The Band - Islands - A Pathetic End to a Great Career

In 1976, The Band decided to quit the road and stage The Last Waltz.  Word at the time was that they'd continue as a recording entity.  This held promise as their previous album Northern Lights - Southern Cross was such a stunner.   That promise didn't hold true.  At the time they owed Capitol one more record of new material.  They wanted to get it out of the way so Warner Brothers could release the soundtrack to the film in 1978.   Rather than give it the old college try, they released  this...

The Band - Islands (Capitol 1977)

It's nothing more than a spotty collection of outtakes and failed ideas from earlier in their career.  One or two gems, but nothing else of note.  Too bad.  They'd been at it for 10 years.  They could have/should have done better for a swan song.  If this was what was to come, I'm glad they imploded when they did.

The album was received poorly and quickly ended up in the cutout bins.  My copy went through a few hands before it ended up in my collection.   First it was shipped to a record store with the hopes of being sold at full price.   As evidenced by the "Factory Sealed for Your Protection" and "Music is Your Best Entertainment Value" stickers, it was returned to the distributor unopened.   It was then sent to the cutout bin as evidenced by the big hole Capitol put on their cutouts.  Someone bought it cutout, then sold it back to a used record emporium.  That's where I picked it up.  It rarely gets played and it held on only for completion purposes.  It recently came to light as I finished the Robbie Robertson book.