On Saturday night, Ginny and I and our friends Cathy, Tim, Greg, Susan, Jo and Dave took a limo (!) up to Woodstock to see the legendary Levon Helm perform at his studio/home. In this warm, intimate atmosphere (the audience couldn’t have numbered more than 200), Helm and his wonderful band (among the players: Larry Campbell, Amy Helm, Jim Weider, Brian Mitchell, Teresa Williams and Jimmy Vivino) offer a performance based on old time medicine shows: a mixture of blues, country, bluegrass, gospel, New Orleans-style jazz, Texas swing and rock and roll. Helm has had throat cancer, and so sang little and talked not all, but he played the drums and the mandolin and when he did sing, it was
a pure pleasure to hear the 71 year-old trouper, hoarse as he was, throw himself into the roots music that has been his life-long love; indeed, the great pleasure of the evening was hearing all these virtuosic musicians throw themselves into these songs with such passion and enthusiasm and delight. Among the performances I most enjoyed: “The Shape I’m In,” “Ophelia,” “Bourgeoise Blues,” “God Never Changes,” a beautiful Spanish love song, and the closer, “The Weight.” The opening act, a young quintet from Knoxville called The Dirty Guv’nahs (boisterous, derivative, thrilled), came onstage and joined the band for this, and to hear seventeen musicians–the grandfatherly Helm and all his spiritual sons and daughters onstage–as well as the faithful in the audience, sing and play the great, mournful, enigmatic ballad was altogether like being in church. It was a singularly wonderful experience.
