This Wheel's on Fire

by Levon Helm

  Levon: “When Keith heard Scotty was here, he filled up a car with his dad and some friends, came right over and we all had a hell of a good time—full of spirit and a lot of laughing, playing, and partying all night. Both Keith and I stayed on our feet pretty good so we could get those vocals just right. Scotty Moore had been Keith’s original inspiration to play the guitar, and I know it meant a lot to Keith to work with him. For me, just having D. J. Fontana play in my barn was a privilege. He still played that wide-open, barrelhouse, stripper style of drums I saw him play behind Elvis back home in Arkansas more than forty years earlier. I mean, you almost could see those girls dancing when he played. D. J. also had kidney problems at the time. On the second night he was working with a catheter and a bag in his pocket, playing his tail off! Whew, I thought, that’s a damn soldier!”

  The Band released its final album, Jubilation, in 1998. It was a coda to the group’s career and a fond farewell, with old friends and collaborators sitting in. Rick Danko’s wonderful singing voice, weathered and extremely poignant in middle age, opened the record with “Book Faded Brown.” Along with George Harrison, Eric Clapton had been one of The Band’s original champions: he’d even disbanded his group Cream in 1968 after first hearing Music from Big Pink. For Jubilation, recorded mostly in Levon’s barn, Eric contributed a tasty guitar solo to Bobby Charles’s “Last Train to Memphis.” Songwriter John Hiatt helped sing on his own “Bound by Love,” and Allen Toussaint’s “You See Me” got a new version that did the song proud. Garth Hudson’s instrumental “French Girls” ended the record on a grace note of regret-free nostalgia, an autumnal memory piece that recalled the beauty of youth in a conversation by two old friends enjoying the afternoon in a café.

  After Jubilation, The Band called it a day. Its six musicians all had individual promises to keep, and they knew that after three decades they had driven the group’s career as far as it could go as an American legend. “We’ve always been band builders,” Levon says, “and now it felt like time to build ourselves something new, see how far it might be possible to take it.”

  * * *

  “My voice got real hoarse after we played the Helena Blues Festival in 1996,” Levon recalls. “I couldn’t sing through it, and couldn’t get over it. You can hear my voice closing down on Jubilation.

  “Well, our road manager Butch Dener got me to a doctor around here and the diagnosis—cancer in my vocal chords—wasn’t a real big surprise. I was even expecting it to some extent. At first my family and friends went into shock, closed down a little, which I’m told often happens when you get that kind of bad news. The surgeon was sharpening his scalpel, because he wanted to cut. I started to hear the rumors floating around Woodstock that I was headed for the last roundup.

  “Butch and his Aunt Ruby got me down to the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute in New York City for a second opinion on the diagnosis, and I met a couple of cancer specialists, Dr. Pfister and Dr. Kraus. They told me we could get organized and try to beat this thing back. They gave me the first rays of hope I’d seen in a while. This is when my beautiful daughter, Amy Helm, stepped up to the plate and went to bat for me.

  “Amy’s love and devotion in this period probably saved my life. She basically took over the case. She started driving me to Manhattan every week for radiation therapy; real intense sessions that gradually burned the cancer right out of there. I kept thanking her for her efforts, and Amy would tell me (not in so many words) that she just didn’t want to have any regrets when they were throwing dirt in old Pop’s face. She made me realize how lucky I was to have my own flesh and blood to sit through this with me. When I lost faith, she reminded me that I was a dead son of a pup if I didn’t go through with this. Amy, bless her heart, was able to stand up in the foxhole with me, and I’m still here to tell you the story because of her.

  “For me, the great thing was being able to fight back. That’s the encouraging thing about cancer treatment now: if you get that terrible reading in your life one day, you can fight back. My whole appreciation of just being alive in the world became a very precious thing. On hot summer days I’d walk into a big dark grove of evergreen trees near the creek behind my house, and just breathe in that pine oxygen and hemlock scent, trying to clear fifty years of smoking cigarettes out of my system—one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had. Boy, that was rough! I’d wash my face off in the cool black creek water when it got too hot, and tried to use the aromas and healing air of the forest to help my body and spirit recover. Eventually, between the forest and my prayers (no atheists in this foxhole, Bubba!) and the long drives to the radiation clinic, I started to get better.

  “Amy even let me drive the damn car after a while.

