THE LEVON HELM BAND
''IT'S SHOWTIME: THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLE SESSIONS, VOL. 3''
JULY 1 2014
59:56
1 /The Same Thing 14/02/2009 Levon Helm
Willie Dixon 6:15
2 /Ain’t That Good News 28/08/2010 Amy Helm
Sam Cooke 3:55
3 /God Don’t Never Change 10/01/2009 Jimmy Vivino
Blind Willie Johnson / James Vaughan 4:22
4 /Drivin’ Wheel 16/05/2009 Levon Helm
Roosevelt Sykes 2:49
5 /I’m a Jealous Man 31/01/2009 Larry Campbell
Aaron Corthen 5:14
6 /Stagger Lee 18/10/2005 Little Samy Davis
Harold Logan / Lloyd Price 4:32
7 /Simple Twist of Fate 14/03/2009 Brian Mitchell
Bob Dylan 6:43
8 /One More Shot 09/12/2006 Levon Helm
Paul Kennerley 4:14
9 /Turn Around 09/05/2009 Teresa Williams
Carl Perkins 4:24
10 /The Beautiful Lie 03/01/2009 Amy Helm, Teresa Williams, Fiona McBain
David McDade 3:50
11 /A Certain Girl 01/01/2007 Allen Toussaint
Naomi Neville 4:48
12 /Shake Your Money Maker 23/08/2008 Chris Robinson
Elmore James 3:58
13 /Take Me to the River 10/02/2007 Levon Helm
Al Green / Mabon "Teenie" Hodges 4:52
REVIEW
by Mark Deming
In 2004, Levon Helm was eager to play music again after a bout with throat cancer but wasn't up to touring yet, so he began hosting weekly concerts at the recording studio at his estate; calling the show "The Midnight Ramble," the concerts featured Helm and a handful of talented friends as well as occasional guest stars, and became quite popular among his fan following. Helm recorded most of the concerts, and two years after his passing, the third in a series of albums featuring music from the "Ramble" performances has arrived. Featuring music recorded between 2005 and 2010, The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Vol. 3 is the most entertaining installment in the series so far, mainly because it's the most diverse; Helm only takes the lead vocal on four songs here (doubtless in deference to his weakened vocal cords), but he's engaged and authoritative when he has the strength, especially on the feisty "One More Shot," and his drumming is typically splendid as he and his band make their way through country heartache ("Turn Around"), slinky, hard-as-nails boogie ("The Same Thing"), blues-shot gospel ("God Don't Never Change"), strutting uptempo Chicago-style blues ("I'm a Jealous Man"), and bluegrass gospel harmonies ("The Beautiful Lie"). A few guests add some extra star power here, with Allen Toussaint lending fine vocals and excellent piano to "A Certain Girl," while Chris Robinson brings some suitably wiry vocals to "Shake Your Money Maker," and a few of the tunes get a fresh twist, most notably Brian Mitchell's New Orleans-style reworking of Bob Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate." Like most of Levon Helm's shows in his last decade, The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Vol. 3 feels more like a revue than a headlining performance from the man who was the soul of the Band, but this is all music that spoke to him, and he brought out the best in his accompanists; no matter how much fate tried to bring Helm down, once he stepped on-stage, he gave all he had, and this album testifies eloquently to that.
MORE REVIEW
By Nick DeRiso
This last project from Levon Helm, hand-selected with guitarist Larry Campbell from five years of Midnight Ramble concert recordings between 2006-10, might have had a funereal tone — arriving as it does after his devastating loss. Instead, The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Volume 3 (due July 1, 2014 via Vanguard Records and Levon Helm Studios) is a musical fete, an unadorned celebration of everything the former Band drummer meant to music but also of everything the music meant to Helm.
The set-opening “Same Thing,” plucked from the Band’s 1993 album Jericho, finds Helm howling over a New Orleans-inflected rhythmic lope and, in that moment, the years melt away. You can hear Helm as he was, playing backwoods dives and front-porch singalongs, learning the contours of these folkways one song at a time — like a farmer pacing across shotgun rows of farmland until he knows every grain of fertile dirt. At the same time, The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Volume 3 offers new surprises in the form of Helm’s able band: Jimmy Vivino’s slide gives the song a nasty little menace, while Mike Merritt thunks happily away on a bass part once laid down by Rick Danko. The song’s street-parade attitude is made complete by a series of oh-so-funky horn blasts.
