A musical tribute to Levon Helm featuring over 10 musicians on stage. Brought to you by Nick Kowalski and K-3 Productions.
Through a selection of songs from his 55 year career, a group of local musicians come together to recognize the legacy of Levon Helm and the Band. Born in Arkansas in 1940, Levon discovered a love for music and performing from watching the traveling variety shows that came to town throughout his childhood, later in life serving as inspiration for his famous “Midnight Rambles” held at his own “barn studio”. Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, Levon was a member of Ronnie Hawkins backing band, touring across America, but finding greater success around Toronto where he met the other future members of the Band. After Hawkins decided to call it quits, the group continued on as Levon and the Hawks eventually accepting an offer to back Bob Dylan on tour with his new electrical sound. When Dylan semi-retired to Woodstock NY in the late 1960s, Levon and the Band followed and soon began working on their own sounds and songs. As with their work with Bob Dylan, the sound of the Band became the foundation of the modern day Americana movement, and the development of “country rock”. The Band went on to record 7 albums before their highly acclaimed farewell concert was filmed as a documentary, “The Last Waltz”, by Martin Scorsese in 1976. Afterwards, the Band broke up, reforming various times throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 1998, Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer, which caused him to lose his singing voice. After undergoing treatment for the disease, his cancer eventually went into remission, which allowed him to gradually regain use of his voice. His 2007 comeback album Dirt Farmer earned the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album in February 2008, and in November of that year, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him No. 91 in the list of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. In 2010, Electric Dirt, his 2009 follow-up to Dirt Farmer, won the first Grammy Award for Best Americana Album, a category inaugurated in 2010. In 2011, his live album Ramble at the Ryman was nominated for the Grammy in the same category and won. On April 19, 2012, Levon lost his battle with cancer. He is remembered for his strong, rich voice and his unique drumming technique. Selections range from hits such as “Up On Cripple Creek”, “The Weight”, and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, off the Band’s formative albums, to newer songs such as “Move Along Train” and “A Train Robbery”, off of Levon’s recent solo albums.
$12 Presale / $15 Door
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