Levon Helm

http://www.nodepression.com/profiles/blogs/celebrating-the-music-of-levon-helm

Excerpts from Jon Pareles’s NY Times obituary on Mr. Helm…

In Mr. Helm’s drumming, muscle, swing, economy and finesse were inseparably merged. His voice held the bluesy, weathered and resilient essence of his Arkansas upbringing in the Mississippi Delta.

Mr. Helm was the American linchpin of the otherwise Canadian group that became Bob Dylan’s backup band and then the Band. Its own songs — largely written by the Band’s guitarist, Jaime Robbie Robertson, and pianist, Richard Manuel — spring from roadhouse, church, backwoods, river and farm; they are rock-ribbed with history and tradition yet hauntingly surreal.

Mr. Helm’s drumming valued space over showiness. He gave his drums a muffled, bottom-heavy sound that placed them in the foundation of the arrangements, and his tom-toms were tuned so that their pitch would bend downward as the tone faded…His playing was sturdy and self-effacing, dedicated to serving the song. But it also had a loose, improvisational feel, tersely responsive to the music.

Mr. Helm didn’t call attention to himself. Three bass-drum thumps at the beginning of one of the Band’s anthems, “The Weight,“ were all that he needed to establish the song’s gravity; in “The Shape I’m In,“ he juxtaposed Memphis soul, New Orleans rumba and military tattoo. His playing was sturdy and self-effacing, dedicated to serving the song. But it also had a loose, improvisational feel, tersely responsive to the music.

In the Band, lead vocals changed from song to song and harmonies were elaborately communal. But particularly when lyrics turned to myths and tall tales of the American South — like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” “Ophelia” and “Rag Mama Rag” — the lead went to Mr. Helm, with his Arkansas twang and a voice that could sound desperate, ornery and amused at the same time.

In a 1984 interview with Modern Drummer magazine, Mr. Helm described the “right ingredients” for his work in music and film as “life and breath, heart and soul.”

Nearly to the end, Mr. Helm spent his life on the bandstand. “If it doesn’t come from your heart,” he wrote, “music just doesn’t work.”

http://www.jambands.com/news/2012/04/18/robbie-robertson-and-garth-hudson-comment-on-levon-helm

Tim and I saw The Band on their last tour, on August 29, 1976, at the Music Inn in Lenox, Ma. Tim and I were still young fellers and not burned out or fucked up yet. The Band had played the same place about a month earlier and something went wrong, so they came back. Tim told me why at the time, but memory has now failed me. I also forget who opened, it may have been the Fabulous Rinestones, or it may have been the Richie Furay Band. The site was basically a farm with a stage at the bottom of a hill. Spectators sat on the hill and looked down at the stage.

I remember the Band’s performance very well, especially Garth Hudson’s sax solo on It Makes No Difference. Very awesome. Levon and the others were all great. Garth went crazy on the keys all the time and sometimes all you could see was the top of his head because he was bent down under the keys going insane.

The drummer who went to England with Dylan and The Band, since Levon didn’t want to go, is named Mickey Jones and he lives in the same town I do now. So there.

Goodbye Levon.

The setlist:

Ring Your Bell
Shape I’m In
The Weight
It makes No Difference
King Harvest
Ophelia
Stage Fright
Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
Across the Great Divide
Twilight
Up On Cripple Creek
Genetic Method
Chestfever
Life Is A Carnival
Forbidden Fruit
Wheels on Fire
WS Walcott Medicine Show

Every once in a while something comes back to me Lefty. I had also seen Hot Tuna at the same place just a few weeks before or after this show and whoever didn’t open for The Band opened for Hot Tuna.

edit: corrected band name

I saw him a couple months ago! I will now change “Hut” Tuna to “Hot” Tuna. 😕

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