Levon Helm passed away today after a long battle with cancer. This afternoon and over the next few days we expect plenty of tributes and thoughts about The Band drummer to file in from around the world. We’ll compile word of those tributes within this post and will update it accordingly.
Jambands.com: “The only American member of the quintessential Americana quintet, Helm—who also played mandolin, guitar and other instruments—had managed to beat the odds for nearly two decades since being diagnosed with throat cancer in the late 1990s. “
Rolling Stone: ”But at one his last shows, in Ann Arbor on March 19th with a 13-piece band, the audience roared when he sang the Band classic ‘Ophelia.’”
New York Times: “In Mr. Helm’s drumming, muscle, swing, economy and finesse were inseparably merged. His voice held the bluesy, weathered and resilient essence of his Arkansas upbringing in the Mississippi Delta.”
Billboard: “People ask me about ‘The Last Waltz’ all the time,” Helm writes in a forward of “This Wheel’s on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of The Band.” “Rick Danko dying at fifty-six is what I think about ‘The Last Waltz.’ It was the biggest f–kin’ rip-off that ever happened to The Band — without a doubt.”
USA Today: “Countering the psychedelic trend that dominated the fractured music scene, they wrote and recorded songs steeped in old-time country, soul, R&B, ’50s rock, gospel, blues and folk ballads — with lyrics that spoke of an older America.”
Los Angeles Times: “But the one that might crystallize his approach to music throughout his life was “The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show,” an ode to the kind of freewheeling gatherings in which the musician, who died of cancer Thursday at 71 in New York, thoroughly reveled.”
Grateful Web: “Levon Helm was a very special person to many people and the music community at large and his presence will be missed, but his music will live on forever.”
Washington Post: “Though its music was often called “country rock,” The Band was as much influenced by gospel, rhythm and blues, New Orleans jazz and hillbilly music as by the contemporary Nashville music scene. The band often used the mandolin, tuba or accordion in its arrangements. Mr. Helm said the dual keyboard sound — Manuel’s organ and Hudson’s piano — was inspired by Anglican church music.”
Bob Dylan: “He was my bosom buddy friend to the end, one of the last true great spirits of my or any other generation.”
HT faves The Band are known for their legendary final show, billed as The Last Waltz and immortalized by Martin Scorsese’s film of the same name. However, The Last Waltz was not the last time the original members of The Band shared a stage. Richard Manuel, Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson and Garth Hudson all sat in with The Rick Danko Band for the final three songs of the bassist’s late set at The Roxy in Los Angeles, Calif. on March 1, 1978.
Thanks to original Relix editor and taper extraordinaire Jerry Moore we can listen to an excellent (though not perfect) soundboard-sourced recording of Danko’s late set which featured the sit-in. Rick’s performance starts off with a pair of songs from his recently released self-titled debut – Sip The Wine and New Mexicoe. From there, Danko and his solo band run through an interesting version of The Band classic This Wheels On Fire. After another pair of tunes from Rick Danko – Rick Danko, the members of The Band took the stage.
There’s no doubt the quintet known as The Band had a magical chemistry and it shines through during their last-ever performance. Garth Hudson spends most of the trifecta of Stage Fright, The Shape I’m In and The Weight on accordion, which is a bit too high in the mix (told ya it wasn’t perfect) but Robertson’s steely shredding sounds fantastic. While Don’t Do It was the final song performed at The Last Waltz, a stirring rendition of The Weight from this night will fittingly go down as the last tune ever performed by the original members of The Band. When The Band reformed in 1983 it was without Robertson. Richard Manuel’s tragic death in 1986 crushed any hopes of future reunions.
Back in 1995 a Robbie Robertson-less version of The Band stopped by NBC’s Late Night with Conan O’Brien to promote the newly released Across The Great Divide retrospective. Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and the more recent additions to this last version of The Band shared the stage with members of the Max Weinberg 7 to perform a rousing Life Is A Carnival. Check it out…
Bring up the date July 28, 1973 and there is a certain percentage of music fans that will immediately know its significance, as it saw three of the most iconic and influential bands of all-time – the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers and The Band – perform at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Raceway for Summer Jam ’73. While there’s been plenty written about this historic concert, which reportedly drew a larger crowd than Woodstock, we’ve got a pretty cool homemade video to share with you today from a group of friends that documented their journey to the fest from Chicago. The nine-minute documentary of sorts, has some fantastic visuals from their road trip, as well as some shots of the Dead and The Band on stage, with the narrator chronicling the entire thing. Let’s check it out…
We couldn’t let Thanksgiving pass around these parts without our annual fluffage of the greatest rock movie of all-time - The Last Waltz. Exactly 35 years ago, roughly 5,000 lucky fans were treated to a full Thanksgiving dinner, followed by a star-studded “farewell concert” from The Band, at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, the site of their very first public performance. With each viewing I seem to come away with a new favorite performance from the flick and after last night’s annual viewing it’s when their former boss Ronnie Hawkins took to the stage for a fiery rendition of Who Do You Love. Let’s check it out…
We’re less than a week away from Thanksgiving and that means only one thing around these parts, our annual fluffage of all things The Band, which of course includes their seminal rock movie The Last Waltz, which took place 35 years ago this coming Thursday at the Winterland in San Francisco. So for this week’s Mix Tape I thought we’d go grousing the aisles for a mix of tunes from The Band, from not only their own albums, but also ones that the members have appeared on and a solo track track or two. We hope that this will inspire you bust out your copy of The Last Waltz for what we consider essential viewing at this time of the year. So sit back, enjoy and play loud!!!
