Levon Helms: Tribute To A Music Man

A Tribute


Not Fiction


As far as being a ‘happening’, I’m not sure, but I will try to make it plain.  


We lost Dick Clark a few days ago, and now we have lost another American Musician, a music legend, Levon Helm.  If we can liberate ourselves from the media, from the Church, from the government, from our own fears and our own pain and listen to the music for what it is, we can find a place to know and celebrate each other.

This is what Americans do.  Levon Helm could help us do that.  Mechanics have toolboxes, Lawyers have volumes of books and codes, Levon had music, he was in this life and probably will be in another, a musician.  We who pay taxes and acknowledge or deny God are human, therefore we are flawed, we are most times wrong and we believe what we believe on what we see, but mostly on what we fail to see.

The Band, a group of artists that got seduced by fame and fortune, then manipulated by the music industry and insiders who were users, went the way of many groups who really had something going in the 1960’s.  But as Levon grew older, as his health declined, as his life slipped away, found again and held to what really mattered to him, the music.  Levon toured with ‘Ringo Starr and his All Star Band’ and of course, collaborated with Bob Dylan, poet, writer and legend.

Levon was the son of Diamond and Nell Helm, cotton farmers in a place called ‘Turkey Scratch’, Arkansas.  Levon grew up listening to country music and his dad made some side money performing in the local area.  


Levon’s influences were Sonny Boy Williamson and the King Biscuit Entertainers, he grew up listening to them on radio.  He was in High School Bands and did local gigs after he graduated high school.  He debuted as a drummer with ‘Ronnie and the Hawks’ on Dick Clark’s ‘American Bandstand’.  But his life changed in 1965 after he and ‘The Band’ met up with Bob Dylan.

Dylan and the Band rented a big pink house in Woodstock, New York and after securing a contract with Capitol Records, got Levon to come back and play drums.  Their first album ‘Big Pink’ released in 1968, was a success after 'The Band' appeared on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’.  Levon has lived in Woodstock ever since.

Woodstock was home to Levon who built a studio in back of his house in 1975.  He invited Muddy Waters to come and record with him there.  The Album that was produced ‘Muddy Waters in Woodstock’ won a Grammy.  Levon Helms was an artist, a musician and a man.  Levon expressed himself in the rawest emotions and the basest spirit, revealing himself and his feelings in his music.  

And you can feel it when you hear music by Levon and the Band.

Levon Helms would do a farewell tour with the Band in San Francisco, at Winterland during Thanksgiving in 1976.  


They called it The Last Waltz which included Ronnie Hawkins, Dr. John, Muddy Waters, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and an all-star guest list of peers and friends that read like the "Who’s Who" of rock and roll. The event eventually sold as a triple album and was also filmed, becoming a historical “rockumentary.”

Levon Helm was a product of country music, rockabilly, gospel music, and the blues.  Levon shared the songs and experiences of his life and his upbringing through his music.  


Levon shared his music, his home and his life with his friends and made a family from a good loving woman and wayward souls nearly as worn and weathered as his own (some even more so) and made the bitter bread of a life lived into stories in sound that emboss themselves on our very souls.

If you want to pay tribute to Levon, do as the Doobie Brothers have said, ‘Listen to the Music’.  Levon lives on in all his recordings with many artists, some still here, others in the ‘over yonder’, but listen and let the music get inside of  you.


DC for RJ (still healing)


http://levonhelm.com/biography.htm