Photo: Ahron R. Foster
Update: Levon passed away on April 19, 2012.
According to a note posted to his website, Levon Helm is in the final stages of his battle with cancer.
Helm has been battling the disease since the late 1990s, though his health had improved enough in recent years for the Arkansas native and legendary performer with The Band and The Hawks to release multiple Grammy-winning albums and as a solo artist.
Many feared that calls for “love and prayers” for Helm by friend and bandmate Robbie Robertson from the stage of the 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies on Saturday meant that his health had suffered a setback.
Those fears were confirmed by the recent post on his site signed by Helm’s wife Sandy and daughter Amy.
Please send your prayers and love to him as he makes his way through this part of his journey.
Thank you fans and music lovers who have made his life so filled with joy and celebration… he has loved nothing more than to play, to fill the room up with music, lay down the back beat, and make the people dance! He did it every time he took the stage…
We appreciate all the love and support and concern.
Originally from Elaine, Ark., the legendary Levon Helm spent his childhood surrounded by music. At the age of six, he witnessed his first live show, Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys and was later quoted as saying of the performance, “This really tattooed my brain. I’ve never forgotten it.”
Helm went on to play with the highly influential Ronnie Hawkins and then Bob Dylan before settling into his most famous role in The Band.
Thoughts and prayers to Mr. Helm and his family, friends, and bandmates over the years.
Love to Levon Helm, one of the greats of Arkansas history in contributions to music.
Best wishes…back in the day, helm and co WERE the NWA music scene.
Oh no… saw the news today.
Because the Band has been gone for so many years, and younger people see Bob Dylan as some crazy-ass crooner, and because Robbie Robertson is also largely a mystery to anyone younger than 30… a lot of people will underestimate what a huge loss this is, not just for music but for Arkansas.
But for anyone who (as I do) counts Dylan among the rare divine musical lights (alongside the Beatles, Radiohead, Jimi, the Stones, Elvis and maybe Neil Young)… Levon Helm was a giant, and his and the Band’s influence should always be remembered.
Maybe Neil Young!?! Dude, *definitely* Neil Young!
But losing Levon hurts in a way that I haven’t felt for someone I didn’t know since Joe Strummer in ’02 and Johnny Cash in ’03. Even more than just the quality of his music — which was incredible — it just seemed like he stood for something real and throughout it all, he was just himself, as compared to so many of his peers who turned into weird, washed-up coke-bloated creeps.
The Band is one of those groups that a lot of youngsters come around to a bit later in their musical journey through the past. “Music From Big Pink” isn’t as immediately accessible as say, “Abbey Road” or “Are You Experienced?” but it’s every bit as emotionally rich and, in a way, even weirder than those albums. I mean, it singlehandedly made Clapton decide that Cream was irrelevant. And not to diminish the talents of Garth and Rick and Richard and Robbie, but Levon was the soul of The Band. He was a connection to something deeper that gave the group its grit and soul and air of timelessness.
This is the best eulogy I’ve read for Levon: http://bit.ly/I4mGTJ
I’m going to see Tom Petty tomorrow. Wonder if they’ll dedicate a song to Levon.
For Levon Helm, now on YouTube, Charliehorse recorded live 5-18-12 Kingfish 2 songs, “Get Up Jake” (The Band), “I Shall Be Released” (Bob Dylan, The Last Waltz), see video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhFVHpUUA_8
Mickey Hart Band 4-23-12 George’s Majestic Lounge. “Farewell Levon” show, starts with speech by Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart about Levon Helm backbeat drumming style, celebration of his life, and opens with “Cripple Creek” (cover of The Band), with Widespread Panic bassist Dave Schools, watch here:
http://youtu.be/_FjUuMwWXv8