Levon Helm, the drummer for the legendary group known simply as The Band, was also the voice behind some of the group's biggest hits like "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." The only American in a group of Canadians, he was responsible for adding the Southern twang that helped the rockabilly outfit stand out from the crowd. The Band called it quits with an all-star sendoff called The Last Waltz in 1976, but Helm continued making music until he was sidelined in the late 1990s by throat cancer that threatened to rob him of his voice. Now, after an almost ten-year battle with the disease, the hardworking singer is back with a collection of American standards steeped in Southern folklore.
Dirt Farmer finds Levon Helm a bit battered but in no way down for the count. His voice may not have the volume that it used to, but Helm always prized emotion and phrasing over power when it came to his singing. In fact, he couldn't have found a better vehicle for his return than this set of sun-scorched, earthen songs. With some assistance from his daughter, Amy, an extremely talented harmony singer and a member of the band Ollabelle, Helm takes turns singing about two of the most popular topics in the cannon of Americana music—the land and lost love. On the disc's opening track, "False Hearted Lover Blues," Helm brings a hardscrabble energy to the song that's similar to the chug-along spirit of The Band. On "Single Girl, Married Girl," written by A.P. Carter of America's first family of country music, The Carter Family, Helm's voice regains its bouncy nature as he holds court to what sounds like an old-fashioned front porch ramble.
As good as he is at crooning boy-loves-girl/boy-loses-girl tunes, Levon Helm is truly a child of the land—the Southern land. The Arkansas-born and bred artist is at his strongest and most effective on windswept songs like "Poor Old Dirt Farmer" and the particularly lovely folk standard "Little Birds." By the time he sings of "shadows stealing the sun" and "races ahead that I must run" on the album's closer, "Wide River To Cross," you get the feeling that the musical journey of Levon Helm is far, far from over. |