The news became official today. Drummer/singer Levon Helm passed away. He struggled with throat cancer for a long time but battled back to record and perform in recent years. Most of us remember him for his unique combination of drumming and singing in The Band. Those first two albums remain as some of the finest recordings of the last century. The Band would take you on strange journeys mixing folk, country, rock n roll, gospel, psychedelia, old time music and a wide array of other American sounds. Levon Helm stayed active in music and as an actor over the years. Tell me what other vocalist combined toughness, sweetness and soul the way he did. We were blessed to hear his voice, feel those beats and sense his joy. Thank you Levon Helm for your creative gifts to the world.
Like a lot of fans of The Band, Levon was always to me the heart of a group that was not at all about showboating or being one person’s band. But Levon was how a mostly Canadian band made us believe they all grew up down south. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of him is Marvin Gaye’s “(Baby) Don’t Do It” – reinvented that song, surpassed it. ‘Please don’t don’t do it, doncha break my heart!”… the first two Band albums and The Basement Tapes are three of my favorite all-time records, and will always remind me of the dorms in college, where the music of the Band could be heard coming out of my room at any hour of the night… Everybody I ever played the Band for loved them, everybody who knew their music loved them… also feel luck to have seen Levon a couple of years ago on one of his last mini-tours. He could still keep a beat as good as anybody.