Back in the dim and distant days of June last year, Will Hermes emailed me from Woodstock, where he was interviewing Mercury Rev for us. After several stop-offs at sites of interest, they found themselves in the studio belonging to Aaron Hurwitz, “where they tracked Levon and Garth for Deserter’s Songs”, wrote Will. “Classic Woodstock, truly like stepping back in time. FYI, this was sitting on a coffee-table when we arrived unannounced…” Attached to the email was a photo of Uncut’s April 2005 issue, with The Band on the cover.
As you can imagine, it’s deeply satisfying to find traces of our history lingering in such hallowed spaces. Of course, in 2005, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and Robbie Robertson were all still with us; now it’s only Garth. In fact, we started discussing a new Band cover shortly after Robbie’s death in August 2023, which became more advanced as we headed towards this year’s 50th anniversary of the release of The Basement Tapes. Rather than retell familiar tales from The Band’s story, we asked some of our favourite artists to choose their favourite songs, including Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson, who all jumped at the chance to participate. And on it went; you can find out the results of our Top 30 countdown in our latest issue. As our first cover story of 2025, we hope it offers you some light and comfort in an otherwise cold, damp January.
In further good news, a quick note about Uncut+, our new subscription upgrade, free to all existing print subscribers, which unlocks our digital archive, stocked with every issue of Uncut stretching back to Take 1 in 1997 as well as a comprehensive collection of our Ultimate Music Guides and other special editions. You’ll find instructions to login to Uncut+ here. If you’re not already a subscriber but are interested in becoming one, please click here, where we have one of our best Uncut subscription offers running right now.
Enjoy the issue – there’s tons inside, from Blue Öyster Cult to Nadia Reid, Sharon Van Etten to The Verve, The Moody Blues to Echolalia – not to mention an excellent new music CD to banish the January blues featuring Chris Eckman, Jim Ghedi, The Delines, Yazz Ahmed, Sunny War, The Weather Station, Bonnie “Prince” Billy and others.
Meanwhile, stand by for a very special cover story and CD next month…