[QUOTE=Acousticado;5952599]In the interest of accuracy...
America may claim The Band as their own, and although it’s true that they sure were able to capture “Americana” in stories and music, all but American (Ark) Levon Helm actually hailed from southwestern Ontario, Canada. So, with an 80% Canadian contingent, if there’s a comparison to the Beatles, it can be argued they were the Canadian Beatles.
OK, The North American Beatles would be more appropriate! But their lyrics were just as all-American as Elton John's at the time. Both Bernie Taupin and Robbie Robertson were infatuated with American history, and wrote songs of that bent. Robbie describes how he read history books on the road to feed his songwriting, while Levon was entertaining him with true tales from Arkansas.