We kick things off with King Harvest (Has Surely Come), a song that seemed appropriate for this time of year from their self-titled record, otherwise known as the brown album. From there we’ve got a pair of tunes from The Basement Tapes, first up is Katie’s Been Gone, and we follow that up with the traditional tune Ain’t No More Cane. Then, we head to Eric Clapton’s 1976 album No Reason To Cry, which features most of the members of The Band for the Clapton and Rick Danko duet All Our Past Times.
Up next, we head to Bob Dylan’s Planet Waves, the only proper studio album with Rick, Levon, Garth, Richard and Robbie backing him, for its opening track On A Night Like This. We follow that with the title cut from The Band’s third studio album Stage Fright. Then, we head to Northern Lights Southern Cross, their penultimate album with their original lineup, for Accadian Driftwood. With that, we head to Rick Danko’s 1977 self-titled album, the first solo album by any member of the group, for Small Town Talk. And finally, we couldn’t not use something from The Last Waltz, so I thought that we’d close things out with Garth Hudson’s swirling instrumental The Genetic Method.
With its five famous verses and a chorus that just begs to be sung along to, The Weight is one of the best known songs by The Band and was released on their 1968 debut album Music From Big Pink. For all the information you ever could possibly want to know, check out this link.
The Contestants:
Artist: Aretha Franklin Album: Soul Folk in Action The Skinny: Leading off this week is definitely one of the best covers of The Weight and the first of this week’s contestants to feature the late Duane Allman on guitar. Also the first of a few really incredible soul/gospel arrangements.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
READ ON for more covers of The Weight by The Band…
Hey everybody, DaveO here – over the next few weeks I am turning Cover Wars over to some of the other Hidden Track contributors to change things up a bit. Please welcome, Andy Kahn.
Lefty Frizzell first recorded and released this haunting ballad in 1959. Written by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin, it’s a first person, from the grave account of a man wrongly sentenced to death for a murder he didn’t commit. However, he’s unable to provide an alibi because that would reveal at the time in question he was sleeping with his best friend’s wife. The wife often goes to the narrator’s gravesite wearing the long black veil and mourning the secret that led to his execution. Since Frizzell’s original release plenty of other artists have tackled this heart-string-pulling ballad. A good lot of them are up for consideration below, but let me know in the comments if I missed your fav.
The Contestants:
Dave Matthews: Those not steeped in the earlier folk stylings of the song might be most familiar with one of Dave Matthews’ performances. A staple of the Dave Matthews Band repertoire for years now, having first appeared on the 1999 live album Listener Supported, Matthews has also played duets with Warren Haynes, Tim Reynolds and as part of a tribute to Johnny Cash with Emmylou Harris.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
READ ON for the scoop on the rest of this week’s contestants…
Today we present what will probably be the shortest video we ever feature in our daily 10AM ET/7 AM PT slot, but we thought it was cool and rare enough to share. Check out this less-than-a-minute clip from 1988 of Robbie Robertson rocking out King Harvest with G.E. Smith, the late T-Bone Wolk and the rest of the Saturday Night Live band…
Gotta love Robertson’s scatting. Robbie’s latest album, How to be Clairvoyant, drops on April 5th. You can sample the LP’s first single, He Don’t Live Here No More, at the 429 Records website.
Written by guitarist Robbie Robertson and sung by bassist Rick Danko, It Makes No Difference was first released in 1975 on Northern Lights-Southern Cross, the first real studio record from The Band in four years. An incredible tale of heartbreak, the track clocks in over six and a half minutes, one of the longest in The Band’s catalog (Acadian Driftwood, also on Northern Lights-Southern Cross is almost seven minutes long).
