Levon Helm and The Band: a rock parable of fame, betrayal, and redemption

Levon Helm of The Band found an unlikely path back to fame after decades of disappointment. But by the end, the homespun singer from Turkey Scratch, Ark., had come full circle.

In the eight years preceding his death Thursday, Levon Helm enjoyed the highest distinction that any music veteran could hope for: an audience that remembers.

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Two recent Grammy awards had brought a resurgence of interest in Mr. Helm?s career as the voice and drummer of The Band, one of rock?s most enduring groups. But it was only in 2004, when he began his homespun ?Midnight Ramble? concerts, that he began to reemerge into the public eye following years of health and financial problems, as well as lingering disappointment and resentment surrounding the dissolution of his former band.

Indeed, much of Helm?s story is a parable of rock ?n? roll ? the story of a band fractured by money and fame, leaving its disillusioned members to pick of the pieces of lives that had seemed to promise something more.

In that way, Helm?s musical legacy is not one meticulously groomed by publicists or biographers. It has evolved organically through what he has left behind.

His appeal in The Band and to Bob Dylan, who collaborated with the group during his most fruitful years, has not just been his voice but also his insurgent spirit. After all, the late-1960s marked the transition from presenting pop music as audible candy for teens to a progressive art form. While the Beatles represented a breakthrough in pushing boundaries that were heady and abstract, The Band later represented their American counterpart, which was dangerous, unkempt, and with a profound feel for, and understanding of, blues, gospel, and country.

That understanding came largely from Helm?s biography. The only American in a group of Canadians, he grew up in Turkey Scratch, Ark., as the son of cotton farmers. Many of the references in classic Band songs came from the people he knew and the sounds he heard in his childhood. Blues great Sonny Boy Williamson performed regularly in the area, and traveling minstrel shows and rockabilly bands made frequent stops.

Helm ?couldn?t wait to get out of high school and get off the farm. His dad told him he couldn?t play with bands until he finished high school.? All he was doing was biding his time,? says Anna Lee Amsden, Helm?s lifelong friend and the ?Anna Lee? in the lyrics of ?The Weight,? the group?s classic song. ?Crazy Chester? and ?Carmen,? other familiar characters in the song, were also people Helm knew in town, Ms. Amsden says.

In a statement Friday, Mr. Dylan called Helm "one of the last true great spirits of my or any other generation."

Much of The Band?s identity ? as suggested by its name ? was in being a true collective where no single person stood out. The Band?s 1968 debut, ?Music From Big Pink,? reflected that unity. Despite vocals shared by Helm, Richard Manuel, and Rick Danko, no one singer was identified, and the lyrics weren?t even printed on the jacket. The magic of that music came from a special alchemy among those individuals that could never be achieved separately since.

Yet in what is now a storied pattern from the early days of the music business, camaraderie crumbled amid fame. Robbie Robertson, The Band?s lead guitarist, joined with the band?s management to persuade the others to sign away their individual publishing rights, which in today?s era of multiplatform media are considered the pension plans of the music industry. They ensure artists later income when the songs receive renewed life in movies, television, and beyond.

In his autobiography ?This Wheel?s On Fire,? Helm describes seeing a copy of the 1969 album ?The Band? and noticing he was credited for writing only half of one song, with Mr. Robertson credited on all 12.

?Someone had pencil-whipped us. It was an old tactic: divide and conquer,? he writes.

Things got worse in 1978 when director Martin Scorsese, who collaborated with Robertson on the film ?The Last Waltz,? reinforced what Helm said was a false narrative that Robertson was somehow the band?s auteur.

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