Levon Helm

Levon Helm, born in Elaine in 1940, was the drummer in the Band and one of its three lead singers, the soulful, country-soaked voice at the heart of "The Weight", "Up on Cripple Creek" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". He drummed like a man telling a story and sang the same way, and that work put him in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. He played harmonica and mandolin too, and Hollywood came calling: Loretta Lynn's father in Coal Miner's Daughter, Jack Ridley in The Right Stuff.

Then throat cancer, diagnosed in 1998, took his voice away. Treatment sent it into remission, the voice crept back, and the comeback was worth every year of the wait. Dirt Farmer, in 2007, is a rootsy, back-porch record that won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album, with "The Mountain" as its craggy heart. Electric Dirt, in 2009, turned up the juice and swung harder, "When I Go Away" leading the charge, and it won the first Grammy ever handed out for Best Americana Album. The live Ramble at the Ryman took the same prize in 2011.

The Americana Awards named him Artist of the Year in 2008, having already honored him for lifetime achievement in performance in 2003. He died in 2012.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.