R.I.P. Levon Helm: They Should Never Have Taken the Very Best

Hearing of the death of the great Levon Helm today, all I could think about was my favorite verse from The Band's “The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down”:

Now I don’t mind choppin’ wood
And I don’t care if the money’s no good
You take what you need
And you leave the rest
But they should never
Have taken the very best

Levon autographed my Miller High Life hat
back in the 1980s

I had the good fortune to meet Mr. Helm at the University of Connecticut when the Levon Helm Band played the field house in the 1980s. 


I was just 18, proud and brave, and served on the school's concert committee. After the show, Levon took the time to shake my hand and autograph the free Miller High Life hats they were giving away.

I was familiar with the Band’s big hits at the time but their haunting, wholly original sound hadn’t penetrated my soul the way it would a few years later, with their first two records, The Last Waltz film and soundtrack and the Basement Tapes they recorded with Bob Dylan at Big Pink.

Helm was a triple threat:  one of the best drummers in rock, with tiny sticks but a fierce, precise attack. He also played mandolin, perhaps most memorably on "Rag Mama Rag" from The Band's eponymous second album. 

And of course there were those vocals. Levon somehow could conjure up the entire history of this great land of ours just by singin' a tune. 

Though The Band basically invented the sound known as Americana, a fiery gumbo of blues, cajun, country, gospel and old time rock & roll, Arkansas native Helm was the only American in the group. (The four others were Canadian.). Their chemistry and the even distribution of talent within the group was one of a kind, as evidenced by this live-in-the-studio take of "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)":

Despite a decade-long battle with cancer and a temporary loss of his voice, Levon kept on playing right to the end, hosting his now-legendary Midnight Rambles at his barn in Woodstock, NY, where local and world-class musicians would drop by to play for the sake of playing. 


He also released two acclaimed records in recent years, Electric Dirt and Dirt Farmer and which contains a great tune called "Poor Old Dirt Farmer," which conjures up all the things that made Levon so magical.

R.I.P. Levon. Take a load off and put the load right on us.

Get your Levon on iTunes:

The Band

Levon Helm