is an afterthought in the last minutes of the book. Hate to say it but this was not a good listen.

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