A short tear or two by Doug Draper
“I pulled into Nazareth, was feeling ‘bout half past dead, I just need some place where I can lay my head.” – from the song ‘The Weight’ by The Band.
For those of you whose unique voice sang those lyrice, you know where I am going already with this one, don’t you. I am going to the death of Levon Helm, who was so much of the heart and soul of ‘The Band’, one of the most legendary groups of the rock era of the past 50 years.
Levon Helm, enjoying what he liked to do best.
Levon Helm, the only American (and, by all accounts, a proud southern American) of a group, including lead songwriter and guitarist Robbie Robertson, died this April 19 at 71 following a long and courageous battle with cancer.
I have more than a few regrets in my life, and one of them was not getting down to Woodstock, New York, along the Hudson River, a few years back to enjoy Levon and his band (a group of musicians long after The Band) performing, as they did virtually every week on a Thursday or whatever the night was. I had heard that it was a wonderful show and I actually called down there to find out more about it. As it turned out, I got Levon’s wife Sandy was on the phone, and I still remember her saying being nice enough to call me “sweetie” which is one of those very nice things Americans sometimes do when they like having a conversation with you is call you a sweetie.
In this particular case, Sandy told me that Levon “loves his Canadian fans” and would love to have my wife and I down. She went on to say that we might say hi to her, if not Levon, if we made it. Unfortunately, we never made it, and their will be no more times down their to hear him play and sing ‘The Weight’, ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’, ‘Up On Cripple Creek’, and so many other of those songs he made famous with a group that earlier served as a backup group for Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan.
At any rate, what a sweety Sandy was and, by all accounts, everything I have heard and read about Levon Helm, he was also the same sort of sweet and friendly guy.
We have lost a good soul and one of the great ones in music. So say a prayer for Levon Helm and his family. Play ‘The Weight’, if you have it on vinyl or CD or can grab it digitally, and be reminded what a great drummer and voice has left us here.
(Share any views or any memories you may have of Levon Helm and the band below.)
Niagara At Large 
Indeed Doug. Just to show how much older I am fron you, my husband of some 47 years now, watched the Hawks at the Brass Rail ( a real dive) in London (we were students at UWO) many times, before they broke away from The Hawk. They were slick, in sleazy suits, but just wonderful. The last time we saw them ‘live’ was in Toronto, Yorkville, as they started their own band after breaking away from Ronnie Hawkins —in— a tavern. We were about to be married, and just thought of them as ‘those guys’ that used to have a beer with my spouse John, between sets, in London, as I sat there, somewhat entranced. They were a long way from The Band, but their music has infused my life.
I think I was kinda in love with Richard Manuel, so his death, years after The Last Waltz, was rather devastating. The end of a creative group
Only Robbie and Garth left, but what an impact they had on Rock and Roll, and Folk Music. Bless them all, even little Levon.
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Lovely remembrance, Doug, my old friend. I bought Music From Big Pink in Grade 8 when I was 12 or 13 and it just entirely yanked me by the neck. Years later, as a rock critic, I saw The Band (post-Robbie) and met the late Rick Danko before a show at the Horseshoe Tavern, circa 1988. Rick, to me, was the bruised, brilliant soul of the group, whose voice was the ‘walking wounded’ of the Woodstock Generation. ‘It Makes No Difference’ (listen to The Last Waltz version; it’s on Youtube) is the apex of everything they stood for — gorgeous musicianship and a poetic obsession with loss and longing, and that was always The Band’s trump card — loss. It’s hard to gauge how much they changed popular music in pure musical terms. They were precursors AND loving archivists, of so many genres — ‘Americana’, roots rock, country and western, honky tonk, and, most lastingly, a backporch ‘jam ethos’ that gave an authentic Appalachian shade to the hippie era. It’s a sound you can trace today in countless bands, from The Black Keys to the great Hayes Carll. More than that, The Band stood for a swooning, weird vision of America, forged from the bleak, divisive aftermath of the Civil War (“Virgil Kane was my name …”), crushing in its sentimentality but fortified with a spirit of ‘carrying on.’ Past is prologue, and all that. This last quality is where Levon, the group’s only American, came in. His voice sounded like a hickory wind from the old, antebellum South, and his drumming was beat-on yet subtly revolutionary. Sorry to maunder, but I am sad tonight. Sad to know they will never be a Band again, and sad to know that such a huge part of my youth is gone. Thanks for writing about them, Doug. R.I.P. Levon. You will be missed, Craig MacInnis
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Rockabilly, Ronnie Hawkins , the Band we took it all for granted, such great times such awesome groups our lost youth, we all enjoyed it and like our memories, fading into the rich ,rich musical past,they left us a little of themselves behind in their wonderful music, some place in heaven they will be playing joyful sounds.
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I cannot resist another comment. I could not remember, other than Levon, who it was that John had set-break beers with, thinking it might have been Garth Hudson (who played a Hammond Organ in the Brass Rail) yes he did. Hudson was a magnificent keyboard player.
J. tells me it was Robbie Robertson, as Levon and Robertson were the gregarious ones, and the others kinda took their breaks in the back, away from the crowd. Ah, such memories.
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