Posts Tagged: levon helm
No Other Reason to Post this…
…then it’s a gem. They all are, but usually I have a better rationale.
This version of Deuce and a Quarter song has everything: It’s a great song (written by Kevin Gordon and Gwil Owen), is accompanied by great photos and is performed by Scotty Moore, Levon Helm, DJ Fontana, Keith Richards, Marshall Crenshaw, Rick Danko and Garth Hudson.
Deuce and a quarter, according to the Urban Dictionary, is slang for a Buick Electra 225.
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Excellent Piece on Levon Helm
My friend Steve Karras–who also was a great friend to my father–has written a terrific piece about the full circle that was the life of Levon Helm. Here is a snippet:
Indeed Helm, who died on April 19th, lived to tell a story, though it reads more like a parable: the cotton farmer’s son who lit out of Arkansas to play rock n’ roll, whose storied climb to fame-and fortune was followed by an equally dramatic descent into heartache and uncertainty after a series of bad choices and betrayal.
Please check it out at Web2Carz.
Above is the great and rather odd lineup of Helm, Rick Danko, Dr John, Ringo, Billy Preston and Clarence Clemmons performing The Weight. The comments say it is Ringo’s first all-star touring band. It must have been a blast.
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Levon Helm’s Midnight Rambles Continue
Here is a great piece at Huffington Post by Joanna Colangelo about the fate — and a happy one it is — of Levon Helm’s Midnight Rambles. Helm, who passed away earlier this year, held the informal “Rambles,” or concerts, in his barn in upstate New York for years.
Any excuse is a good one for posting Levon Helm music. Click on the link below to hear The RCO All Stars play Going Back to Memphis in 1977.
Listen to more Levon Helm and The RCO All Stars at Wolfgang’s Vault.
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Steely Dan: My Old School
This great version of the song is especially energized, perhaps because it was recorded in a small venue in Clarkston, MI.
Here are FM, Pearl of the Quarter, Daddy Don’t Live in that New York City No More and Cousin Dupree. The latter two are among the great lyrics in the history of rock and roll. Two other great Donald Fagen tunes are New Frontier and the title track from The Nightfly, his terrific 1982 album.
If I am reading this correctly, Fagen is married to the mother of the late Levon Helm’s daughter. This page at Fagen’s site was written after Helm died. Steely Dan’s site appears to not have been updated recently. Here is Walter Becker’s site.
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John Fogerty: Blueboy
The song above is from the Blue Moon Swamp, which was released in 1997.
Fogerty helped popularize The Midnight Special by Leadbelly. Here is his take on Jambalaya (On the Bayou). The shaky camera settles down nicely. He performed Green River and Fortunate Son on The David Letterman Show and, at the 1993 Rock and Roll Inductions, did Who’ll Stop the Rain with Robbie Robertson and Bruce Springsteen.
On April 20, he appeared with the The Black Keys and sang The Weight in honor of Levon Helm. Here is a rehearsal of that performance from Fogerty’s site. Here is a discography from VH1.
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Music News, Reviews and Commentary for April 20
Here is what’s happening today, updated as often as possible: Hard to disagree with the headline of this piece in The Atlantic magazine: Levon Helm was Perfect…LA Times offers a feature on Gabriela Lena Frank, who combines Latin American folk and modernism…YouTube has German trouble…”Music Man Murray” owns a great name and hundreds of thousands of records…ASCAP honors Carly Simon, Trent Reznor and Peter Frampton…A review of The Essential Donovan…The hacker group Anonymous is getting into the streaming business with Anontune…Previously unreleased George Harrison recordings are going to be made available in stages, the first due on April 30…Merle Haggard addresses the state of country music at Corpus Christi’s Caller.com…Jason Crabb was named both artistist and male vocals of the year at the Dove Awards for Christian and gospel music. The show will be down on April 24 on GMC, formerly the Gospel Music Channel…A rundown of the many musical events set for the Philadelphia and southern New Jersey area this weekend…The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is set to perform Crane Palimpsest, the latest work from Gabriel Kahane…
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Levon Helm: Short Fat Fanny
Levon Helm: 1940-2012.
The clip above is followed by an interesting interview with Conan O’Brien.
Will the Circle Be Unbroken (at 2:30); Earl Scruggs, who passed away last month, also is in this video.
Here is a link to Helm’s website.
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Music News, Reviews and Commentary for April 19
Here is what’s happening today, updated as often as possible: Levon Helm, co-founder of The Band, dies at age 71…YouTube now offers 150,000 music tracks for video backgrounds…PerezHilton.com says that Cheryl Cole’s album is due June 7. The story has 102 words and seven exclamation points!!…The Roots, Jesus and Mary Chain, Built to Spill, Yo La Tengo, Liars and Sun O are among acts scheduled to appear at the Hopscotch Music Festival Sept. 6-8 in Raleigh, N.C…TheNational has a piece on a four-disc retrospective of Vanguard Records…It’s safe to say that there are not many harpists in pop, R&B and hip-hop, but NPR writes about one, Rashida Jolley…It’s becoming easier to present live music at small venues in the U.K…Facebook now will feature a listen button that connects to a streaming music service that automatically plays artists’ music…Here’s a feature on Esperanza Spaulding, the jazz artist who won last year’s Best New Artist Grammy…
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