Levon Helm died

April 19, 2012 • 6:38 pm

Not a surprise, really: the man smoked like a fiend and got throat cancer years ago.  He died today at 71 in New York (the New York Times has a long and wonderful obituary).

But, Lord, was he a good musician—an integral part of The Band, one of my all-time favorite groups. The Band was one of those groups, like Steely Dan, that was sui generis, with their own sound and unique type of song—country-ish in their case, but infinitely more sophisticated. They also starred in what I think was the best rock movie ever made, The Last Waltz. By all means see it on Blu-Ray if you can, and crank the volume up.

Helm anchored the band with his unique vocals and minimalist drumming. And don’t forget his acting: he was wonderful as Loretta Lynn’s father in “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”

I had the privilege of seeing them live once: at the University of Maryland around 1983.

Here are two songs from The Last Waltz featuring Levon: “The Weight” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”  “Dixie” is my favorite Band song; it’s a superb concatenation of musicianship and strange lyrics that seem to emanate from a dream.

From the NYT obit:

Mr. Helm 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. Mr. Helm didn’t call attention to himself. Three bass-drum thumps at the start of one of the Band’s anthems, “The Weight,” were all that he needed to establish the song’s gravity . .

In the Band, lead vocals changed from song to song and sometimes within songs, 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,” “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.

The Staples Singers buttress The Band in “The Weight”:

Gone now, besides Helm, are Richard Manuel (a suicide at 43) and Rick Danko (dead of drug abuse at 56). Only Robbie Robertson and Garth Hudson remain of the original five.  What an agglomeration of talent they were at their peak!

31 thoughts on “Levon Helm died”

  1. What an awesome band. I saw Rick Danko at the Bottom Line in NYC a couple of years before he died. Three are now dead by my count.

  3. CBC Radio 2 has been playing the Band every morning and drive home since the first press release about his condition came out on Tuesday.

    The hosts on CBC both considered him to be the most important part of The Band.

  4. you said it, man.

    Dylan knew, early and often.

    I can say I saw Helm play, though not w/ The Band.
    His last couple solo records were excellent too.

    1. And, IIRC from the bio, Emmylou Harris couldn’t make the date when most of Last Waltz was filmed, and so Evangeline was filmed/recorded afterward, and was the very last song the original group played together.

  7. A wonderful music video and thanks for that, Jerry.

    However (and I blame you for this), just as one can love the New Testament in a superficial way– skimming those good vibes and discarding the bad– I couldn’t help but hear a longing for the worst of pre-civil war ways of life that are expressed in the lyrics.

    “The night they drove ol’ Dixie down…” It’s clearly a lament, but the “Nan-na-na-na-nah’s..” leaves it unclear what has been lost, so I guess there’s some wiggle room.

    Perhaps a sophisticated rock philosopher will weigh in to translate?

    1. I couldn’t help but hear a longing for the worst of pre-civil war ways of life

      It doesn’t take a sophisticated philosopher to see that you’re the only one inserting the “worst”. It’s a song about a guy whose life and family were fucked up by a war over which he had no control. Period.
      (by the way, Levon sang it, but he didn’t write it)

      1. “They never should have taken the very best….” always chokes me up as it applies to all of our little foreign adventures from WWI to Vietnam to Iraq.

  8. A great loss for rock-and-roll, but we were lucky to have him stick around as long as he did after his diagnosis. Had a lot of ornery cuss in him, Levon did.

    You still cannot buy a better album than The Band’s Big Pink,” where most of the songs mentioned here come from (although their Stage Freight is pretty damned good, too). These were the guys who had the big brass balls to go on the road with Dylan, after he went electric in Newport in ’65 — taking the stage night after night, facing down the vicious backlash from those accusing him of selling out the folk scene.

    I also agree with JC that Levon was a damn fine actor, too. Especially liked his turn in The Right Stuff, as Ridley the jet mechanic (to Sam Shepard’s Chuck Yeager), and his voice-over narration.

    1. Very sad; great little rock ‘n’ roll combo, and you can’t get higher praise than that, BUT, I don’t think Levon was the drummer on Dylan’s 1966 electric tour; guy surnamed ‘Jones’ if I remember correctly, who also subsequently acted.

      1. They toured the US in ’65. Helm didn’t sign on for the ’66 tour because he “wasn’t made to be booed.”

  9. Wanted to say something about cigarettes – a deathly addictive menace to society. Does anyone know of an addict who has made it past 70 without serious medically related problems? George Harrison is another very famous casualty. And this disgusting industry fought legislation for years knowing what the consequences could be!!

