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The Band: Robbie Robertson (vocals, guitar); Richard Manuel (vocals, piano, organ, Clavinet); Rick Danko (vocals, bass); Levon Helm (vocals, drums); Garth Hudson (soprano saxophone, woodwinds, piccolo, accordion, organ, synthesizer, brass). Engineers include: Ed Anderson, Nat Jeffrey. Recorded at Shangri-La Studio, Zuma Beach, California. Originally released on Capitol. Digitally remastered by Larry Walsh (Capitol Recording Studios). The first studio album of Band originals since 1971's Cahoot -- in many respects, Northern Lights-Southern Cross was viewed as a comeback. It also can be seen as a swan song, in that its recording marked the last time the five members would work together in the studio as a permanent group, with a commitment to making a record they would tour behind and build on as a working band. The album was also, ironically enough, the Band's finest since their self-titled sophomore effort, even outdoing Stage Fright. It was spawned after a series of battery-recharging events -- the move of all five members out of Woodstock, New York and to Malibu, California, into a new, state-of-the-art 24-track studio that not only felt right but offered them (especially Garth Hudson, working with Moog synthesizers and other new instruments, as well as brass and reeds) a bigger creative and sonic canvas than they'd ever known before; and the decision to finally let the other shoe drop on their early career, accompanying Bob Dylan on their first-ever studio album together (Planet Waves) which, in turn, had led to an eight-week tour together, this time captured for posterity and, unlike their mid-'60s Dylan tour, rushed out midway through the work on the album at hand. Between all of that, their own live album (Rock of Ages), and the Moondog Matinee album of rock & roll and R&B covers, the group found itself with more music in print at one time than they'd ever dreamed possible, despite the four-year gap in new material, and in several genres and modes, and blossoming in some unexpected directions -- just prior to the start of the sessions for this album, Levon Helm and Garth Hudson had fulfilled another milestone, the goal of doing an honest-to-God blues album (which dated from the group's tragically brief liaison with Sonny Boy Williamson in 1965), producing and/or playing on what ended up being a Grammy-winning LP by Muddy Waters, the Woodstock Album. It was time to make some of their own music again, and Robbie Robertson obliged by showing up with a bumper crop of great new compositions. Northern Lights-Southern Cross totals eight songs in all, and he and the rest of the group rose to the occasion, luxuriating in the range afforded by the studio (christened Shangri-La, a reference to the idyllic haven for art and civilization in James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon -- the vibes were that good). On this album the Band explore new timbres, utilizing 24 tracks and what was (then) new synthesizer technology, and also opening out their sound in some
