Levon Helm

Levon Helm sustained a multifaceted presence in music across decades, handling roles that spanned drumming, playing additional instruments, composing tunes, delivering vocals, promoting events, operating a studio, engineering sessions, and overseeing productions. The sole U.S.-born member of the Band, the musician raised in Arkansas lent authenticity to the group’s immersion in blues, country, gospel, and rockabilly traditions from the United States, while his consistently expressive and driving percussion propelled their live sets and his intermittent singing alongside mandolin contributions carried comparable force. In his own projects he collaborated with established figures in roots music such as Dr. John, Paul Butterfield, and Booker T. Jones, all of whom joined him on the 1977 release Levon Helm & the RCO All-Stars, as well as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, which backed two self-titled albums issued in 1978 and 1982. Reunion work with the Band and sporadic film roles kept him occupied through the 1980s and 1990s, yet he staged a strong return via the 2007 album Dirt Farmer and the 2009 follow-up Electric Dirt, both of which underscored his ongoing songwriting and performing abilities. Beginning in 2003 he presented regular performances at the studio on his own property, one of them a joint appearance with Mavis Staples that later appeared on the 2022 recording Carry Me Home.

Born May 26, 1940, in Elaine, Arkansas, into a family of farmers, Helm took up guitar at age eight as his initial instrument. After attending a show by the F.S. Walcott Rabbits Foot Minstrels he switched to drums instead. Growing up he absorbed regional sounds through broadcasts of The Grand Ole Opry and the blues and R&B programs aired on the clear-channel Nashville station WLAC, which gained renown for shaping R&B and early rock & roll. Performing with his sister Linda providing washtub bass accompaniment, he appeared at fairs and civic gatherings before assembling his first ensemble, the Jungle Bush Beaters, during high school.

An Elvis Presley concert sparked Helm’s intense focus on rock & roll and artists such as Bo Diddley. He eventually settled in Memphis and began sitting in with Conway Twitty. A fellow Arkansan, the rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins, soon discovered the seventeen-year-old and invited him to join the Hawks as backing musicians. The ensemble moved to Toronto, drawn by reports of an emerging audience for their style. In 1959 Hawkins secured a deal with Roulette Records, and he and the Hawks promptly produced two hit singles, “Forty Days” and “Mary Lou,” which together sold more than 700,000 copies.

During the early 1960s in Toronto, Helm and Hawkins expanded the lineup by bringing in guitarist Robbie Robertson, pianist Richard Manuel, organist Garth Hudson, and bassist Rick Danko, forming the core of what became the Band. After repeated tours with Hawkins the musicians tired of his rough demeanor and reorganized as Levon & the Hawks, later adopting the name Canadian Squires to issue two singles. They soon reverted to the Hawks. In the mid-1960s Bob Dylan chose to amplify his music and selected the Hawks as his support group. Following repeated hostile reactions at Dylan’s electrified concerts in 1965, Helm withdrew to Arkansas, believing he had permanently exited the music industry.

Helm rejoined the Hawks, by then renamed the Band, in mid-1967 as they recorded Music from Big Pink, the start of a series of landmark albums that established the group among rock’s most celebrated acts.

Following the Band’s celebrated 1976 farewell concert, preserved in the film and album The Last Waltz, Helm issued his debut solo effort, Levon Helm & the RCO All Stars, in 1977, drawing on an informal collective that featured Paul Butterfield, Dr. John, Steve Cropper, and former Band colleague Garth Hudson. The next year he released the more streamlined and energetic Levon Helm, supported by the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. After being cast as Loretta Lynn’s father in the 1980 film Coal Miner’s Daughter, he contributed several classic bluegrass numbers to the soundtrack; those sessions also yielded the country-leaning American Son, which showcased numerous renowned Nashville session players. A second self-titled album appeared in 1982, again with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. In 1983 the Band reunited for a worldwide tour; Robbie Robertson declined to take part, yet Helm, Danko, Hudson, and Manuel participated, aided by members of the Cate Brothers Band. The reconstituted group continued touring for several years until Richard Manuel died by suicide in March 1986. In 1993 Helm and the Band delivered the studio album Jericho, which incorporated an unreleased live recording of Manuel performing “Country Boy.” The album’s arrival coincided with the appearance of Helm’s memoir, This Wheel’s On Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band. Two further studio sets, High on the Hog in 1996 and Jubilation in 1998, preceded the December 1999 death of Rick Danko, after which the Band disbanded for good.

Diagnosed with throat cancer in the late 1990s, Helm underwent intensive radiation therapy that severely affected his voice. To cover medical expenses he began staging small-scale concerts at the studio he had constructed on his Woodstock, New York, property during the 1970s. Known as the Midnight Rambles, the events attracted dedicated roots-music listeners, and Helm’s ensemble, centered on guitarist Larry Campbell and his daughter Amy Helm on vocals and multiple instruments, regularly welcomed guest performers ranging from Phil Lesh to Donald Fagen to Elvis Costello. The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Vol. 1 and The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Vol. 2, both issued in 2006, presented excerpts from these shows. Dirt Farmer arrived the following year, Helm’s first solo album in twenty-five years; the largely acoustic collection, rooted in Appalachian folk, country, and blues, demonstrated that he had largely recovered his vocal strength and instrumental command. The record earned the Grammy for Traditional Folk Album, although Helm skipped the ceremony to perform at his own studio instead. Electric Dirt, emphasizing an electric ensemble and an energetic yet roots-oriented approach, followed in 2009. The documentary Ain’t in It for My Health: A Film About Levon Helm premiered to strong critical response in 2010. Helm began touring the Midnight Ramble format, and Ramble at the Ryman, drawn from his 2008 appearance at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, was issued on CD and DVD in 2011. In spring of the next year his family disclosed that he had reached the final stages of cancer; he died on April 19, 2012. The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Vol. 3 appeared that December. In May 2022 Anti- Records issued Carry Me Home, an archival document of a June 2011 Midnight Ramble performance uniting Helm and his band with gospel and R&B icon Mavis Staples and her ensemble.