Levon Helm’s Rocking Rambles
In the mountains of upstate New York, the ’60s bandleader plays host to musicians old and young with sets that play far into the night
- By Anne Miller
- Smithsonian.com, July 19, 2011, Subscribe
(Page 2 of 2)
On that night, Hansard introduced a song inspired by Helm, so new there wasn’t a title yet. Hansard gave the band chords, rattled off a melody, asked for a riff, and they were off, Hansard nodding chord changes as he sung. Every audience member could see and hear the musician’s communication—a real-time lesson in song creation. Later, Hansard said the band members referred to chords not as letters but numbers – the 40-year-old singer called it “old school.”
Asked later if he’d try that with any other musicians, Hansard said no.
Never.
“What I feel about this band, particularly, more than any other I’ve ever seen, is that the music … is eternal,” Hansard says. “And the spirit of the music, of the right groove, is eternal. And it’s very, very rare. It nigh on doesn’t exist—people that don’t stand in the way of the music.”
“Amen,” Helm says.
“You just plug in,” Hansard says.
“Amen,” Helm says.
“And that’s what it’s all about,” Hansard says.
Gathered around Helm’s kitchen table just after midnight are Fagen, Helm’s bandleader Larry Campbell (who’s toured with Bob Dylan) and Hayes Carll, 35, an Austin-based up-and-comer whose songs appeared in the recent Gwyneth Paltrow movie, Country Strong. Chinese takeout litters the stove as Helm’s dogs wrestle over treats by the door. Hansard takes a bench.
Helm recalls one of his first musical memories. Under a segregated tent in Depression-era Arkansas, “Diamond Tooth” Mary McClain, a train-hopping circus performer with dental-work jewels, belted “Shake a Hand.”
“They’d put up a big tent and park a couple of those big tractor-trailer beds together for the stage, put a tarpaulin down, put the piano and the musicians there,” Helm says.
“Did a lot of white people go?” Fagen asks.
“Oh yeah. Down in the middle was the aisle. And the people on one side were dark to almost dark, and the people on the other side were red-haired to blond,” Helm says.
Born Mark Lavon Helm in May 1940, Helm grew up a cotton farm. Music became a way out of a hard-labor life. He showed an early gift on the drums, and as a teen toured Canada with Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, a precursor to the Band. Helm’s work with that ’60s roots-rock super group meshed honky-tonk, folk, blues and rock. The Band backed Bob Dylan when he went electric and appeared in The Last Waltz, the Martin Scorsese documentary that captured the group’s farewell performance. It’s considered by many to be the greatest concert film of all time.
“Good songs are good forever,” Helm says after the ramble. “They don’t get old. And a lot of the younger people they haven’t heard these good all songs, so we like to pull one or two out of the hat and pass them on.”
“We played ‘Hesitation Blues’ tonight, that was one of the good ones. ‘Bourgeoisie Blues.’ Anything that touches the musical nerve.”
Bluesman Lead Belly penned “The Bourgeoisie Blues” in 1935 in response to Washington, D.C. establishments that wouldn’t let the singer’s mixed-race group dine. Also on the set-list: the Grateful Dead’s “Shakedown Street” and slow-burning “Attics of My Life,” and Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” written and first recorded in Woodstock with Helm’s Band bandmates (and performed in later years with Campbell backing Dylan).
No one on the road is as inviting to play with as Helm, Carll and Hansard say.
“There’s something so pure about what Levon does that makes you think it goes back ... to everything,” Carll says. “I just wanted to have my notebook out and write it all down.”
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Comments (2)
A great read! What a treat for those who get this musical experience. I just saw "The Last Waltz" at a special screening in Santa Monica a few weeks ago ... it IS The Great Concert Film ... from a musical period that still ranks as one of the best!
Posted by Maria Fotopoulos on July 22,2011 | 03:31 AM
Fred Frith, Richard Thompson, Henry Kaiser & Victor French. It was at Askenaz in Berkeley, spread only by word-of-mouth-- and there was STILL a line two blocks long.
(I was third in line after waiting for three hours)
Guitar Summit Extraordinaire
Posted by Robert Hurley on July 19,2011 | 07:01 PM