MSU Red Cedar Message Board

Some additional thoughts on Levon in this thread:

http://michiganstate.247sports.com/Board/93/For-fans-of-Levon-Helm-and-The-Band-9081242/1

Terrible news. I knew it was coming, but I still wasn't prepared.

I watched The Last Waltz the other night. And even though Levon hated that concert - and the film even more - it was a sublime event, and Scorsese captured it beautifully.

On another note, I'm glad Robertson visited Levon before he passed. They both needed closure with regards to their rift. Now may Levon RIP!

Great post.

I can't stop listening to "When I Go Away"

I will have to throw on The Last Waltz later tonight.

In 1976, at Robertson's urging, the Band broke up after its farewell concert, known as "The Last Waltz." In meetings before the concert and as recounted in This Wheel's on Fire, Helm was adamantly opposed to the group disbanding. "I didn't want any part of it," he wrote. "I didn't want to break up the band." He begrudgingly went along, but his relationship with Robertson was never the same.

When the Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, Helm didn't attend, revealing that his feud with Robertson was still on. "I thought Levon was going to show," Robertson told Rolling Stone a few years later. "Then that evening they said he changed his mind and wasn't going to come. And I thought, 'Oh, God, it would have been better if he was here.'"

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/levon-helm-drummer-and-singer-of-the-band-dies-at-71-20120419#ixzz1sX5kLiYq

I was bummed when I learned that Levon hated the film. I'm with you, it is an excellent piece.

I think you've covered things well and very tactfully in this and your other posts.

Favorite song guys? I was always partial to 'the night they drove old dixie down' and 'it makes no difference'.....I will put them on multiple times while drinking beer and working on my house this summer. Something about 'The Band' that makes shit projects I loathe just fly by...........

I love the Weight, Cripple Creek, It makes no Difference, and I will be Released. But no one has mentioned this gem! Which I love. Another Sad day for good music.

"Last week I was shocked and so saddened to hear that my old band mate, Levon, was in the final stages of his battle with cancer. It hit me really hard because I thought he had beaten throat cancer and had no idea that he was this ill. I spoke with his family and made arrangements to go and see him.

On Sunday I went to New York and visited him in the hospital. I sat with Levon for a good while, and thought of the incredible and beautiful times we had together. It was heartwarming to be greeted by his lovely daughter Amy, whom I have known since she was born. Amy’s mother, Libby Titus, and her husband, Donald Fagen, were so kind to help walk me through this terrible time of sadness. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife Sandy.

Levon is one of the most extraordinary talented people I’ve ever known and very much like an older brother to me. I am so grateful I got to see him one last time and will miss him and love him forever.

-Robbie Robertson"

Thanks Dixon. Very poignant, I agree. Maybe you're not so bad after all. ;)

King Harvest (has surely come)

Acadian Driftwood. Absolutely perfect. And to think it came at the end of their time together (album: Northern Lights, Southern Cross), and was performed at the Waltz, but excluded from the film.