The Band performing 'The Weight' from 'The Last Waltz.'
The Ed Show team was saddened to hear the news that Levon Helm, drummer and a leader singer of the acclaimed and influential roots rock group The Band, has died at age 71.
Helm's website says he died peacefully this afternoon at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, just a mile or so from us here in New York (on Tuesday, the website said he was in the final stages of cancer).
Helm and his band mates were musical virtuosos who mined the roots of American music in the late 1960s as other rockers veered into psychedelia, heavy metal and jams.
With songs like The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, The Weight and Up on Cripple Creek, The Band fused rock, blues, folk and gospel to create an authentically American sound.
Ironically, the Helm was the only American in the original group, born in Arkansas (the rest were from Canada).
RIP Levon.
What's your favorite memory of Helm?
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Sad to see the best go so young.
WHY ISNT AL,JESSE,black kitties in Texas protesting the WHITE mother who was slaughtered and her baby kidnapped?...WHERE ARE THEY???
Was it a racially motivated killing? NO - dumb ass!
Sad news. Levon was one of my favorites. A truly moving musician. Levon helm was a brilliant musician with a great sense of what to play for the total benefit of the music - the song. He seemed to live for music and he brought music to life. The music world lost a great musician today.
He has given us such good music and now it's time to rest.
RIP. Though I did not know you, I am still touched when we lose another human.
i see ed still refuses to post the names of our troops killed in battle. but posts when a musician dies. cmon ed just post their names. or would it make obama look bad by escalating the war in afghanistan?
Never heard of him or THE BAND. I guess that I live in a different America?
So why say anything at all?
I'll wager $7000 on the Daily Double under Bands or Singers John Anderson never heard of, Alex.
Ding… I win!
You know, there is a very broad range of music people like and dislike.
I liked the Band and some music you like I might not. Is that really an earth shattering tragedy? No. It isn't.
That was so special, never heard the version with Staple Singers before. Yes another popular musical group you may or may not know.
i never heard of him either so i wont say anything at all
Do you also stop off at funerals of people you don't know to shrug and say "never new em, means nothing to me"?
this is a blog not a funeral just stating ed refuses to post the names of troops killed in combat cause of obamas stupid decision to escalate the war.
Well you're in the wrong thread then.
so you think ed is right to not post names of our dead troops to protect obama. well youre in the wrong country then
The last time I saw him perform at old Veteran's Memorial Field, Chicago, July "95. "The Band" opened for the "Grateful Dead's" last ever show. Levon carried most of the vocals & of course, drums. He & the remaining members of "The Band" performed brilliantly that late summer afternoon, good as any of the many You Tube clips of "The Band" & "The Band" with other great musical legends. We've lost a kind soul ,exemplary American, & great musician.