  “The hardest thing for me to get over is the lingering hoarseness. I don’t really miss not being able to sing, especially since Amy is singing with me now. I just can’t talk quite as loud as I used to, which makes telling jokes and laughing a little more work than I’d like it to be.”

  * * *

  “After the radiation, we went down to New Orleans and opened a club on Decatur Street in the French Quarter. ‘Levon Helm’s Classic American Café’ only lasted about four months because the son of a bitch that put up the money lost his nerve, but during that time I got to play with old friends like James Cotton, Allen Toussaint, and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Amy came down and started singing with me, and we teamed up with some young kids that we started building into a new band we called Levon Helm and the Barn Burners. These youngsters are all Delta blues fanatics, they like the same kind of music that I like, and they helped remind me that live music has got a lot of good medicine in it, for the players as well as for the listeners. The club turned out to be some kind of real estate scam and never had time to be a failure. When it closed, we all came back to Woodstock and started playing together again, trying to take it to the next step and build it into something other people could enjoy as much as we did.

  “Rick Danko, meanwhile, was working too hard. He’d had financial difficulties, lost his house, had gained a lot of weight, and wasn’t feeling too well. He’d recorded a typically good-natured new album called Live at Breeze Hill, updated renditions of Band songs with a group that included Garth, and in the fall of 1999 had gone out on the road again to promote it. He was in Chicago the last time I spoke with him. He was on his way back to Woodstock and we were going into the studio with a little recording budget to do some songs together. I was gonna play drums for him, help him put the rhythm section together.

  “Rick got home [on December 9, his fifty-sixth birthday], and went to bed on Thursday night. Friday morning he didn’t wake up. Everybody else woke up but Rick.

  “The only good thing about his dying was that Rick got to die in his own bed. He didn’t get killed, a bunch of shit like that. Nobody got to say, ‘Well, the drugs did him in,’ or ‘The bottle done him down,’ or ‘If he just wouldn’t have played with that gun, dammit.’ You know what I mean? Old Rick died at home.

  “But the hell of it is, Rick still died with his money in their goddamned pockets. That’s the hell of it. If Rick’s money wasn’t in their pockets, I don’t think Rick would have died because Rick worked himself to death. Rick liked to live with his family the way they liked to live, and to live that way he had to work all the time.

  “I know he’s in a better place and all that bullshit. My beef is that he didn’t have to be there yet—not at only fifty-six years old. Rick worked too hard. He wasn’t that old and he wasn’t that sick. He just worked himself to death. And the reason Rick had to work all the time was because he’d been fucked out of his money.

  “People ask me about The Last Waltz all the time. Rick Danko dying at fifty-six is what I think about The Last Waltz. It was the biggest fuckin’ rip-off that ever happened to The Band—without a doubt.

  “We held a big funeral for Rick, a hell of a thing. The Traums played, John Sebastian, other friends. I sat there with my daughter, kind of stunned, not really believ
ing it was happening or that I was there. Robertson came from California; he didn’t want to be here, but knew he had to be. He got up and spouted off a lot of self-serving tripe about how great Rick had sung the songs that he—Robertson—had written. It made me sick to hear. Then he worked the press a little, like a good Hollywood boy, and went back to Los Angeles.

  “He knows he’s got Rick Danko’s money in his pocket. He knows that.

  “I played that night with the Barn Burners. We’d had a date scheduled and went ahead with it. I told the band that, hell, Rick would’ve played if it was him instead of me. It was the best thing I could’ve done. I felt better than I’d felt all day.”

  * * *

  “We call the group ‘Levon Helm and the Barn Burners Blues Band Featuring Amy Helm.’ We have Frankie Ingrao on bass, Pat O’Shea on guitar, and Chris O’Leary on harmonica and vocals. Amy also sings, and I’ve been whipping the drums. Lately Brother Garth Hudson’s been showing up and playing keyboards—as good as I’ve heard him play, ever. We’re all blues fanatics, which suits me just fine. We start out a set with some Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy, Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Parker. Then Amy comes out and turns it up a couple of notches, and we do five or six songs with her. That’s the basic show. Then we towel off a little, grab a Coke, put on dry shirts, and come back and play a little dance set. Amy and Chris do a couple girl/boy songs, and it just sounds real good and people seem to enjoy us.

  “That’s what we do. Working with these youngsters has been turning me and Brother Garth on real good. It’s called building a band, continuing the age-old tradition of the musician. I wish I could really describe for you what it feels like, playing the blues again with Garth, my own daughter in the band.

