Delve Into Danko

  By mid-1968, The Band seemed to be seeing a bright future for themselves. After a positive reception for Music From Big Pink and offers from big-time promoters to headline shows, it seemed like the world was their oyster. Yet, the boys were not quite ready to leave the peace and quiet of the Catskills. One must remember that they had been on the road nonstop for most of the 1960s when they were hardly more than kids still. Their intention was to make some more albums at their own pace and touring would be a later discussion. Being able to quietly make music and enjoy a lot of leisure time and have fun was something they were basking in. Some of this fun that they had got them in quite a lot of trouble, however.  One thing that The Band was notorious for was crashing cars. Being in a more rural mountain area provided a fun opportunity for racing each other along the curvy roads. Of the five, Rick, Levon, and Richard crashed cars quite often (Richard the most supposedly). Many...

     Early 1968 saw a lot of changes for The Band. Thanks to Rick Danko and Sally Grossman (Albert Grossman's wife), they had a brand new recording contract with Capitol records. After taking a sabbatical and working with Bob Dylan on over a hundred new songs, they were itching to get back to business and actually become an independent band. There was one issue though: they had everything but a name. During a meeting at Big Pink, the boys discussed what name they should come up with since it was pretty essential for their record contract. Rick suggested that they come up with a pretentious, satirical name for fun. Richard Manuel came up with trendy, psychedelic names such as Marshmallow Overcoat and Chocolate Subway. Levon Helm, however, had the winning name: The Crackers. While it was quite provocative and not exactly one that makes people comfortable, for them it was descriptive of the southern, down-home sound that they were making that was reminiscent of southern whit...