"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" | |
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![]() Side B of the Canadian single | |
Single by the Band | |
from the album The Band | |
A-side | "Up on Cripple Creek" |
Released | September 22, 1969 |
Recorded | 1969 |
Genre | Folk rock[1][2] |
Length | 3:33 |
Label | Capitol |
Songwriter(s) | Robbie Robertson |
Producer(s) | John Simon |
Audio | |
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" by The Band on YouTube |
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" is a song written by Robbie Robertson. It was originally recorded by his Canadian-American roots rock group The Band in 1969 and released on their eponymous second album. Levon Helm provided the lead vocals. The song is a first-person narrative relating the economic and social distress experienced by the protagonist, a poor white Southerner, during the last year of the American Civil War, when George Stoneman was raiding southwest Virginia.
Joan Baez's version peaked at #3 on the Hot 100 on 2 October 1971; it did likewise on the Cashbox Top 100 chart. However, on the Record World Top Singles chart for the week of September 25, 1971, the Baez single hit #1 for one week.[3]
...whose dramatic performance here turns a period piece that could have been a "Schoolhouse Rock" episode into a mournful piece of folk-rock.