Levon Helm Has Left Us

[Mitch Cronin]

http://www.washingto...crTT_story.html

" By Terence McArdle, Thursday, April 19, 4:38 PM

Levon Helm, the drummer and gritty-voiced singer with The Band, a revered rock group that recorded and collaborated with Bob Dylan and was one of the most influential music acts of the 1960s and ’70s, died April 19 at a hospital in New York City. He was 71.

The death was announced by his Web site. Mr. Helm, a former three-pack-a-day smoker, was diagnosed with throat cancer in the late 1990s. Even as the disease diminished his voice, he continued to perform, holding all-star concerts at his farm in upstate New York to pay off his medical bills.

Mr. Helm received two Grammy Awards, the 2007 Best Traditional Folk Album for his album “Dirt Farmer,” and the 2009 Best Americana Album award for its follow-up, “Electric Dirt.” The recordings showed Mr. Helm in strong form despite his health — his voice weathered but still resonant.

During The Band’s heyday — from 1968 to 1976 — Mr. Helm sang many of its most enduring songs, including

“The Weight” and

Director Martin Scorsese’s documentary, “The Last Waltz,” filmed in 1976 and released in 1978, chronicled the final concert appearance by The Band’s original members: guitarist Robbie Robertson, organist Garth Hudson, bassist Rick Danko and pianist Richard Manuel.

Many of their songs reflected a fascination with American history and culture, particularly the Deep South. “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” (1969), credited to Robertson, was from the perspective of a Confederate solider who recounts his losses during the Civil War. Mr. Helm, the son of an Arkansas cotton farmer, was The Band’s only American. The other four members were Canadians.

“The Band, more than any other group, put rock and roll back in touch with its roots,” noted the group’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. “With their ageless songs and solid grasp of musical idioms, The Band reached across the decades, making connections for a generation that was, as an era of violent cultural schisms wound down, in desperate search of them.”

Though its music was often called “country rock,” The Band was as much influenced by gospel, rhythm and blues, New Orleans jazz and hillbilly music as by the contemporary Nashville music scene. The band often used the mandolin, tuba or accordion in its arrangements. Mr. Helm said the dual keyboard sound — Manuel’s organ and Hudson’s piano — was inspired by Anglican church music.

After The Band split up in 1976, the handsome and lean-faced Mr. Helm launched a secondary career as an actor. In Time magazine, film critic Frank Rich wrote that Mr. Helm brought a “flinty dignity” to his sympathetic role as country singer Loretta Lynn’s father in “Coal Miner’s Daughter” (1980).

Mr. Helm served as narrator in “The Right Stuff” (1983), the film adaptation of writer Tom Wolfe’s account of the Mercury astronauts.

Son of a cotton farmer

Mark Lavon Helm was born May 26, 1940, near Elaine, Ark.; he later went by Levon (pronounced LEE-von). He was raised on the family’s cotton farm in Turkey Scratch, Ark., and started playing guitar at 8."

Sorry to see him go.... He's sure left a lot of good sounds behind.

[Don Hudson]

Mitch;

The Last Waltz (DVD) simply has to be in one's collection if one loves music at all. Even a very young Joni Mitchell is there and another Canadian...Neil Young.

Seventy-one. Way too early. Sad to hear this.

Don

[deicer]

RIP Levon...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF32IZggmBg&feature=player_embedded#!