With Manuel on piano and vocals and his friend Jimmy Winkler on drums, the band was rounded out by bass player Ken Kalmusky (later a founding member of Great Speckled Bird).

In mid-September 1961, after the Revols returned from their southern journey, Hawkins recruited Manuel to his backing band The Hawks, replacing piano player Stan Szelest.

At this time the band already consisted of 21-year-old Levon Helm on drums, 17-year-old Robbie Robertson on guitar and 17-year-old Rick Danko on bass; 24-year-old organist Garth Hudson joined that Christmas, followed by two temporary members (saxophonist Jerry Penfound and singer Bruce Bruno).

Supported by a retainer from Dylan, they were able to experiment with a new sound garnered from the country, soul, rhythm and blues, gospel and rockabilly music that they loved.

As Helm (who was disheartened by the reaction to Dylan's new sound) had been temporarily absent from the group since late 1965, Manuel taught himself to play drums during the hiatus.

They combined it with their idea of the perfect album, switching solos, and singing harmonies modeled after the gospel sound of their musical heroes The Staple Singers.

Recordings of the country ballad "Long Black Veil" and Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" and the Danko–Dylan collaboration "This Wheel's on Fire" rounded out the album.

Shortly after the release of the album, the newly financially secure Manuel married his girlfriend, Jane Kristiansen, a model from Toronto, whom he had dated intermittently since the Hawks days.

In 1970, Manuel acted in the Warner Bros. film Eliza's Horoscope, an independently distributed Canadian drama written and directed by Gordon Sheppard.

He portrayed "the bearded composer," performing alongside Tommy Lee Jones, former Playboy Bunny Elizabeth Moorman, and Lila Kedrova; Robertson appeared as an extra.

[6] Throughout 1972, Manuel's alcoholism was one of a variety of factors (including Robertson's own writer's block) that began to impede The Band's recording and performance schedule.

Before leaving the Hudson Valley, they convened at Bearsville Studios to record an album of vintage rock and roll songs (some of which had been performed by The Hawks) entitled Moondog Matinee, in homage to Alan Freed's radio show.

Following a warmup show in Osaka, Japan, in July 1973, they played to receptive audiences at the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen and on a double bill with the Grateful Dead at Jersey City's Roosevelt Stadium two days later.

But with the long-germinating, Robertson-penned follow-up to Cahoots (Northern Lights – Southern Cross) still more than a year from release, the group struggled to attract audiences in certain markets, as evinced by a proposed August 1974 headlining performance at Boston Garden that was ultimately cancelled due to poor ticket sales.

[12] During this period, he developed a kinship with the similarly despondent Eric Clapton and emerged as a driving force behind the sessions that make up the guitarist's No Reason to Cry (1976).

The album was recorded at the Band's new Shangri-La Studios, where Manuel lived for about a year in a bungalow that had once served as the stable for Bamboo Harvester, the horse that portrayed the titular character on the 1960s sitcom Mister Ed.

Manuel gave Clapton the song "Beautiful Thing" (a 1967 Band demo that Danko helped him finish) and provided vocals for "Last Night.

"[citation needed] On the group's final full-fledged tour in the summer of 1976, Manuel was still recovering from a car accident earlier in the year; several tour dates were subsequently canceled after a power-boating accident near Austin, Texas, that necessitated the hiring of Tibetan healers, in a scenario reminiscent of Robertson's pre-show hypnosis, before their first concert as the Band at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom in April 1969.

In 1980, he contributed electric piano and clavinet to Happy Traum's Bright Morning Stars and background vocals to Hudson's Music for Our Lady Queen of the Angels.

Throughout the early 1980s, he sat in on little-publicized gigs in L.A.-area clubs with The Pencils, an ensemble that included vocalists/ multi-instrumentalists Marty Grebb and Terry Danko, founding Blues Image percussionist Joe Lala and former Beach Boys drummer Ricky Fataar.

Along with Stephen Stills and Mike Finnigan, he contributed backing vocals to a 1983 album by the band that was left unreleased after Danko was in a debilitating car accident.

[13][14] A year later, he contributed piano to Willie Nelson and Webb Pierce's 1982 remake of "In the Jailhouse Now" (a country hit for the latter in 1955) and background vocals to "Rivers of Tears" on Bonnie Raitt's acclaimed Green Light.

Instead, guitarist and Helm protege Jim Weider augmented the returning four members along with a variety of irregular additional musicians, including the Cate Brothers.

Having reclaimed some of his vocal range lost in the years of drug abuse, Manuel performed old hits such as "The Shape I'm In", "Chest Fever" and "I Shall Be Released" with new conviction alongside personal favorites such as Cindy Walker and Eddy Arnold's "You Don't Know Me" and James Griffin and Robb Royer's "She Knows.

In poor health and fearing that he had contracted AIDS from decades of promiscuity and drug abuse, he contemplated making a Robertson-produced solo album and resumed using cocaine, heroin, and alcohol.

He undertook a successful solo residency (centered around "his favorite Ray Charles songs" and "Tin Pan Alley classics") at The Getaway, a club midway between Woodstock and nearby Saugerties, New York.

As the band continued to tour in 1985, their agent decided to shorten the name to "The Byrds" permanently, eliciting displeasure from co-founders Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Chris Hillman.

[18] Throughout this period, Manuel continued to participate in several projects in addition to his road work, including the recording of the Ethiopian famine relief charity single "Tears Are Not Enough" by the ad hoc Canadian supergroup Northern Lights.

[citation needed] In a March 1985 interview with Ruth Albert Spencer of the Woodstock Times, Manuel expressed equivocation toward The Band's professional direction at a time when the group was relegated to playing theaters and clubs as headliners and support slots in larger venues for onetime peers such as the Grateful Dead and Crosby, Stills and Nash: "I sobered up and I pay a lot closer attention when I realize what we threw away.

[23] At his memorial service in Woodstock, Danko sang one of Manuel's most famous covers, Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" accompanied by the church's pipe organ and the other attendees.