Word: levon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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That the audience loved his music is easy to explain. The Band, probably the most talented American rock group, again proved its discipline, energy, and versatility. The group's lead and bass guitar playing, the keyboard work, and particularly the singing of Levon Helm were outstanding. In the evening concert, Dylan fit in easily with the group, coordinating his rhythm guitar with the Band better as the performance progressed. During their two solo sets, The Band played mostly old songs. "I Shall Be Released," which Dylan wrote, and Robbie Robertson's "The Weight" and "The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie...
...embarrasses The Band to have one member singled out over the others. Yet at one time or another it is hard not to pay particular attention to Garth Hudson's organ breaks as well as his fine horn playing, Richard Manuel's smooth piano and plaintive vocals, Levon Helm's drumming and his raunchy vocals, Rick Danko's intense bass guitar and Robbie's kinetic lead. Together they form a group that remains unique in a highly imitative field...
...last note of "Slippin" and Slidin it was as though The Band derived a peculiar pleasure from the very act of being on stage, playing their music. There was Richard Manuel, head turned away from the piano, eyes closed, his melodic voice drifting into the microphone. There was Levon Helm on drums, delivering the amazingly steady, but unobtrusive, beat that drives The Band. His eyes, too. were closed his head turned to the microphone. There was Rick Danko playing his archaic Fender Precision bass. But, oh, how he played it. And his voice, so important to The Band's sound...
Somewhat distrustfully, the members of The Band have acquired a few of the trappings of big success. Their new Woodstock houses, perched on hills outside the village. A new recording studio. Levon's zippy gold Corvette. Garth's stately black Mercedes. Before tasting that success themselves, they faced?vicariously through Bob Dylan?the kind of assault on time, privacy and spontaneity that fame and personal success can make on pop musicians...
...country. White music has always been very ricky-ticky, steppity-step, plunkety-plunk-banjo. You could always imagine a stiff collar behind it. Country music was played by white people, and blues was played by black people. And when it interchanged, it became something else, which is what Levon's father sings like. He sings blues with a twang, with that different accent, with a different bump on a different place. The new Rolling Stones album sounds like a bunch of blues-oriented cowboys, man, no doubt about...