Levon Helm

Sad to hear. What drummer in the musical world today can one even begin to compare to Levon? Impossible. Unique, creative and one of a kind.
 
As long as we still listen to his body of work.....he'll always be alive.RIP Levon,you inspired all those who actually listened.

Steve B
 
As long as we still listen to his body of work.....he'll always be alive.RIP Levon,you inspired all those who actually listened.

Steve B

For sure mate. Just finished watching The Last Waltz, in tribute.

Always sad, but we've all got that one comin'. But I sure am thankful he lived.
 
This might seem odd.

I know him, but never REALLY listened.

So I should pick "dirt Farmer," "the basement tapes," and what else?

I tend to learn about things AFTER the fact, such as here.

Any suggestions? I should point out I ma pretty familiar with the Band stuff, but that is about it. I always wondered what else to lsiten to.

I did feel he seemed so natural behind the drums, and had good tone.
 
Just ran across this article and thought some folks on here might also have missed it and would appreciate:


Writing about music is a notoriously difficult task, but writing about drummers presents its own set of challenges. For starters, melody and harmony are off the table, and the physical entity of the drum kit is so daunting that it discourages description out of hand. I can rave about how exquisitely Al Jackson, Jr. lays back on two and four, wonder aloud how Charlie Watts can groove so hard when he doesn't actually keep time all that well, but what I'm really talking about is something vague and imprecise, something deeply metaphorical like feel. The best drummers have a mysticism that clings to them; when Yeats famously asked "How can we know the dancer from the dance?" this might have been what he was getting at. Yeats, it should be said, never heard Levon Helm.
 
Just read this great bit from Keith Jarrett about how he and Jack DeJohnette felt about Levon, and it was so unexpected and sweet, I thought others might also like:

[T]here are times when we’re playing things like “God Bless the Child” and he looks over at me because he knows that he’s just found the groove. Jack and I have this thing about Levon Helm’s playing in The Band and whenever that’s happening, we both know it.
 
Just read this description from Elvis Costello of what it was like to play with Levon and his amazing, absolutely unique feel:

Levon eventually made his way behind the drum kit and led us in a terrific version of The Band’s “Don’t Ya Tell Henry.”

The wit of his playing was never more apparent than when he’d start hitting accents on odd beats until the groove was so loose that it seemed the wheels might fall off. I once tried to describe how he’d set things in motion again by saying he was “like a tap dancer in the corner of a rapidly flooding room.”

I can’t do better than that now.

Singing “Tears of Rage” that night was a supernatural experience. Logic told you that Levon was placing everything just where it was supposed to be, but there seemed to be all the time in the world between every backbeat, and it set you free.
 
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