Rock of Ages

If you only own one live Band album, make it this one. Rock of Ages catches the group at the peak of their powers as a live act, and adds something the studio albums never had: a five-piece horn section.

The New Year's residency

The Band booked the Academy of Music in New York for the last week of 1971, recording four nights (28–31 December) and climaxing on New Year's Eve. Having loved Allen Toussaint's horn arrangement for “Life Is a Carnival,” Robertson commissioned the New Orleans master to write charts for a whole horn section, giving warhorses like “Chest Fever” and “The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show” a gorgeous, brassy lift.

Dylan's midnight surprise

In the early hours of New Year's Day 1972, the group's old boss Bob Dylan walked on stage unannounced and played the final four songs, including “Like a Rolling Stone.” Those performances were held back for years, finally surfacing on the 2001 expanded reissue (and the 2013 Live at the Academy of Music box set).

One of the great live albums

It reached No. 6 in the US and went gold, and it turns up on most lists of the best live rock albums ever made. Tight, joyous, and five players listening hard to each other. Phil Ramone engineered.