Today we note the death of legendary singer-drummer Levon Helm. He died in his adopted state of New York, aged 71, after a decade-long battle with throat cancer.
Levon Helm is little known these days and even in his hey-day few outside of a hard-core group of fans knew him, but they knew his band—The Band.
Levon Helm was the group’s drummer and founding member. The Band started as The Hawks backing the hard-drinking-hard-living Rockabilly artist Ronnie Hawkins. Ronnie is purported to have promised Levon and the other Hawks—Robbie Robertson (yes, him), Garth Hudson, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel—no money but “all the pussy you can eat.”
But it was not with Ronnie that they found their fame or even their infamy. It was with Dylan. They became Bob Dylan’s backing band when he went electric. Like him, they were the target of a sustained and vitriolic campaign by aggrieved folkies. Dylan didn’t care. Levon didn’t care. The Band didn’t care. They didn’t even have a name to that point, and wouldn’t have one until they launched their first album, the magnificent Music From Big Pink where Levon and the others were listed in the liner notes under the prosaic heading The Band. The name stuck. At least it did until The Band dissolved in a bitter battle between Levon and Robbie. Their swan song was the live concert movie The Last Waltz—generally believed to be the best movie of its type.
Levon was the only American in The Band. He came from Arkansas; the others were Canadians. He had every appearance of a hokey hillbilly, and probably that influenced the distinctive folk-rock sound of The Band, though it was Robbie Robertson who wrote most of The Band’s Songs, such The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and The Weight. Levon did lead vocals on most of them, one of the few drummers to take the lead—Phil Collins of Genesis was another.
The Band has always been my favourite group—I narrowly missed (by one week) seeing them when they toured Australia. That was post-Robbie and they were shadows of their former selves. But Levon was there, Garth was there, Rick (my favourite) was there and Richard was yet to hang himself—that would happen a month later. Only Garth and Robbie survive today.
So Levon is gone. And with him that ten-year cancer battle. There is mercy in that, I suppose. But for those of us with long memories, those of us who know the tragedy of the barely coherent Garth Hudson and the show-pony antics of the much despised Robbie Robertson we know that with Levon’s passing passed The Band.
This was our Last Waltz.
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Now playing: The Band - Across The Great Divide
via FoxyTunes