And Levon Helm sounds happy. Scratch that. He sounds ecstatic, in a moment that he was made for — in a Willie Dixon song that sprung from a common history, in the old Barn once more. It’s a wonder to behold. And this concert compilation is just getting underway.
Helm returns for a tough interpretation of “Drivin’ Wheel,” opening a Junior Parker songbook that earlier provided “Mystery Train” for 1973′s Moondog Matinee. Only Helm goes deeper in this loose, live setting — hitting every downbeat, and every verse with this hale gusto. When everybody lays out, just as Helm yelps “Now, wait a minute! I wanna tell you about my baby,” there’s an audible gasp of appreciation from the crowd. This is no valedictory, no victory lap. This is someone, health issues be damned, still at the very top of his game. When Helm’s band returns to this song’s appropriately driving cadence, it’s with a newfound sense of purpose. They can’t help but be inspired, too.
“One More Shot” returns to the mythic landscape that shaped so many of Helm’s signature moments with the Band, only this time — rather than doomed Confederate soldiers or ousted Cajun wanderers — he’s exploring the legend of Jesse James. Written by Paul Kennerley for an unjustly forgotten 1980 concept album featuring Helm, Emmylou Harris and Johnny Cash, “One More Shot” illustrates that Helm’s interpretive powers remained, until the end, utterly undiminished.
Finally, he reclaims “Take Me To the River,” a song which had — via a late-1970s new-wave take by the Talking Heads — moved far afield from its original grease-popping, Al Green-sung Memphis roots. Not here. Helm brays, he cries, he yelps, all while creating this most spacious of pockets for his own Bourbon Tabernacle Choir to fill. At one point, Steven Bernstein’s trombone threatens to lift the roof right off their country environs, then Helm comes squalling back in to finish the job.
Elsewhere, Allen Toussaint — a longtime Helm collaborator, from “Life’s a Carnival” on 1971′s Cahoots to the 1972 Rock of Ages concert release, from his final album in the five-man Band lineup (1978′s The Last Waltz) to his last studio release (2009′s Electric Dirt) — sits in on a raucous version of “A Certain Girl.” Long-time Helm Band member Brian Mitchell also offers a rough-hewn take on Bob Dylan’s “A Simple Twist of Fate,” made complete by Helm’s rascally swagger at the drums.
Amy Helm, Levon’s daughter and musical heir, is featured on Sam Cooke’s “Ain’t That Good News” and Dolly Parton’s “The Beautiful Lie,” while Chris Robinson — who’d recorded the Black Crowes’ 2009 album Before the Frost … Until the Freeze at Helm’s Barn — tears through Elmore James’ “Shake Your Money Maker.” The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Volume 3 also features Elvis Costello, second-era Band guitarist Jim Weider, Teresa Williams and Byron Isaacs, among others.
MORE OFFICIAL INFO
More DetailsApril 14, 2014 - Levon Helm spent his life making music and for nearly the past decade the Midnight Ramble was his musical home. These intimate concerts are held on most Saturday nights at Helm's Barn in Woodstock, NY where litanies of guest artists gather to pay homage to a music Icon.
At long last, on July 1st, Vanguard Records/Levon Helm Studios will release The Levon Helm Band -The Midnight Ramble Sessions Volume 3. This collection features select Ramble performances circa 2005 to 2010 with such guest artists as Chris Robinson, Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint with The Levon Helm Band: Levon Helm, Larry Campbell, Jimmy Vivino, Mike Merritt, Jimmy Weider, Amy Helm, Teresa Williams, Jay Collins, Erik Lawrence, Clark Gayton, Brian Mitchell, Steven Bernstein, Howard Johnson and Byron Isaacs.
With each track hand-picked by Helm who also designed the cover art, The Midnight Ramble Sessions Volume 3 continues to solidify Helm's legacy as a revered musical force.
