Levon Helm dead; The Band drummer was 71
Levon Helm performs with the Levon Helm band during the Heroes of Woodstock concert at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in Bethel. Helm, who was in the final stages of his battle with cancer, died April 19, 2012, in New York. He was 71. He was a key member of The Band and lent his distinctive Southern voice to classics like "The Weight" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." (Aug. 14, 2009) Credit: AP
Woodstock resident Levon Helm, a Grammy-winning rock and folk musician best known for his work with The Band, has died after a battle with throat cancer. He was 71.
On Tuesday, a message on his website said he was in the final stages of cancer. He succumbed to the illness Thursday.
Helm and his bandmates — Canadians Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Robbie Robertson and Richard Manuel — were musical virtuosos who returned to the roots of American music in the late 1960s as other rockers veered into psychedelia, heavy metal and jams. The group's 1968 debut, "Music From the Big Pink," and its follow-up, "The Band," remain landmark albums of the era, and songs such as "The Weight," ''Dixie Down" and "Cripple Creek" have become rock standards.
Helm drummed and sang with The Band at the legendary Woodstock Arts and Music Festival in 1969, but the town also became his home. Beset by debt, in 2004 he began a series of free-wheeling late night shows in his barn in Woodstock that were patterned after medicine shows from his youth. The Levon Helm Band — featuring Helm, his daughter, Amy, and fellow veteran musicians — headlined these Midnight Ramble concerts, which encouraged “everyone to bring food or a side dish for our community table for all to share.”
Los Lobos guested at the last Midnight Ramble show on March 31, and Helm was slated to have Jay Collins and the Kings County Band, Nick Lowe, and Graham Parker sit in for late-April shows.
Helm performed frequently throughout the Hudson Valley. He had scheduled a May 25 performance at the Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston, and wowed crowds routinely at Tarrytown Music Hall, most recently during two shows on March 23 and 24.
Björn Olsson, executive director at Tarrytown Music Hall, says other than “looking a little frail,” Helm “rocked both shows, full-out.”
“All of his shows here were some of the best we’ve ever seen,” Olsson said.
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