Cahoots

THE BAND
Capitol

Cahoots, the fourth LP by The Band, one of the greatest ensembles in rock annals, does not get the critical love heaped on its predecessors, Music From Big Pink, The Band and, to a lesser extent, Stage Fright. But I've always loved it, and so should you. Cahoots was arguably the quintet's last great studio album, with songs like the celebratory "Life is a Carnival," the spunky "4% Pantomime" (with guest Van Morrison) and Bob Dylan's epic "When I Paint My Masterpiece." All the ingredients are here: earthy vocal harmonies, the easy rapport among the players and the quintessentially American lyrics. Cahoots doesn't boast the iconic songs of prior Band efforts, but it belongs in the same class.

This article appears in Jan 11-17, 2006.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...