BIOGRAPHY
by Richard Skelly
The longtime drummer for the Band, Levon Helm wore many musical hats throughout his long career, including multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, singer, impresario, studio owner, studio engineer, and producer. He grew up working on a farm in Arkansas; his first instrument was guitar, which he began playing at age eight, but after seeing the F.S. Walcott Rabbits Foot Minstrels, he decided to switch to drums. As a youth, Helm listened to the music of the area, including radio broadcasts of The Grand Ole Opry and the blues and R&B shows on WLAC, a clear-channel station out of Nashville that became legendary in the development of R&B and early rock & roll. Accompanied by his sister Linda on washtub bass, he played various fairs and civic club shows until forming his first group, the Jungle Bush Beaters, while in high school.
After seeing an Elvis Presley concert, Helm became keenly interested in rock & roll and musicians like Bo Diddley. Eventually, he moved to Memphis, where he began sitting in with Conway Twitty. Later, he was discovered by a fellow Arkansan, rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins, who asked the 17-year-old Helm to join the Hawks, his backing band. The group soon relocated to Toronto, where they'd heard there was a burgeoning scene for their kind of music. In 1959, Hawkins signed to Roulette Records, where he and the Hawks cut a pair of hit records right out of the gate with "Forty Days" and "Mary Lou," which went on to sell in excess of 700,000 copies.
In the early '60s in Toronto, Helm and Hawkins recruited the rest of the members of the group that would become the Band, adding guitarist Robbie Robertson, pianist Richard Manuel, organist Garth Hudson, and bassist Rick Danko to the lineup. After numerous road trips with Hawkins, the group grew tired of the singer's abrasive manner, and they re-formed as Levon & the Hawks, later changing their name to the Canadian Squires for the purpose of recording two singles. Shortly after, they changed their name back to the Hawks. In the mid-'60s, Bob Dylan decided to electrify his sound and wanted the Hawks to be his backing band. After putting up with too many boos at Dylan's newly electrified shows in 1965, Helm decided he'd had enough, and went back to Arkansas, thinking he would leave the music business behind him forever.
But Helm returned to action in mid-1967, when the Hawks (since renamed simply the Band) began working on Music from Big Pink, the first in a string of classic records that made them one of rock's most legendary acts. After the Band's famed 1976 farewell performance, dubbed The Last Waltz, he cut his 1977 debut solo album, Levon Helm & the RCO All Stars, followed a year later by his self-titled sophomore effort. In 1980 he recorded American Son, while another eponymously titled effort was released in 1982. the Band re-formed in 1983 without Robertson; following Manuel's 1986 suicide, the remaining trio released 1993's Jericho, recorded at Helm's home studio in Woodstock, New York. That same year, Helm published his autobiography, This Wheel's on Fire, co-authored with Stephen Davis. the Band's bluesy High on the Hog followed in 1995. The late '90s (and into the next decade) found Helm still making music in a new blues band called Levon Helm & the Barn Burners, with his daughter Amy on keyboards and vocals, guitarist Pat O'Shea, lead vocalist and harmonica player Chris O'Leary, and upright bassist Frankie Ingrao, and with a similar outfit called Crowmatrix. An album of tracks from this era called Souvenir, Vol. 1 appeared in 2000 from Breeze Hill.
Cancer of the vocal cords silenced Helm's unique voice as the 21st century opened, although he kept up his drumming duties, and in time was able to sing again, emerging with a slightly raspier version of his old vocal style. He began holding intimate concerts with various musical friends at his studio in Woodstock, calling them Midnight Rambles, samples of which were released as The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Vol. 1 and The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Vol. 2 in 2006. The following year saw the release of Dirt Farmer, Helm's first solo album in 25 years. The similar but looser Electric Dirt followed in 2009. Ramble at the Ryman, which captured highlights of Helm's 2008 Midnight Ramble concert at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, was released on both CD and DVD in 2011. In spring of the following year, Helm's family announced that he was in the end stages of cancer, and he died on April 19, 2012. The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Vol. 3 was released the following December.
