The Band's Music from Big Pink and their second album, The Band (otherwise known as the "Brown Album") were in my parent's record collection. The latter, especially, I remember fixating over from a very young age. Not even necessarily the music itself, but the LP as a physical thing. In the case of the Brown Album it was that cover, the image of those five men, looking like a posse of cowboys from some dusty turn-of-the-century photo. Before I even knew what music really was, or who or what musicians even did, I was confronted with that image. And along with the covers for Sundown, Harvest, This Time, and a few other choice selections, it just feels burned into me. But if the cover peaked my curiosity for music, it's what was contained in those grooves of vinyl plastic that ultimately shaped my life its core. And Levon Helm's voice was so much a part of my musical education, my musical upbringing, that I simply feel inextricably tied to him, even as I never met him, never even saw him live. That formative experience of sitting by the record player in the basement, filing through what seem like an endless collection of records, and returning again-and-again to that band of cowboys, and those songs about a "Rag Mamma Rag," a place called Cripple Creek, and that one I didn't really understand but that went, "Laaaa La La La La La..." and was kind of sad. Levon Helm's twangy, rugged voice, so friendly and playful at times, so sorrowful at others, has just always been there with me. It helped instill in me a love and a passion for music. And without that I don't know where I'd be. So thanks Levon Helm.
I kept up with Helm, and in many ways I got reacquainted with him in the 2000s. It was a wildly prolific decade for a man recovering from lung cancer treatment. In keeping with his history of musical collaboratoin, he assembled an impressive cast of players known as The Levon Helm Band, and hosted a stunning number live shows at his home studio in Woodstock NY. Calling the shows "Midnight Rambles," the names of the artists who took part over the years is a veritable who's-who of roots rock royalty -- from Leon Russell, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and Robert Earl Keen, to Steve Earle, The Black Crowes, and Lucinda Williams. Inspired by these shows, Helm hit the studio in 2007 for the first time since the early '80s, producing Dirt Farmer, an Grammy winning album that featured Helm's take on such songs as Steve Earle's "The Mountain," Buddy Miller's "Wide River to Cross," and the Traditional "The Girl I Left Behind." Electric Dirt came just two years later, and it was another triumph. For starters, the track "Growing Trade," co-written by Helm along with Larry Campbell, was one of my favorite tracks from that year. And, oh yeah, Electric Dirt also won the inaugural Grammy Award for Best Americana Album in 2010, an award Helm for a second time for his ridiculously good 2011 live record Ramble at the Ryman. While Helm's voice had been damaged from years of lung cancer treatment, I honestly don't hear that on those last three records. His voice may sound like a little weakened, but no more so than any other road-worn performer his age. Most importantly, he sounds like Levon Helm -- and for this music fan that sounds like the spirit of music itself. And with those records coming some twenty-five years after his last studio effort, and after almost a decade of cancer treatment, they really are something to be thankful for.
Check out the New York Times obit for Helm here. Click after the jump for some performance clips over the years.
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