YOU CAN MAKE IT
IN YOUR OWN DISGUISE
JUST NEVER SHOW THE FEAR
THAT'S IN YOUR EYES
Stage Fright
is the third
studio album
by the
Canadian-American
Rock Band
released on
August 17, 1970,
by Capitol Records.
It featured two
of the group's
best known songs,
"The Shape I'm In"
and
"Stage Fright",
both of which
showcased inspired
lead vocal performances
by
Richard Manuel
and
Rick Danko,
and became
staples in the
group's
live shows.
Stage Fright
was a contradictory record,
combining buoyant music
and disenchanted lyrics,
and exploring themes
such as peace,
escape
and
frivolity
that revealed
darker shades of
melancholy,
anxiety
and fatigue.
Writer
Ross Johnson
described it as
"a cheerful-sounding record
that unintentionally was confessional...
a spirited romp
through a dispirited period
in the group's history."
As a result,
it received a somewhat
mixed reception
compared to its
widely praised predecessors,
largely due to
the ways that it
departed from those records.
Generally,
critics agreed that
the music was solid.
They hailed aspects like
Garth Hudson's
diverse textural weavings,
Robbie Robertson's
incisive guitar work
, and the funk
of the
Danko–Levon Helm
rhythm section,
but differed on
the record's troubling tone
and overall cohesiveness.
In later years,
on the occasion
of reissue
and remaster releases,
many critics reappraised
the album as
showing
"no drop-off in quality
compared to the first two"
and
"evidence of a group
still working at the top
of their form."
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