The Contestants:
Dave Katz & Ed McGee of Ekoostik Hookah lead us off this week with a tight duo version featuring acoustic guitar and piano. Source: 5-8-2002
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
READ ON for the scoop on the rest of this week’s contestants…
We couldn’t let Thanksgiving pass around these parts without our annual fluffage of the greatest rock movie of all-time - The Last Waltz. Exactly 34 years ago today, about 5,000 lucky fans were treated to a full Thanksgiving dinner, followed by a star-studded “farewell concert” from The Band. With each viewing I seem to come away with a new favorite performance from the flick and after last night’s annual viewing it’s when Van Morrison took the stage to perform Caravan…
Check out the house band for this tribute to a wonderful period in Zimmy’s career: Larry Campbell on guitar, Steven Bernstein on trumpet, John Medeski on keys/organ, Kenny Wolleson on percussion, Rob Burger on keys/accordion and Tony Scherr on bass. Special guests joining the house band will be Nicole Atkins, Jolie Holland, Laura Cantrell, John Wesley Harding and The Fiery Furnances. As if that’s not enough, a note on the show’s event page promises that additional special guests will be announced shortly.
Earlier that day, the 14th Street Y will hold a unique symposium on the works of Dylan and The Band including presentations and conversations with cultural critic and Dylan historian Greil Marcus (Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes), filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker (Don’t Look Back), musicians Matt Friedberger (co-founder of The Fiery Furnaces) and Wesley Stace (AKA John Wesley Harding), scholar Christopher Ricks (Dylan’s Vision of Sin), novelists Dana Spiotta (Eat the Document) and John Niven (Music from Big Pink), curator/photographer William Scheele and the Executive Director of the 14th Street Y and writer, Stephen Hazan Arnoff. The symposium begins at noon and runs through 6:30PM. Tickets to the Symposium are $45 and are available directly from the 14th Street Y by calling 212-780-0800 or online at www.14StreetY.org/Dylan.
Last month we kicked off a new recurring B List topic where we posed five questions for which we’d love to know the answers. We got a number of great responses from our readers and even a couple of great unanswered questions submissions, so we’re back with another batch of unanswered questions including a couple from our readers.
In many cases, the answers may never be known or can only be answered by the people involved – who aren’t talking. Yet, for conversation’s sake we’re going to put these questions out there…
1. What’s up with the birthdate in Trey’s mugshot?
As we’ve noted earlier, today is Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio’s birthday. When Big Red was arrested on December 15, 2006 by Officer “I Saved Phish” Mija he posed for a mugshot with a piece of paper that listed his birth date as April 13, 1966. We always wondered why the Whitehall Police Department had Trey’s DOB wrong.
Atlantic City is from the 1982 Bruce Springsteen solo release Nebraska. The tune went through a grand reworking in 2006 when Bruce toured with The Seeger Sessions Band Tour which you can see at the bottom of this piece.
The Contestants:
Without a doubt the most famous cover of Atlantic City was done by The Band for their 1993 album Jericho.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
READ ON for the scoop on the rest of this week’s contestants…
Drumming is one of the hardest jobs in rock and roll. Each one of your four limbs are in charge of performing completely different acts, yet they all need to be coordinated with each other and everyone else in the band. I have a hard enough time just trying to get both of my arms to sync up when I play the bass — I can’t even imagine bringing my legs into the equation.
For a few brave and talented souls, drumming by itself isn’t enough. So for this week’s B List, we celebrate the 10 best drummers who can also carry a tune:
Levon Helm is one of our favorite musicians of all-time, so it’s no surprise that he kicks off our list. The Marvell, Arkansas native provides the incredibly soulful voice behind The Band’s classics like The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down, Ophelia and Up On Cripple Creek. Levon sang while laying down the shuffling, syncopated drum beats that propelled some of the greatest songs in the history of rock and/or roll. Helm’s voice is sounding great these days after he was unable to sing for a number of years due to throat cancer treatment.
Read on for nine more drummers that can sing as well as they drum…
. Exactly 35 years ago, roughly 5,000 lucky fans were treated to a full Thanksgiving dinner, followed by a star-studded “farewell concert” from The Band, at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, the site of their very first public performance. With each viewing I seem to come away with a new favorite performance from the flick and after last night’s annual viewing it’s when their former boss 
, which took place 35 years ago this coming Thursday at the Winterland in San Francisco. So for this week’s Mix Tape I thought we’d go grousing the aisles for a mix of tunes from The Band, from not only their own albums, but also ones that the members have appeared on and a solo track track or two. We hope that this will inspire you bust out your copy of The Last Waltz for what we consider essential viewing at this time of the year. So sit back, enjoy and play loud!!!
. From there we’ve got a pair of tunes from 
, first up is Katie’s Been Gone, and we follow that up with the traditional tune Ain’t No More Cane. Then, we head to Eric Clapton’s 1976 album 
, which features most of the members of The Band for the Clapton and Rick Danko duet All Our Past Times.
, the only proper studio album with Rick, Levon, Garth, Richard and Robbie backing him, for its opening track On A Night Like This. We follow that with the title cut from The Band’s third studio album 
. Then, we head to 
, the first solo album by any member of the group, for Small Town Talk. And finally, we couldn’t not use something from The Last Waltz, so I thought that we’d close things out with Garth Hudson’s swirling instrumental The Genetic Method.