OFFICIAL SITE
''IT'S SHOWTIME: THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLE SESSIONS, VOL. 3''
JULY 1 2014
59:56
1 /The Same Thing 14/02/2009 Levon Helm
Willie Dixon 6:15
2 /Ain’t That Good News 28/08/2010 Amy Helm
Sam Cooke 3:55
3 /God Don’t Never Change 10/01/2009 Jimmy Vivino
Blind Willie Johnson / James Vaughan 4:22
4 /Drivin’ Wheel 16/05/2009 Levon Helm
Roosevelt Sykes 2:49
5 /I’m a Jealous Man 31/01/2009 Larry Campbell
Aaron Corthen 5:14
6 /Stagger Lee 18/10/2005 Little Samy Davis
Harold Logan / Lloyd Price 4:32
7 /Simple Twist of Fate 14/03/2009 Brian Mitchell
Bob Dylan 6:43
8 /One More Shot 09/12/2006 Levon Helm
Paul Kennerley 4:14
9 /Turn Around 09/05/2009 Teresa Williams
Carl Perkins 4:24
10 /The Beautiful Lie 03/01/2009 Amy Helm, Teresa Williams, Fiona McBain
David McDade 3:50
11 /A Certain Girl 01/01/2007 Allen Toussaint
Naomi Neville 4:48
12 /Shake Your Money Maker 23/08/2008 Chris Robinson
Elmore James 3:58
13 /Take Me to the River 10/02/2007 Levon Helm
Al Green / Mabon "Teenie" Hodges 4:52
REVIEW
by Mark Deming
In 2004, Levon Helm was eager to play music again after a bout with throat cancer but wasn't up to touring yet, so he began hosting weekly concerts at the recording studio at his estate; calling the show "The Midnight Ramble," the concerts featured Helm and a handful of talented friends as well as occasional guest stars, and became quite popular among his fan following. Helm recorded most of the concerts, and two years after his passing, the third in a series of albums featuring music from the "Ramble" performances has arrived. Featuring music recorded between 2005 and 2010, The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Vol. 3 is the most entertaining installment in the series so far, mainly because it's the most diverse; Helm only takes the lead vocal on four songs here (doubtless in deference to his weakened vocal cords), but he's engaged and authoritative when he has the strength, especially on the feisty "One More Shot," and his drumming is typically splendid as he and his band make their way through country heartache ("Turn Around"), slinky, hard-as-nails boogie ("The Same Thing"), blues-shot gospel ("God Don't Never Change"), strutting uptempo Chicago-style blues ("I'm a Jealous Man"), and bluegrass gospel harmonies ("The Beautiful Lie"). A few guests add some extra star power here, with Allen Toussaint lending fine vocals and excellent piano to "A Certain Girl," while Chris Robinson brings some suitably wiry vocals to "Shake Your Money Maker," and a few of the tunes get a fresh twist, most notably Brian Mitchell's New Orleans-style reworking of Bob Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate." Like most of Levon Helm's shows in his last decade, The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Vol. 3 feels more like a revue than a headlining performance from the man who was the soul of the Band, but this is all music that spoke to him, and he brought out the best in his accompanists; no matter how much fate tried to bring Helm down, once he stepped on-stage, he gave all he had, and this album testifies eloquently to that.
MORE REVIEW
By Nick DeRiso
This last project from Levon Helm, hand-selected with guitarist Larry Campbell from five years of Midnight Ramble concert recordings between 2006-10, might have had a funereal tone — arriving as it does after his devastating loss. Instead, The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Volume 3 (due July 1, 2014 via Vanguard Records and Levon Helm Studios) is a musical fete, an unadorned celebration of everything the former Band drummer meant to music but also of everything the music meant to Helm.
The set-opening “Same Thing,” plucked from the Band’s 1993 album Jericho, finds Helm howling over a New Orleans-inflected rhythmic lope and, in that moment, the years melt away. You can hear Helm as he was, playing backwoods dives and front-porch singalongs, learning the contours of these folkways one song at a time — like a farmer pacing across shotgun rows of farmland until he knows every grain of fertile dirt. At the same time, The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Volume 3 offers new surprises in the form of Helm’s able band: Jimmy Vivino’s slide gives the song a nasty little menace, while Mike Merritt thunks happily away on a bass part once laid down by Rick Danko. The song’s street-parade attitude is made complete by a series of oh-so-funky horn blasts.
