Levon Helm: Electric Dirt

If The Band didn’t exist, we’d have to invent them. Roots, retro, Americana—these terms of genre so dominate Rock & Roll these days that is hard to remember when it was not so. We still owe The Band our continual rediscovery of old-timey music and applying these traditional forms in the exploration of the American story. Sadly, after The Band broke up in 1976, the legions of musicians they inspired lived up to the standards set by The Band more often than The Band members themselves did.

Until last year’s Grammy Award winning, Dirt Farmer by Levon Helm. Helm, a throat cancer survivor, working with the great Larry Campbell, a session musician, multi-instrumentalist and like Helm, Bob Dylan backing band alumni, made a record that—unquestionably and consistently—lived up to the standards of The Band. Miraculously, Helm was able to regain his voice—his drumming and mandolin playing had remained top of the line, but his uncanny interpretation of a song had sometimes under-performed since the demise of The Band. Campbell (and Mount Sinai’s oncology staff) got Levon to fire once again on all cylinders. Levon reminded us that he was indeed, at he center of what made The Band so influential. Electric Dirt is the follow-up to Dirt Farmer. It does not disappoint. Levon & Larry have done it again.

By now the story of The Band is well known. Originally formed as a back-up group by legendary rockabilly hero and popular music outsider, Ronnie Hawkins, they tried to make it on their own, playing South Jersey Shore bars before being enlisted as the touring band for the newly electrified Bob Dylan. After his motorcycle crash, they helped a recuperating Dylan midwife the invisible republic of the Basement Tapes. Then they named themselves The Band and made two records, Big Pink and the Brown Album—officially called The Band—both of which continue to astonish and are among the most influential collections of songs ever recorded.

The Band brought music back to its roots—basically the early Rock & Roll, Blues, Country and Gospel songs that were the nucleus of what became popular music post-Elvis. The Band shed light on a path away from what had become the self-indulgences of the psychedelic era. Eric Clapton, George Harrison, the Rolling Stones and several other contemporaries cite The Band as directly inspiring their own new musical directions.

Cream broke up, the White Album and Exile on Main street came out. Soon, we had Derek & The Dominoes. Soon, we had All Things Must Pass. Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia acknowledge that The Band inspired them to write some of their best songs, a period of excellence that includes American Beauty, Working Man’s Dead and Europe ‘72. John Fogarty, Allman Brothers, Hot Tuna are some of the others from that era, who followed The Band back to their roots. Bruce Springsteen and Bruce Hornsby a decade or more later acknowledge similar influences. I could list the others all blog long.

It wasn’t just the roots sound, though. These musicians certainly looked backward to songs by Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon and Hank Williams, but like The Band, they wrote original songs with more in-depth lyrics. They may not have achieved the poetry of Bob Dylan, but their story telling and themes became more complex. They tended to eschew transitory politics, when they addressed them it was usually indirectly, through a populist view of the downtrodden and working class they shared with John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac and Woody Guthrie. Instead of us-against-them anti-establishment, youthful screeds in say, The Doors or Jefferson Airplane, The Band, as many critics have pointed out, depicted America as a broken family in need of healing. The melding of roots-based songs about the trials and tribulations of the downtrodden has proven to be a poignant and long lasting strain of Rock & Roll.

The Band, unlike say John Fogarty, a like-minded, fellow traveler, never had the big hit. They never topped the charts, except for FM Classic Rock play lists. They were musician’s musicians. Many of the other records released by The Band—Cahoots, Stage Fright and their final proper studio album, Northern Lights, Southern Cross (in retrospect, perhaps their greatest record)—were studied by musicians, beloved by a handful of fans, and hailed by some critics. Like other rock groups, they released a live record that was basically a greatest hits album—Rock of Ages, which is distinguished by extraordinary horn arrangements in the long career of master-horns man, Allen Toussaint. Horn section fanatics believe Rock of Ages is a must-have. There was also an album of covers, Moondog Matinee, which is still one of the best cover albums by an established group. They showcased their considerable musical chops while paying delightful tribute to the songs they loved. Their version of “Mystery Train,” is that rare moment where righteous musicians make a great song their own while also giving the listener a deeper appreciation of the Elvis Sun Sessions original (I know he wasn’t the first, but get real, Elvis did the first definitive take). In 1976, after about ten years—only about eight of which they spent recording and touring—they retired with memorable gusto, turning their farewell into a classic rock concert documentary, The Last Waltz, with master auteur, Martin Scorsese, which has never been equaled.

