Band, The Vinyl Records
For roughly half-a-decade, from 1968 through 1975, the Band were one of the most popular and influential rock groups in the world, their music embraced by critics (and, to a somewhat lesser degree, the public) as seriously as the music of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Their albums were analysed and reviewed as intensely as any records by their onetime employer and sometime mentor Bob Dylan. Although the Band retired from touring after The Last Waltz and disbanded several years later, their legacy thrived for decades, perpetuated by the bandmates' respective solo careers as well as the enduring strength of their catalogue. The group's history dates back to 1958, just about the time that the formative Beatles gave up skiffle for rock & roll.