Levon Helm: Dirt Farmer
Vanguard Records
by: Kay Cordtz
Elmore Magazine, December 2007
Levon
Helm's voice can conjure all the spirits of our folk music. It was
the greatest of his gifts to The Band, and defined his solo work
until silenced for nearly a decade by illness. Here, his daughter
Amy and master musician Larry Campbell use that spellbinding voice
to produce 12 songs that create an emotional world through stories
as old as the legend of Jesse James and as ripped-from-the-headlines
as the "ghosts in the tunnels that the company sealed," from a
sublime version of Steve Earle's "The Mountain." On traditional
numbers like "Little Birds" and new ones like Byron Isaacs' haunting
"Calvary," Helm and his band lay bare some of life's lessons through
simple words and melodies that contain America's mystic chords of
memory.
Helm's solo voice is enough to convey betrayal's
sting on "False Hearted Lover Blues," but many more shades emerge
when he sings with others -- he's playful on "Single Girl, Married
Girl," bawdy on J.B. Lenoir's "Feeling Good," and soul-weary on
"Wide River to Cross." Amy Helm and Teresa Williams bring other
primary colors to the record's gorgeous palette of harmonies that
rejoice on "Got Me A Woman," then weep for the fate of "Anna Lee."
And when their voices declare, "We will burn your train to cinders/
so throw that money on down" in "A Train Robbery," it will make your
hair stand on end.
Larry Campbell sweetens every track with his simple
arrangement and elegant string parts. His hypnotic fiddle on "Wide
River to Cross" and the duet with Brian Mitchell's sweet, sad
accordion on "The Blind Child" are almost unbearably lovely. But the
greatest gift of this heroic band is showcasing the resurrection of
Levon's voice, back in all its defiant, lusty, heartbroken glory.