And Levon Helm sounds happy. Scratch that. He sounds ecstatic, in a moment that he was made for — in a Willie Dixon song that sprung from a common history, in the old Barn once more. It’s a wonder to behold. And this concert compilation is just getting underway.
Helm returns for a tough interpretation of “Drivin’ Wheel,” opening a Junior Parker songbook that earlier provided “Mystery Train” for 1973′s Moondog Matinee. Only Helm goes deeper in this loose, live setting — hitting every downbeat, and every verse with this hale gusto. When everybody lays out, just as Helm yelps “Now, wait a minute! I wanna tell you about my baby,” there’s an audible gasp of appreciation from the crowd. This is no valedictory, no victory lap. This is someone, health issues be damned, still at the very top of his game. When Helm’s band returns to this song’s appropriately driving cadence, it’s with a newfound sense of purpose. They can’t help but be inspired, too.
“One More Shot” returns to the mythic landscape that shaped so many of Helm’s signature moments with the Band, only this time — rather than doomed Confederate soldiers or ousted Cajun wanderers — he’s exploring the legend of Jesse James. Written by Paul Kennerley for an unjustly forgotten 1980 concept album featuring Helm, Emmylou Harris and Johnny Cash, “One More Shot” illustrates that Helm’s interpretive powers remained, until the end, utterly undiminished.
Finally, he reclaims “Take Me To the River,” a song which had — via a late-1970s new-wave take by the Talking Heads — moved far afield from its original grease-popping, Al Green-sung Memphis roots. Not here. Helm brays, he cries, he yelps, all while creating this most spacious of pockets for his own Bourbon Tabernacle Choir to fill. At one point, Steven Bernstein’s trombone threatens to lift the roof right off their country environs, then Helm comes squalling back in to finish the job.
Elsewhere, Allen Toussaint — a longtime Helm collaborator, from “Life’s a Carnival” on 1971′s Cahoots to the 1972 Rock of Ages concert release, from his final album in the five-man Band lineup (1978′s The Last Waltz) to his last studio release (2009′s Electric Dirt) — sits in on a raucous version of “A Certain Girl.” Long-time Helm Band member Brian Mitchell also offers a rough-hewn take on Bob Dylan’s “A Simple Twist of Fate,” made complete by Helm’s rascally swagger at the drums.
Amy Helm, Levon’s daughter and musical heir, is featured on Sam Cooke’s “Ain’t That Good News” and Dolly Parton’s “The Beautiful Lie,” while Chris Robinson — who’d recorded the Black Crowes’ 2009 album Before the Frost … Until the Freeze at Helm’s Barn — tears through Elmore James’ “Shake Your Money Maker.” The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Volume 3 also features Elvis Costello, second-era Band guitarist Jim Weider, Teresa Williams and Byron Isaacs, among others.
MORE OFFICIAL INFO
More DetailsApril 14, 2014 - Levon Helm spent his life making music and for nearly the past decade the Midnight Ramble was his musical home. These intimate concerts are held on most Saturday nights at Helm's Barn in Woodstock, NY where litanies of guest artists gather to pay homage to a music Icon.
At long last, on July 1st, Vanguard Records/Levon Helm Studios will release The Levon Helm Band -The Midnight Ramble Sessions Volume 3. This collection features select Ramble performances circa 2005 to 2010 with such guest artists as Chris Robinson, Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint with The Levon Helm Band: Levon Helm, Larry Campbell, Jimmy Vivino, Mike Merritt, Jimmy Weider, Amy Helm, Teresa Williams, Jay Collins, Erik Lawrence, Clark Gayton, Brian Mitchell, Steven Bernstein, Howard Johnson and Byron Isaacs.
With each track hand-picked by Helm who also designed the cover art, The Midnight Ramble Sessions Volume 3 continues to solidify Helm's legacy as a revered musical force.
