New Generation Hops the Mystery Train

WOODSTOCK, N.Y., July 8 — The song was “Mystery Train,” and Levon Helm was behind his drum kit, tapping out the pace of a train’s accelerating wheels just as he had three decades ago for the Band in the concert movie “The Last Waltz.”

This was on Saturday afternoon, beneath the high pine beams of a converted barn next to his home here. Among those looking on from the audience was Anna Lee Amsden, a lifelong friend of Mr. Helm’s from Arkansas who happens to be the Anna Lee mentioned in “The Weight,” the song for which Mr. Helm and the Band are perhaps best known.
But if those reference points were comfortably familiar, little else was. Setting down the bass lines on “Mystery Train” was Adam Bernstein of the Laurie Berkner Band, which the preschool set regards with the sort of reverence their parents probably have for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Sharing the lead vocals was Charlotte Constan, 10, whose aunt, Elizabeth Mitchell, a singer who leads a local children’s act, was also onstage.
Audience members, some of them in diapers, shook maracas in the shape of eggs and strummed inflatable guitars.

Afterward, Mr. Helm, 67, said he had decided to put on a show for young children and their families because he wanted to ensure that the musical styles he has been playing his entire career — rock ’n’ roll, soul, the blues, gospel — are passed on to another generation.
“Kids need to see real people playing real songs on real instruments,” he said, his voice raspier and his face more drawn than when he was captured on film by Martin Scorsese 30 years ago, though his smile was just as wide. “There’s too much phoniness in the world.” Only a few dozen families got to see Saturday’s show, which Mr. Helm had quietly advertised on his Web site, levonhelm.com. But that may change.

The performance, which ranged from Chuck Berry’s “Around & Around” to Robert Johnson’s “Ramblin’ on My Mind” to “What Goes On” by the Velvet Underground, was recorded by high-definition cameras.

Over the next few months Mr. Helm is planning to stage a few more children’s shows in his barn, which also houses a sophisticated recording studio, with an eye toward releasing the material as a CD and DVD by Christmas.

In seeking to find a place for himself alongside the soundtrack of “High School Musical” on children’s iPods, Mr. Helm is motivated somewhat by necessity. In recent years he has become saddled with enormous debts, including unpaid taxes and steep medical bills from a bout with throat cancer. His Web site includes a plea to fans asking them to make donations to a trust set up in his name to help him retire his debts by year’s end. Those who contribute at least $500 are promised that their names will be immortalized on a square at Levon Helm Studios.

Mr. Helm has hardly lost his desire to play for adults. For several years his most devoted fans have been selling out the periodic Midnight Rambles he holds at his barn, in which the audience sits close enough practically to reach out and touch Mr. Helm and his backup band. The group these days regularly includes his daughter, Amy, who sings and plays mandolin, as well as the guitarists Larry Campbell and Jimmy Vivino. (They are next scheduled to perform in Bethel, N.Y., on July 14 and at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on July 18.)

The groundwork for Mr. Helm’s performances for young people was laid more than a decade ago, during a stay at New York Hospital unrelated to his throat cancer. One of his nurses was Susie Lampert, an aspiring pianist. The two became friends, and Mr. Helm invited Ms. Lampert to Woodstock to play with him.

A few years ago he turned on the “Today” program and saw Ms. Lampert playing keyboards in Ms. Berkner’s band. He called his old nurse with an offer. “You need a drummer,” he told her. “And I’m the perfect guy.”

While he may yet play percussion on a forthcoming Berkner band release, the main result of his phone call has been a separate collaboration with Mr. Bernstein and Ms. Lampert. She played piano at Saturday’s performance and is working closely with Mr. Helm on what he calls his “Kid’s Rambles.” If the reaction of Saturday’s crowd was any indication, they may be on to something. Among those swaying and clapping along was Jake Ojalvo, 7, of Southbury, Conn., whose tastes, at least previously, tended to run toward the soundtrack of “Hannah Montana” and the Beach Boys. He was visibly excited after the concert and not just because he got to see a man who was rock ’n’ roll hero to his 41-year-old father. Like many in the audience, Jake got to meet Mr. Helm.

“He said, ‘Have a good summer,’ ” Jake recalled. “I said, ‘Thank you for inviting me to your house. ”

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