We lost one of the true greats today and the world is poorer for it. RIP Levon Helm.
Levon Helm died Thursday at the age of 71, and a piece of the rich roots music now called Americana should be buried with him.
Helm, who was best known as the drummer for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group The Band, had been suffering from a recurrence of the cancer that cost him his singing voice a decade earlier.
Larry Campbell, music director for the Levon Helm Band, said he died peacefully at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, "surrounded by friends and bandmates and family."
Helm won three solo Grammys over a 65-year career in which he blended all the music he heard as a youth in Turkey Scratch, Ark.: country, blues, bluegrass, gospel, R&B, pop and rock 'n' roll.
"He was just a great rock 'n' roll drummer," said his long-time friend and admirer, radio host Don Imus. "He was also a genuinely sweet person - a true angel. There was no one like him."
Helm and The Band played for 600,000 fans at the 1973 Watkins Glen music festival, but his focus the last decade was the intimate weekly jam sessions he called Midnight Rambles at his studio/ barn in Woodstock, N.Y.
Artists like Emmylou Harris and Elvis Costello often dropped in for the sessions, which were open to the public. Helm said he modeled them after late-night performances by the traveling medicine shows he knew as a child.
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He continued the Rambles until several weeks ago, when he fell ill. His Band partner Robbie Robertson, from whom he had been estranged for years, sent "love and prayers" to Helm last Saturday night at the 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
Robertson also made a personal visit to Helm's bedside over the weekend and called Helm "one of the most extraordinarily talented people I've ever known."
"He was my bosom buddy friend to the end, one of the last true great spirits of my or any other generation," Bob Dylan wrote on his official website Thursday. "This is just so sad to talk about. I still can remember the first day I met him and the last day I saw him.
"We go back pretty far and had been through some trials together. I'm going to miss him, as I'm sure a whole lot of others will too."
Helm decided he wanted to be a musician at the age of 6, he said, when he heard bluegrass icon Bill Monroe.
His career had several stages. He started in a great bar band, the Hawks, that backed 1950s rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins and often spent its summers playing cheap on the Jersey shore.
In the mid-1960s Bob Dylan recruited the Hawks to back him on some of his first electric tours.
After Dylan left the road, the Hawks started recording on their own as The Band, starting with "Music From Big Pink" in 1968. Helm sang lead on the record's most enduring track, the mysterious ballad "The Weight."
Their second album, "The Band," remains one of rock 'n' roll's elite recordings. It featured Helm on tracks like "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."
The Band broke up in 1976, at Robertson's urging and against the wishes of Helm. Their final concert was recorded as Martin Scorsese's "The Last Waltz," and while it was probably the best rock concert film ever, Helm later rejected its agenda of documenting the end of the group.
Helm and other Band members began playing and recording again and cut three albums in the 1990s without Robertson.
The group was inducted into the Rock Hall in 1994. Helm came to New York for the ceremony, but decided not to attend, he later said, because he didn't want to share a stage with Robertson.
After the deaths of group members Rick Danko and Richard Manuel, and his own battle with throat cancer, Helm downsized his career and launched the Rambles.
Helm recovered his own voice well enough to start singing again in 2004. He eventually recorded three solo CDs, all of which won Grammys.
The music on those CDs reflected his career. They mixed country with blues and rock 'n' roll, and the songs were a blend of new material and traditional tunes. Helm played mandolin and guitar as well as drums.
"That's the sound I've always loved to hear, so that's what I play," he said in a 1995 interview. "I don't try to be fancy or do flashy solos. I just try to keep the beat."
He did, and a little bit more.
He is survived by his wife Sandy and a daughter Amy, who often played with him on stage.
