The list keeps going.
Levon Helm passed away from throat cancer yesterday at age 71. In terms of Americana, Levon Helm was the original voice of that, being the major voice and drummer of The Band. Case in point: Robbie Robertson's recordings for Geffen, had he used Levon Helm his albums would have been classic.
Helm had a second coming when he released the Dirt Farmer album when he signed on Vanguard a few years ago. I have heard Electric Dirt and although Helm's vocals were much different, the fact that he even survived the first bout of throat cancer makes his Vanguard stuff all the much amazing. But I recall his American Son album for MCA in 1981 and his S/T album for Capitol/MSS the next year were classic in their own way. Both albums are hard to find but somebody out there loved the Capitol album to the point that they reissued it on their own and I came across it by accident at Moondog Music a few years ago. He does a killer version of Summertime Blues which was a bonus track on that album. At least EMI did give their blessings on this reissue, Universal is still sitting on the ABC/MCA albums that Levon did for them. Maybe some day before we are all dead and gone they'll reissued American Son. Raven reissued it for a time as well as Edsel UK but I don't think anybody is willing to pay 85 dollars for a used CD, no matter how good it was.
The sad fact that Levon never forgave Robbie Robertson for breaking up The Band and kept a grunge on the whole issue up till a couple weeks ago when Robertson visited Helm in the hospital and the hatchet was buried. Bob Dylan gave a nice tribute on his website. One thing remains clear, Levon Helm was a original one of a kind vocalist and musician, who could play drums and mandolin too. Perhaps my favorite moment was when Levon appeared on SCTV back in the 80's and was part of a skit to which he played a couple tracks off his latest album back then. Shout Factory has it on DVD.
Jonathan Frid, the vampire Barnabas Collins on the old Dark Shadows soap opera also passed away at age 87 of complications after suffering from a fall. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/20/arts/television/jonathan-frid-ghoulish-dark-shadows-star-dies-at-87.html
Dark Shadows was a soap opera that I sometimes hurried home from school to watch. It was easier to do in Webster City, the school was next door and it took me about 3 minutes to run home to catch Dark Shadows, moving to Cedar Rapids in late 69 ended that for me but sometimes I would catch it when I was either sick or played sick from going to school. Frid does make a appearance on the Tim Burton remake of Dark Shadows coming out next month. If you can't get enough of him, he does have a website up and running. http://www.jonathanfrid.com/
Also Greg Ham, Men At Work's wonderful flute player was found dead in his home. He was 58 http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/04/19/men-at-work-musician-greg-ham-found-dead495173/
2 comments:
Hey Crabby: Levon Helm I won't miss much, I was never much of a Band fan -- I just didn't GET them, Xcept 4 "The Weight," which really IS a classic.
Bummed about Jonathan Frid -- DARK SHADOWS was a fave of mine when I was growing up, tho I didn't understand it much. Tried 2 re-watch the reruns a few years back & thot how overdone & silly it all was -- but there was some nice creepy atmosphere there too....
Greg Ham also played sax on "Who Can it be Now?" & co-wrote mosta Men at Work's hits with Colin Hay. The 1 concert of them I saw made it look like Ham had the silly personality -- he sure lightened it up.
A bummer all around -- too many people dyin this week. I feel pretty good tho; hope you do too....
Hey TAD
I'm not the biggest Band fan, The S/T was their best but Big Pink I didn't like all that much. Rock Of Ages a better live album than Last Waltz (waiting for the comments on that one) but Dirt Farmer has a certain charm to it.
Dark Shadows has dated badly from what I saw on the Sci Fi channel when they bothered to show it. But it lot more spooky when I was much younger.
Greg was the "ham" of Men At Work and they had a HBO special which showed that. By then the band was breaking up left and right. Your right that Ham was the sax on their big hit single, a song that been overplayed so much that I fast forward it on the Valley Girl Soundtrack when it comes up.
As for my health, still here although I tend to doze off...... ;)
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