Levon Helm

Levon Helm

Mark Lavon Helm (born May 26, 1940), better known as Levon Helm, is an American rock musician and actor most famous as the drummer (and often vocalist) for the rock group The Band. Helm is known for his deeply soulful, country-style voice, and powerful drumming style highlighted on many of the The Band's recordings, such as "The Weight", "Up on Cripple Creek", "King Harvest", "Ophelia" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". His 2007 comeback album Dirt Farmer earned the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album in February 2008.

Biography

Early years

Helm was born in Marvell, Arkansas and began playing the guitar at the age of eight. Helm also played drums during his formative years and established his first band The Jungle Bush Beaters while in high school. He was influenced by the Grand Ole Opry and by R&B songs that he heard on radio station WLAC out of Nashville, Tennessee.

Helm became interested in rock and roll after attending an Elvis Presley concert. He moved from Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee where he was influenced by Bo Diddley and Conway Twitty. At age 17 he was invited to join The Hawks, backing rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins. Soon after Helm joined The Hawks, they moved to Toronto where, in 1959, they signed with Roulette Records and released several singles, including a few hits.

In the early 1960s Helm and Hawkins recruited an all-Canadian lineup of musicians: guitarist Robbie Robertson, bassist Rick Danko, pianist Richard Manuel and organist Garth Hudson. In 1963, the band parted ways with Hawkins and started touring under the name Levon and The Hawks and later to the Canadian Squires before finally changing back to The Hawks. They recorded two singles, but found little success.

The Band

File:Levonhelmlastwaltzscreenshot.jpg

Levon Helm performing in The Last Waltz.

By the mid 1960s, Bob Dylan was interested in performing electric rock music, and asked The Hawks to be his backing band. Disheartened by fans' negative response to Dylan's new sound, Helm returned to Arkansas for what turned out to be a two-year layoff, being replaced by Mickey Jones. During his absence, The Hawks had taken up residence in Woodstock, New York and began writing their own songs; Danko and Manuel also shared writing credits with Dylan on a few songs. Here they recorded a large volume of demo tapes, many with fellow Woodstock resident Dylan (who had completely withdrawn from public life the previous year). These recordings were widely bootlegged, and the best tracks were officially released only in 1975 as The Basement Tapes double album. The songs and themes developed during this period played a crucial role in the group's future direction and style.

In 1967 Helm returned to the group, which by then was christened simply as The Band. They recorded Music From Big Pink, which catapulted them into stardom. On Big Pink, Manuel was the most prominent vocalist and Helm sang mainly backup, with the outstanding exception of "The Weight," but as Manuel's health deteriorated and Robertson's songwriting increasingly looked south for influence and direction, subsequent albums relied more and more on Helm's growling but eerily plaintive vocals (alone or in harmony with Danko), both enriched by and anchored in lush Southern texture. Singing lead, Helm brought out common elements in folk and blues vocal styles, often assuming the character of a kind of mythical Southern everyman, who witnesses bewildering events and reacts to them with wonder and rage. Helm played drums for perhaps 85% of The Band's songs, including most of those for which he sang lead. But the entire group was multi-instrumental, and for certain songs the group featured Manuel on drums, Helm on mandolin (as on "Evangeline"), rhythm guitar (the 12-string guitar backdrop to "Daniel and the Sacred Harp" is by Helm), or bass (while Danko played fiddle).

Helm remained with The Band until their 1976 farewell performance, The Last Waltz, which was recorded in a documentary film by Martin Scorsese. Although many now know Helm through his appearance in the concert film – a performance remarkable for the fact that Helm's vocal tracks appear substantially as he sang them during a grueling concert – he repudiated his involvement with the film shortly after the final scenes were shot and, in his autobiography, offers scathing criticisms of the film and of his former bandmate, Robertson, who produced the film.

