Electric Dirt by Levon Helm

Electric Dirt, released in 2009, was the last studio album from Levon Helm, who drummed and shared lead vocals in The Band, and the follow-up to Dirt Farmer, the 2007 comeback that had won him a Grammy. Larry Campbell produced, and the two wrote "Growin' Trade" together, Helm's first co-write since his debut solo album, Levon Helm & the RCO All-Stars.

Throat cancer diagnosed in 1998 had taken Helm's singing voice, and he had slowly won it back. Here that voice, cracked and country-cured, rides warm, rootsy grooves with the easy authority of a man who has nothing left to prove. "When I Go Away" is the track that stuck. The record won the first Grammy ever handed out for Best Americana Album, in 2010, and Uncut placed it 80th on its list of the 150 best albums from 2000 through 2009.

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