  “Next time you find yourself in the Catskills on a Wednesday night, come on over and hear the Barn Burners. I’d like to know what you think. Because I’m still here to tell you this: it’s the most fun I’ve had so far.”

  S.D.

  Spring 2000

  ©2000 Levon Helm and Stephen Davis

  Levon and Amy Helm © George J. Lemesis

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND SOURCES

  The authors wish to extend special thanks to Rick Danko and Garth Hudson.

  Also to the late J. D. Helm, Modena Cagle, Mary Cavette, Paul and Mary Berry, Edward Carter, C. W. Gatlin, Sam Tillman, Ben Story, and Jim Howe of KFFA, Helena, Arkansas.

  Also to Bill Avis and Ronnie Hawkins.

  Also to Jane Manuel, John Simon, and the family of the late Stan Szelest.

  Also to Richard Bell, Randy Ciarlante, and Jim Weider.

  Also to Joe Forno, Jr., without whom...

  Also to the memory of Ralph Shultis, and to his grandson, Paul Shultis, Jr., who has continued the finest tradition of building homes in the Catskills.

  Also to Elliott Landy.

  This book was researched in Phillips County, Arkansas, and Ulster County, New York, between 1990 and 1993. David Fishof and David Vigliano helped fire it up. Jim Landis thought it was a good thing. Judy Moore and Henry Pinkham gave it shelter from Catskill summer thunderstorms. Chris Davis maintained editorial standards. The David Bieber Archive of Boston, Massachusetts, provided rare documents and recordings, as did James Isaacs and Andy Robinson. James Henke made available Rolling Stone magazine’s extensive file on The Band.

  Special thanks to Paul Bresnick, Ben Ratliff, Philip Bashe, and all our friends at William Morrow and Company for helping our story make the harrowing transition from manuscript to print.

  Love to Sandy Helm and Judith Arons.

  Special mention: for friendship above and beyond—Don Tyson, Duck and June Dunn, Ace Kutsuna, Hayden McIlroy, Jake and Arlene Christofora, Judge and Mrs. Joseph Forno, Sr., and Leon “Butch” Dener. Mojo navigation: Joel Zoss.

  Also to Tommy Lee Jones, Brad Dourif, and Jane Fonda for opportunities I could only dream about as a kid.

  The authors of the following texts, from which quotations not already cited in the text are taken.

  Alfred G. Aronowitz, “Friends and Neighbors Just Call Us The Band,” Rolling Stone (August 24, 1968).

  Joshua Baer, “The Robbie Robertson Interview,” Musician (May 1982).

  Rob Bowman, “Life Is a Carnival,” Goldmine (July 26, 1991).

  Dix Bruce, “Levon Helm,” Mandolin World News (Summer 1983).

  Jay Cocks, “Down to Old Dixie and Back,” Time (January 12, 1970).

  Sara Davidson, “The Band in Suits and Ties,” The Boston Sunday Globe, June 1969.

  Bill Flanagan, “The Return of Robbie Robertson,” Musician (October 1987).

  Robyn Flans, “Levon Helm,” Modern Drummer (August 1984).

  Howard Gladstone, “Robbie Robertson,” Rolling Stone (December 27, 1969).

  Ralph J. Gleason, “The Band at Winterland,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 17, 1969.

  Tony Glover, “Music From Big Pink,” Eye (October 1968).

  Michael Goldberg, “The Second Coming of Robbie Robertson,” Rolling Stone (November 19, 1987).

  Bill Graham and Robert Greenfield, Bill Graham Presents (Double-day, 1992).

  Ronnie Hawkins with Peter Goddard, Last of the Good Ol’ Boys (Stoddard, 1989), the Hawk’s autobiography.

  Robert Palmer, “A Portrait of The Band,” Rolling Stone (June 10, 1978) and “Robbie Robertson,” Rolling Stone (November 14, 1991).

  John Poppy, “The Band: Music From Home,” Look (August 25, 1970).

  Tony Scherman, “The Wild Youth of Robbie Robertson,” Musician (December 1991).

  Robert Shelton, No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan (Beech Tree Books, 1986).

  Ruth Spencer, four-part interview with The Band, The Woodstock Times, March 21—April 11, 1985.

  Max Weinberg with Robert Santelli, The Big Beat (Contemporary Books, 1984).

