Levon Helm: The 2007 Fresh Air Interview

Levon Helm, the longtime drummer of The Band who backed Bob Dylan and sang with Van Morrison, died Thursday after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 71. When The Band was backing Dylan in 1965, Time magazine described the combination as "in some ways the most decisive moment in rock history." The Band went on to record its own highly influential albums Music From Big Pink and The Band in 1968 and '69, before splitting up in the mid-'70s. After The Band, Helm began working on his own solo efforts and toured with a variety of musicians, including Ringo Starr. After taking time off to battle throat and vocal-cord cancer, Helm reemerged in the late 2000s. In 2007, he released the album Dirt Farmer, which received the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album, as well as many accolades from music critics. The Washington Post called Dirt Farmer "an exquisitely unvarnished monument to Americana from a man whose keening, lyrical vocals have become synonymous with it." After Dirt Farmer, Helm performed solo and with other musicians, and also continued to dabble in acting. (He'd played Loretta Lynn's father in the biopic Coal Miner's Daughter and had a part in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.) Helm also began presiding over monthly concerts in a barn on his Woodstock, N.Y., property, which he called "Midnight Rambles." The first featured a performance from blues legend Johnnie Johnson, and later brought out musicians such as Emmylou Harris, Allen Toussaint and Elvis Costello. Helm appeared on Fresh Air twice, first in 1993 and then again in 2007. link: http://www.npr.org/2012/04/20/150886425/levon-helm-the-2007-fresh-air-interview