Unfortunately, the three decades that have succeeded the Last Waltz have had more controversy and tragedy than memorable music. The animosity between Robbie Robertson, guitarist extraordinaire, and Levon Helm is undying. It comes down to songwriting credit and publishing royalties. Robertson took sole credit for the majority of originals by The Band. Helm claims that he and the other band members actually co-wrote the songs with Robertson, and by taking sole credit, Robertson ripped them off for millions. Robertson’s response has basically been, his former band-mates certainly helped with the arrangements—but not the songwriting—and there are little to no publishing royalties for arrangements. Legally, this dispute may be more complicated, getting into publishing companies and such, but that seems to be core of what has become known as “The Feud.”

The Band reformed without Robertson, made a great record, Jericho, and two forgettable ones, and in spite of a good try, could only inspire nostalgia for when their music mattered. Richard Manuel killed himself, Rick Danko, whose first solo record is an under-appreciated gem, died in his sleep, after years of heroin addiction and struggles with obesity. Helm wrote a scathing autobiography, This Wheel’s on Fire, which must have some truth since Robertson didn’t file a libel suit (to be fair, Helm hasn’t filed suit to recoup songwriting royalties either). Lifetime Achievement Award by the Grammies, Induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame—Helm refused to attend any event that included Robertson, which succeeded in making both of them look arrogant and petty. As fans we still have the music, but good lord, the legacy has been a sordid, sad mess.

The question at stake during this clash of egos is, who was the “leader” of The Band, who was the most responsible for those great songs? Last year, when Dirt Farmer got so much praise and a Grammy, an op-ed piece appeared by Robertson’s daughter. She criticized Levon’s accusation against her father and she stated a simple, compelling argument—if Levon co-wrote The Band songs as he claims, why was Dirt Farmer a record of covers?

On Electric Dirt, Levon answers her with “Growing Trade,” a song he co-wrote with Larry Campbell that sounds as “Band” as any song from the hey-day to the present day. It is The Band for our times. We’re in familiar Band territory—a down on his luck farmer trying to eek out a living by growing marijuana. The odds are increasingly stacked against him and his response turns some accepted truths on their head. Like the classic “King Harvest,” also about a farmer, that criticizes agrarian unionization, “Growing Trade” sweeps away any glorification of Pot. “I’ve worked hard for a living,” says the old farmer, who was taught as child that “Harvest time was what God made us for.” But now, to make ends meet, he has to “Grow something made to burn,” combating both the poachers, walking amongst the crops with his “Shotgun on my shoulder,” thinking he sees copters in the horizon and knowing that the “law is getting closer.” This song is replete with the feel of The Band, a Band melody, a Band point of view—a good man trying to hold onto his life without sacrificing too many of his ideals—and a Band arrangement—that texture of guitars, accordion, an electric and acoustic mix. Even though there are a few—okay, very few—okay, very, very few of the post-band songs on his very inconsistent solo records by Robertson that comes close to being of the same Band standards, there’s no doubt about this “Growing Trade”. This is as close to being The Band since The Band. It may be as much to do with Levon as with Larry Campbell, whose musical sensibilities seem straight out of Big Pink.

The other great “Band” ish cut is Levon’s remarkable astute take on the Garcia/Hunter song, “Tennessee Jed.” Levon turns up the drawl on his yowl for this one, but the arrangement adds horns, refreshing this old chestnut with horns similar to those great horn arrangements Toussaint provided for “Rock of Ages.” Go back to that record and listen to those amazing horns—sour at the edges, overflowing with French Quarter forlorn soul—particularly poignant on that version of “The Night They Drove Ole Dixie Down.” “Tennessee Jed,” the opening cut, is a Grateful Dead classic, from of Europe ’72, is a Big Pink/Brown Album-inspired Hunter/Garcia invisible republic ditty. One of Hunter’s witty lyrics and rhymes—his tongue-in-cheek sense of humor is rarely noted—“ Rich man step on my poor head/When you get up you better butter my bread”. Things are not going well for Jed, who is told, “You know you bound to wind up dead, if you don't head back to Tennessee, Jed.” In the Dead’s version, Jed seems like a pathetic character, a redneck, and Garcia’s vocal conveys the uselessness of the plea—things will not be better in Tennessee. Levon, who like Garcia, relishes the absurdist comedy of the lyrics, but gives more empathy to Jed—the drawl-tinged yowl of Arkansas native Helm helps. The travails become a comic country yarn, but unlike the Dead’s version—where the yearning to return home to a place like Tennessee is as hopeless as Jed himself—Levon makes us believe that salvation is possible for poor, put-upon Jed if indeed, he gets to Tennessee.