  INDEX

  Abbott and Costello, 18

  “Abide With Me,” 92

  “Acadian Driftwood,” 249, 265

  Ace of Cups, 191–192, 193

  “Across the Great Divide,” 187, 217, 220, 227

  Adderly, Cannonball, 106, 108, 136, 161

  Adderly, Nat, 108

  “Ain’t Got No Home,” 236

  “Ain’t No More Cane,” 156–157, 193, 200, 288

  “Ain’t That a Lot of Love,” 269

  Alan Freed’s Rock & Roll Party, 57

  Alk, Howard, 149, 162–163, 184, 266

  Alk, Jones, 149

  “All Along the Watchtower,” 240

  Allen, Dayton, 58–59

  Allen, Steve, 58

  Allman Brothers, 233–234, 249

  “All Our Past Times,” 250, 265

  “Amazing Grace,” 286

  American Bandstand, 59, 70–71, 93

  American Son, 286

  Amos ’n’ Andy, 19

  Andersen, Eric, 302

  Anderson, Ed, 219

  Animals, 118

  Antonioni, Michelangelo, 187–188

  Apted, Michael, 281, 283–284, 285–286

  Arnold, Jerome, 109

  Aronowitz, Al, 176–177

  “Auld Lang Syne,” 228

  Austin (Hudson’s uncle), 91

  Avakian, George, 161

  Avalon, Frankie, 71

  Avis, Bill, 77–78, 81, 82, 95, 105, 106, 115, 120, 121, 123, 124, 126, 134, 136, 141, 145–146, 179, 214

  “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down,” 146, 150, 267

  “Baby Don’t You Do It,” 109, 190

  “Baby Jean,” 67

  Bach, J. S., 90, 91, 111, 168, 228, 235

  Baez, Joan, 130–131, 181

  Bailey, Pearl, 204

  “Ballad of a Thin Man,” 134–135, 146, 240

  “Ballad of Caryl Chessman, The,” 72

  Ballard, Hank, 61, 62

  Band, The, 184, 185, 187–189, 196, 201–202, 206, 209, 215, 221, 228, 249

  Band Live at the Hollywood Bowl, The, 218

  Basement Tapes, The, 151, 248

  Bass, Dan, 53

  Batman, 181<
br />
  Bauls of Bengal, 157–158

  Beach Boys, 114, 270

  Beatles, 110, 114, 131, 138, 147, 161, 178, 201, 202, 204, 207, 297, 300

  Beatty, Warren, 242

  Beckett, Barry, 283

  Before the Flood, 246

  Bell, Rick, 218, 300, 301

  Bellows, George, 195

  Bengali Bauls at Big Pink, 158

  Berline, Byron, 249

  Berry, Chuck, 22, 33, 39, 40, 46, 52, 58, 92, 111, 198, 235, 273

  Berry, Mary, 242

  Berry, Paul, 144, 169, 170, 185, 242, 281

  “Bessie Smith,” 156, 196

  Best of the Band, The, 256

  Best Revenge, The, 291

  Better Days, 248, 263

  “Big Bad Twist,” 93

  Big Blue Squid, 300

  Big Brother and the Holding Company, 175, 185

  Bill and the Carliles, 20

  Billboard, 58, 231

  Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys, 19–20

  Black, Bill, 36, 37

  Blackhawks, 46

  Blackwell, Otis, 67

  Blakely, Ronee, 268

  Bland, Bobby “Blue,” 74, 87, 100, 102, 109

  Blonde on Blonde, 145

  Blood, Sweat, and Tears, 162, 198

  Bloomfield, Mike, 108, 109, 110, 131, 162, 163

  “Blowin’ in the Wind,” 131, 242

  Blue Grass Boys, 286

  “Blue Monday,” 66

  “Blue Moon,” 121

  “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” 19, 286

  “Bo Diddley,” 111, 263

  “Bo Diddley #117,” 100

  “Boney Moronie,” 101

  Booker T. and the MGs, 144, 248, 269, 301

  Boston, Massachusetts, 139, 230–231, 296

  Boston Globe, The, 195

  Boy Meets Girl, 69

  Brando, Marlon, 141

  Brent, John, 184

  Brewer, Teresa, 56

  “Bring It on Home,” 287

  Britt, May, 185

  Brooks, Garth, 298

  Brooks, Harvey, 132, 133

  Broonzy, Big Bill, 165

  Brown, James, 59, 61, 81, 88, 111

  Brown, Jerry, 265, 268

  Brown, Thurlow, 38–40, 46, 299