    1. Overstating the case is not productive.

      There’s no shortage of tobacco addicts who have lived long past 70. I had a grandmother who made it to 89 despite emulating a chimney for over 50 years.

      If you imply that everyone dies young from smoking, the counterexamples weaken your credibility.

      1. It’s not universal (nothing in life/biology is) but the correlation is extremely strong.

        What’s the first question they ask on a health questionaire at the physician’s office? Do you smoke? It’s one of the strongest determinants of general health and indicators of various diseases and conditions.

        I remember listening to a world-renowned pain doctor talk about smoking (on NPR). He said he spent much of his time treating smokers: All their soft tissues had been smoked — just like smoked meats we eat (of course that’s exactly what they are!) — and lost their elasticity, causing severe pain. Smoked: Spinal discs, knee cartilage, corneas and lenses, tendons, fascia, etc., etc.

        I strongly recommend that everyone read The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddharta Mukherjee: Superb and it tickles me that the Pulizter Prize for General Non-fiction went to a man named Siddharta Mukherjee.

        I have only smoked fewer than 10 cigarettes and a comparable number of cigars (all Cubans) and found no pleasure of any sort in cigarettes. Cigars were certainly pleasurable in a fashion (with good scotch, neat). But not enough to compensate for the stink and the health risks. Since marrying and having a family, cigars have been put aside as well.

        Perhaps one must be an addict to appreciate serious use of tobacco?

      2. According to the latest stats (2007) at the US CDC, more than 150,000 people per year die of (just) lung cancer per year. I’d bet you a lot of money that at least 85% of these are smoking caused.

        Can you come up with 150,000 80+ year old heavy habitual smokers per year (new ones each year)? Doubt it.

        2. You completely misunderstood my point. Of course smoking greatly increases one’s risks for lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease, etc.

          But when you say something like “Do you even know a smoker who lived over 70?”, you tie the credibility of your other claims to the answer. Everyone knows long-lived smokers, and if they are at all inclined to disbelieve the “hype” about smoking, the ill-conceived question allows them to dismiss your case entirely.

    2. Crikey, could we get through one single obituary without the Mother Grundys coming out to wag their fingers and lecture everyone on total non-revelations?

  11. Not a surprise that he died because he smoked? LOL! How about, not a surprise that he died since he was 71?

  12. Levon Helm was a great one, great voice and an influential drummer. I like what Elton John said about him yesterday: “Their music changed my life”. That speaks volumes. Helm inspired Taupin/John’s song “Levon” and Elton’s son is named Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John (although partially because John’s son was also born on a Christmas day, like in the song).

  13. He was an incredibly gifted musician and The Band was a great combination of gifted people. Over decades I cherished my triple-LP soundtrack of The last Waltz despite all scratches from gazillion hours on the turntable.

  14. One of my favourites. Listening/watching a live show posted on Doonesbury site

  15. I saw The Band (minus Robbie) circa 1982, when they opened for CSN. Levon was almost “the front man,” both figuratively and literally; the drums were aligned in a row with the rest of The Band.

    I remember watching The Last Waltz over at a friend’s house. He had this massive home stereo system, with speaker cabinets that he constructed himself, along with some components (preamp, power amplifier, perhaps others) that he wired together from kits or his own designs. Needless to say, he enjoyed his music LOUD.

    We’re watching “Dixie” on the VCR, and the stereo is reset to a high unhealthy volume. Midway through, the stereo quits; the power amp was overheated and its protection circuits shut it down. We waited forty-five minutes, at which point my friend promptly reset the videotape to the beginning of the song, and tweaked the volume even louder.

    It was a good day.

  16. Dixie is one of my favourite song too, I’m a howl and a cat lover, I speak french and you seem to be a francophile.

    We have a lot of things in common, we just differ on the impulse behind evolution…

    I think music music reveals a lot about that impulse.

  17. In addtition to The Last Waltz, which is excellent, Scorsese’s recent film on The Stones Shine a Light is superb and should not be missed.

  19. Sad to hear of Levon’s passing having been a fan of The Band since 1982. Some glittzier and more commercially successful artists will garner more headlines when they go but The Band were much more important in the history of popular music. They influenced Eric Clapton and Elton John, as mentioned above, but one often undeclared inspiration was on George Harrison. He stayed with Dylan and The Band before Christmas 1968 and returned for the Get Back/Let It Be sessions with the idea that The Beatles should be The Band. It runs through the interminable tapes they made at those sessions. I think he got his way. Compare the final photo shoot by The Beatles in August 1969 with the front cover of the Band’s eponymous second album.

Comments are closed.