Adding horns to classic Dead is one of the many deft musical choices Levon makes. On one hand, he plays a very straight forward, bluesy electric version of a Staples Singers song, “Got to Move it On Train,” a fantastic train song where the train symbolizes fate and the final judgment. The two Muddy Waters numbers, “Stuff You Gotta Watch,” and “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had,” have acoustic arrangements, with an accordion filling in for Little Walter and a Mandolin playing the electric guitar blues riffs, both reinventing the songs and enhancing their emotional depth. “White Dove,” a Stanley Brothers Classic, has that herky jerky severe bluegrass of Ralph Stanley—it’s one of his morbid, metaphor diatribes, where the singer reflects on the meaning of the white dove he spies on a farm, where “mother and father are dead.” Campbell’s violin amps up the mountain music feel, but Levon, a great drummer and certainly the greatest singer who can drum while singing, no easy feat, uses the percussion much like a banjo. A subtle, and compelling musical take on this bluegrass number, with the percussion accenting the vocals—the bluegrass role of the banjo is replaced by the drums and the song is basically fiddle and drums—they are so in-synch you don’t notice the rare pairing until the third or fourth listen, what a marvelous idea—drumming—not a drum solo—can be as emotional as a mountain song banjo plucking.

“Kingfish,” a Randy Newman song about legendry Louisiana politician, Huey P. Long, horns are again employed (the arrangement is credited to The Levon Helm Band and Allen Toussaint). On the chorus, Levon seems to channel Cab Calloway, the drums and horn section invoke New Orleans jazz, and this sardonic song becomes a bittersweet homage to the flamboyant and famed populist and an accurate depiction of historical events. In short, a “Band” song.

“When I go Away,” a Larry Campbell original, is a R&B, Gospel-flavored song about Salvation. The narrator contemplates death as salvation, when he’s “going home, and leave my worries in the grave yard, and I’ll be bound for Glory in the Morning/When I go away.” The song concludes with a stirring ensemble of voices, with Levon trading lyrics with the two female voices and a deep baritone by Jay Collins, who also plays sax on several of the cuts. The collection is rounded off by a ballad by Amy Helm—who provides excellent back up singing, her voice blending superbly with her dad’s—song (co-written with members from her band), “Heaven’s Pearls,” that proclaims that the “trials of the world/are our own heaven’s pearls,” and exhorts us to “hold them dear and never be ashamed.” The sincere message is to turn sorrow into strength, an idea inherent in Christian Theology and the best Rock & Roll.

The theme running throughout the performances and the selections of songs in this CD is redemption. That theme is sometimes subtle, the “Growing Trade” farmer finds redemption in making the tough choice of an illegal crop or Jed yearning for redemption in his beloved home; redemption is explicit in “When I Go Away,” which anticipates paradise and “Heaven’s Pearls,” where redemption is achieved by the acceptance of the suffering that life inevitably brings. Levon has indeed, been through the trials of the world, going from the heights of being in one of the most esteemed Rock & Roll groups during the music’s Silver Age, to enduring deaths of his friends and Band-mates and winding up playing gigs in his barn. But he survived throat cancer and has revived his considerable gifts as a singer and musician. He is surrounded by family and new friends, most of whom are Band-inspired musicians. With Dirt Farmer, he reclaimed the mantle of The Band as his own, but he has also freed that legacy. The Band introduced roots and Americana and a lot of musicians, bands and songwriters followed. Electric Dirt reminds us The Band sound itself—not just as a watershed musical moment—that sound is now part of the Americana from which it was first derived. Lingering resentment over songwriting royalties, well maybe like Virgil Kane, Levon is not one to give up on a cause just because it is lost. But he has discarded the chip on his shoulder. Redemption and the music are now one.