As solo artist, The Band reunited

With the breakup of The Band in its original form, Helm began working on a solo album Levon Helm and the RCO All Stars, which was followed soon thereafter by Levon Helm. He recorded solo albums in 1980 and 1982 entitled American Son and (once again) Levon Helm. Helm also participated in Paul Kennerley's 1980 country music concept album, The Legend of Jesse James, singing the role of Jesse James alongside Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris and Albert Lee.

In 1983, The Band reunited without Robbie Robertson, but then Manuel committed suicide while on tour in 1986. Helm, Danko and Hudson continued in The Band, releasing the album Jericho in 1993 and High on the Hog in 1996. The final album from The Band was the 30th anniversary album, Jubilation, released in 1998.

Helm published an autobiography entitled This Wheel's on Fire in 1993.

Acting

Helm has also had a considerable career as an actor. He has appeared in the movies The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Smooth Talk, The Right Stuff, Feeling Minnesota, and Coal Miner's Daughter, among many others.

Health problems, recovery

Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer in the 1990s. He underwent an arduous regimen of radiation treatments. Although the tumor was successfully removed, his vocal cords were damaged, and his clear, powerful tenor voice was replaced by a quiet rasp. In recent years, however, his voice has grown stronger and on January 10, 2004 he sang for the first time at one of his Ramble Sessions.

As of 2006, Helm performs with his multi-genre band called The Levon Helm Band which features his daughter, Amy Helm, Larry Campbell, Teresa Williams, Jimmy Vivino, Mike Merritt, Brian Mitchell, Erik Lawrence, Steven Bernstein and blues harmonica player Little Sammy Davis. He hosts Midnight Rambles at his home in Woodstock, New York that are open to the public. For drumming, Levon Helm has switched to the matched grip in recent years, making for a less-busy style of drumming as opposed to his years with The Band, when played with the traditional grip.

Artists who have performed at the Rambles include another one of Helm's former bandmates, Garth Hudson, as well as Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, Donald Fagen of Steely Dan and Jimmy Vivino of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien's" The Max Weinberg 7. Others have been The Muddy Waters Tribute Band, Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, Bow Thayer, Luther "Guitar" Junior Johnson, Ricki Lee Jones, Kate Taylor, Ollabelle, The Holmes Brothers, Catherine Russell, Johnny Johnson and more...

The Midnight Ramble is an outgrowth of an idea he explained to Martin Scorsese in The Last Waltz (and turned into a song by the Band, "The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show"). Talking about rock and roll showmanship, he talked about the travelling medicine shows that would put on performances for communities.

"After the finale, they'd have the midnight ramble," Helm told Scorsese. "The songs would get a little bit juicier. The jokes would get a little funnier and the prettiest dancer would really get down and shake it a few times. A lot of the rock and roll duck walks and moves came from that."

Helm appeared at the Beacon Theater on March 16-17, 2007, which according to Don Imus, was quite a rare occurrence. Dr. John and Warren Haynes (Allman Brothers Band, Govt. Mule) and Garth Hudson played at the concerts as well along with several other guests. The Alexis P. Sutter Band was the opening act. Helm is a favorite of Don Imus and has been frequently featured on Imus in the Morning.

Fall 2007 saw the release of Dirt Farmer, Helm's first studio solo album since 1982 which has earned him a Grammy Award in the Traditional Folk Album category for 2007. Released to almost immediate critical acclaim, the album features Helm's daughter Amy Helm and longtime Bob Dylan sideman Larry Campbell. Helm declined to attend the Grammy Awards ceremony, instead holding a "Midnight Gramble" and celebrating the birth of his grandson, named Lavon (Lee) Henry Collins -- Levon's birth name is Mark Lavon Helm and he was called by "Lavon" (luh VAHN) until other member's of Ronnie Hawkin's band started calling him "Levon" (LEE vahn) because they found "Lavon" hard to pronounce.

Helm is scheduled to appear at the 2008 Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee to be held in June from the 12th through the 15th.

External links

• Levon Helm's Official Site
• Levon Helm at IMDb
• Levon Helm's biography
• All Music Guide