Jubilation
The Band as it now stands simply cannot carry the weight it once did. Avatar Robbie Robertson has been gone since 1976, meaning he's been an ex-Band member longer than he was in the long-lived outfit. Richard Manual, in his prime the group's most versatile vocalist, died in 1987. Still, bassist-vocalist Rick Danko, drummer-vocalist Levon Helm, and master instrumentalist Garth Hudson--along with a few supplemental players--forge ahead. With Helm, who's been the backbone of the post-Robertson group, ailing, the Band ofJublilationis left largely in the shaky hands and voice of Danko, whose past personal problems are well-documented. (In 1997 he was given a five-year suspended sentence in Japan for heroin possession.) This 11-song collection isn't going to make anyone forgetMusic from Big Pink. And yet there's a certain kind of nobility to be found in Danko's strained-but-true singing in "Book Faded Brown" and "If I Should Fall" as well as in Helm's more abraded vocals in Allen Toussaint's "A Blind Fool's Love." Eric Clapton and John Hiatt make cameo appearances here, but they don't really elevate the recording. In truth,Jubiliationisn't really an album about getting higher; it's about three musicians sharing a load that's wearing them down bit by bit but hasn't gotten the best of them yet.--Steven Stolder