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Picture: Newport Folk Festival Turns 50 With Sets From Seeger, Baez, Decemberists and More

Levon Helm Battles Back From Cancer and Tragedy, Returns With His First New Studio LP In Twenty-Five Years

The last ten years have not been easy for legendary Band drummer and vocalist Levon Helm. In 1998, he had surgery to remove throat cancer and underwent twenty-eight radiation sessions. His barn-turned-studio in Woodstock, New York, was obliterated in a fire and had to be rebuilt, and former bandmate Rick Danko passed away. In spite of all these roadblocks, Helm was inspired to record, and on October 30th he’ll release his first solo studio album in twenty-five years, Dirt Farmer. “The last few years have proven to me that we truly live in an age of miracles,” the singer writes in the album’s liner notes. Though cancer treatments compromised Helm’s voice, he slowly regained the ability to sing via late-night concert sessions held at his Woodstock studio with friends and family. These so-called Midnight Rambles were inspired by the Southern medicine shows Helm remembers from childhood in rural Arkansas, and featured guests like Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Nick Lowe and Warren Haynes. The Midnight Rambles influenced much of Dirt Farmer, and the album includes several traditional songs as well as Helm’s interpretation of tracks by Steve Earle and J.B. Lenoir, among others. Multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell (who has played with Lyle Lovett, Solomon Burke and Bob Dylan) worked closely alongside Helm and his daughter Amy on the LP, and Helm plays drums, mandolin and acoustic guitar in addition to handling all the lead vocals. The album title is taken from the traditional folk song “The Poor Old Dirt Farmer,” which appears on the record, as Helm says it’s a track that truly resonates with him. “’The Poor Old Dirt Farmer’ is a song that my wood-carver/musician friend Michael Copus and I learned together when we worked with Jane Fonda on the Dan Petrie-directed film The Dollmaker down in the heart of the Smokey Mountains, Gatlinburg, TN,” Helm writes. “Growing up on a cotton farm in the Arkansas Delta, ‘Dirt Farmer&#

Published: 2007-09-01
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News

Bright Eyes: Recapping Conor Oberst’s Wild Seven Nights At New York’s Town Hall

Photo Credit: looserecords.com Last week Bright Eyes played seven shows in a row at New York’s famed Town Hall. The performances were billed as guest-star studded spectacles — music’s favorite prodigy all grown up and onstage with a huge band and a slew of bold names – and they didn’t disappoint. During the first show (Saturday, May 26th) Lou Reed showed up. Conor and the other twelve or so people currently playing in his band (including the inimitable former drummer from Sleater-Kinney Janet Weiss) were dressed like excitable brides in various shades of white. Reed wore black and joined the band for two songs, “Waiting For My Man” and “Dirty Blvd.” Over the course of the following six nights Oberst was joined onstage by a slew of other guests including Ben Kweller, Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis and her boyfriend, singer/actor Jonathan Rice, Norah Jones and her band The Little Willies, Nick Zinner and Ben Gibbard, Ron Sexsmith and Britt Daniel. All this starpower came in addition to Conor’s opening act, the extremely impressive Gillian Welch and her man David Rawlings, and Oberst’s girlfriend and fellow Saddle Creek affiliate Maria Taylor, all of whom joined Bright Eyes onstage to lend their particular talent (haunting old school bluegrass vocals if you’re Gillian Welch, tambourine playing if you’re Maria Taylor) to various songs. Though there are a couple of noteworthy bands on Saddle Creek - the Omaha-based label Oberst helped found – its his music that defines the label, and the scene that gave birth to it. At twenty-seven, the guy is clearly tired of shouldering that burden alone and is trying to get away from images of himself as prophet/troubadour, even though that’s exactly what he is. Oberst has made longtime Bright Eyes collaborators Nate Wolcott and Mike Mogis official members of the band, and he’s gotten busy surrounding himself with other super-talented people likely to

Published: 2007-06-04
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: General

Picture: Gillian Welch and Emmylou Harris

Picture: Avalon on Sunset Blvd- Gillian Welch was playing and Ki...

Gillian Welch

Gillian Welch Pictures

Gillian Welch: Most viewed pictures

Newport Folk Festival Turns 50 With Sets From Seeger, Baez, Decemberists and More

Levon Helm Battles Back From Cancer and Tragedy, Returns With His First New Studio LP In Twenty-Five Years

Bright Eyes: Recapping Conor Oberst’s Wild Seven Nights At New York’s Town Hall

Cassadaga by Bright Eyes

'Digging through the debris'

Gillian Welch and Emmylou Harris

Avalon on Sunset Blvd- Gillian Welch was playing and Ki...

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