BIOGRAPHY
by Richard Skelly
The longtime drummer for the Band, Levon Helm wore many musical hats throughout his long career, including multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, singer, impresario, studio owner, studio engineer, and producer. He grew up working on a farm in Arkansas; his first instrument was guitar, which he began playing at age eight, but after seeing the F.S. Walcott Rabbits Foot Minstrels, he decided to switch to drums. As a youth, Helm listened to the music of the area, including radio broadcasts of The Grand Ole Opry and the blues and R&B shows on WLAC, a clear-channel station out of Nashville that became legendary in the development of R&B and early rock & roll. Accompanied by his sister Linda on washtub bass, he played various fairs and civic club shows until forming his first group, the Jungle Bush Beaters, while in high school.
After seeing an Elvis Presley concert, Helm became keenly interested in rock & roll and musicians like Bo Diddley. Eventually, he moved to Memphis, where he began sitting in with Conway Twitty. Later, he was discovered by a fellow Arkansan, rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins, who asked the 17-year-old Helm to join the Hawks, his backing band. The group soon relocated to Toronto, where they'd heard there was a burgeoning scene for their kind of music. In 1959, Hawkins signed to Roulette Records, where he and the Hawks cut a pair of hit records right out of the gate with "Forty Days" and "Mary Lou," which went on to sell in excess of 700,000 copies.
In the early '60s in Toronto, Helm and Hawkins recruited the rest of the members of the group that would become the Band, adding guitarist Robbie Robertson, pianist Richard Manuel, organist Garth Hudson, and bassist Rick Danko to the lineup. After numerous road trips with Hawkins, the group grew tired of the singer's abrasive manner, and they re-formed as Levon & the Hawks, later changing their name to the Canadian Squires for the purpose of recording two singles. Shortly after, they changed their name back to the Hawks. In the mid-'60s, Bob Dylan decided to electrify his sound and wanted the Hawks to be his backing band. After putting up with too many boos at Dylan's newly electrified shows in 1965, Helm decided he'd had enough, and went back to Arkansas, thinking he would leave the music business behind him forever.
But Helm returned to action in mid-1967, when the Hawks (since renamed simply the Band) began working on Music from Big Pink, the first in a string of classic records that made them one of rock's most legendary acts. After the Band's famed 1976 farewell performance, dubbed The Last Waltz, he cut his 1977 debut solo album, Levon Helm & the RCO All Stars, followed a year later by his self-titled sophomore effort. In 1980 he recorded American Son, while another eponymously titled effort was released in 1982. the Band re-formed in 1983 without Robertson; following Manuel's 1986 suicide, the remaining trio released 1993's Jericho, recorded at Helm's home studio in Woodstock, New York. That same year, Helm published his autobiography, This Wheel's on Fire, co-authored with Stephen Davis. the Band's bluesy High on the Hog followed in 1995. The late '90s (and into the next decade) found Helm still making music in a new blues band called Levon Helm & the Barn Burners, with his daughter Amy on keyboards and vocals, guitarist Pat O'Shea, lead vocalist and harmonica player Chris O'Leary, and upright bassist Frankie Ingrao, and with a similar outfit called Crowmatrix. An album of tracks from this era called Souvenir, Vol. 1 appeared in 2000 from Breeze Hill.
Cancer of the vocal cords silenced Helm's unique voice as the 21st century opened, although he kept up his drumming duties, and in time was able to sing again, emerging with a slightly raspier version of his old vocal style. He began holding intimate concerts with various musical friends at his studio in Woodstock, calling them Midnight Rambles, samples of which were released as The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Vol. 1 and The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Vol. 2 in 2006. The following year saw the release of Dirt Farmer, Helm's first solo album in 25 years. The similar but looser Electric Dirt followed in 2009. Ramble at the Ryman, which captured highlights of Helm's 2008 Midnight Ramble concert at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, was released on both CD and DVD in 2011. In spring of the following year, Helm's family announced that he was in the end stages of cancer, and he died on April 19, 2012. The Midnight Ramble Sessions, Vol. 3 was released the following December.
OFFICIAL SITE
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