Levon Helm > Quotes

“Maybe the greatness we heard in [Richard Manuel]'s voice, that catch in it, came from all that pain. To this day, we don't really know.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“For me personally, though, the killer was published in Rolling Stone: “Levon Helm is the only drummer that can make you cry.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“The sound of the blues, rhythm and blues, country music, is what we lived for, black and white alike. It gave you strength to sit on one of those throbbing Allis-Chalmers tractors all day if you knew you were gonna hear something on the radio or maybe see a show that evening.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“My mom, God love her, she was one of those Bible people. She thought it was wrong to bother anybody, regardless of race, color or religion. It just wasn't a Christian thing to look down on anybody, and that's what she taught us.”
― Levon Helm

“When we were unloading or going into a restaurant, the raisin got stepped on and smeared like a flapjack. The Hawk was displeased when he saw that. “Goddamn,” he growled, “I gave you guys a hundred to get off cigarettes. I’ll give you two hundred to get rid of these damn raisins!”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“So we made some big plans to be Sonny Boy’s band and sat down to some good barbecue in a place I’d been eating in all my life in the black part of town. We ordered sandwiches, coleslaw, and some sodas. While we waited, someone asked Sonny Boy whether he’d known Robert Johnson. “Knew him?” Sonny Boy asked incredulously. “Boy, Robert Johnson died in my arms!”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“After I was old enough to work, they’d have to make three pies: one for each family and one for Lavon. And I’d guard mine.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“None of us ever thought to write a song about all the shit that was going on back then: war, revolution, civil war, turmoil. Our songs were trying to take you someplace else.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“He hated the Ku Klux Klan. I’m real proud of that. One day when he was farming he heard that some of them were trying to organize in the area. He put his shotgun in the back of his wagon and found a bunch of ’em on the porch of the general store. He went right up and said, “Excuse me, sirs, but have any of you all seen any of them goddamn Ku Kluxers?” No one said anything, so Grandpaw prompted ’em a little. “Those sorry sheet-wearin’ sons of bitches.” They still didn’t say a word. “Well, if you see any of them Ku Kluxers, you tell ’em Wheeler Wilson’s looking for ’em, and you can tell ’em where I live.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“As rowdy as the place was, I’ve seen rowdier times playing fraternity parties in Oklahoma.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“The land was our legacy. Most of my father’s generation spent a good part of their lives building levees just to keep the high water off us so we could farm. Most of the farm houses we lived in were raised up on stilts. My dad started me on the tractor that spring. I’d been riding with him for years, and now I got to drive it. We started in April, turned the fields over with the breaking plow, and then got on top of it again with a disk. Some years, if your soil demanded it, you went back and disked it over again into fine-tilled soil. Just before planting, you’d work the ground with a section harrow, a flat, metal-toothed rake that furrowed the ground, smoothed it, and broke up any clods of dirt. Clouds of birds whirled overhead and around the tractor, searching for worms and insects in the freshly plowed earth. Eventually you’d have big fields of fine delta soil in rows about four inches high.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“We were in our early twenties, playing and traveling, and didn’t have to answer to anybody. It was the kind of life where if you had a problem today, you could be five hundred miles away from it the next day.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“The title we had for the record was Harvest, because we were reaping this music from seeds that had been planted many years before we’d even been born. But we could have called it America as well, because this music was right out of the air. We were saying, Listen! You can’t ignore this. At the same time, John Simon was reminding us, “You aren’t finished yet.” We had nine good ones, but an album was at least twelve, so we’d”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“Louis Jordan’s “Caledonia.” We”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“Dirt Farmer, the album that resulted from these sessions. Larry Campbell brought in “False Hearted Lover,” an ancient ballad that had been recorded by the revered Stanley”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“When Capitol released Islands in March 1977, it got to No. 64 and disappeared, the poorest showing by any of our albums.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“Around the time Coal Miner’s Daughter came out in 1980, MCA (which had gobbled up ABC) released ten of these under the title American Son. Coal Miner’s Daughter was a hit movie, and I got surprisingly good reviews.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“had to stay, so I checked into the Miramar, and my parents sent me a little money to live on. I was this twenty-six-year-old kid, but I felt something very powerful, and Levon was so sweet to me. He’s a gentleman of the old southern school who believes a woman shouldn’t want for anything if a man can help it. “But then his business was over in California,”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“The opening act featured six-and-a-half-year-old Amy Helm on vocals, with her eleven-year-old brother, Ezra Titus, on guitar.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“we got to San Francisco about a week before Thanksgiving and moved into the Miyako Hotel,”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“Richard ends the show with a beautiful version of “Georgia on My Mind” that defuses”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“Bill Graham tried to get the governor out onstage, but Jerry wanted to stay in the wings with actress/ singer Ronee Blakely, so Bill threw my towel at him.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“Yeah, the road has taken many of the great ones: Hank Williams, Otis, Jimi, Janis, Elvis. It’s a goddamn impossible way of life.” The Hawk howled at that one. Fade to black and roll credits over “The Last Waltz Suite” as The Band shrinks to these little figures that eventually diminish to nothing on the screen.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“Libby found out about me, realized that Levon had a girlfriend, and immediately served support papers on him. He would get up in the morning, stuff wads of contracts and legal paper into a briefcase, and head downtown in his BMW to see the lawyers. At night we’d go up to Shangri-La, where the movie interviews were being filmed, and I think they were finishing an album as well. “Levon and I stayed together through this long, confusing time. Eventually many issues regarding the children couldn’t be worked out, there was a custody battle, and we all had to go to court and lay out our lives for the judge.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“King Harvest (Has Surely Come).” Rick Danko sang “Unfaithful Servant” with those”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“Bob Dylan was going to be in the movie. That was the condition. So Bob was approached about this, and they told us that Bob didn’t really want to be in the movie because he was working on his own movie, Renaldo and Clara, shot during the”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“(The tracks included a version of “Visions of Johanna” and “She’s Your Lover Now.”)”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“Rag Mama Rag” was a collaboration among the band. At the time, it wasn’t anything special; as with many songs, we didn’t understand its importance until after we’d recorded it. I’m singing and playing the mandolin, and Richard’s playing drums. That’s Rick playing the fiddle, Garth playing the funky piano, and John Simon blowing tuba for the first time in his life. (There’s no bass on the track.) We were trying to bring to mind the feel of those old acoustic songs like “In the Pines” when we cut that.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“That spring he had done an acoustic tour of Britain, immortalized in the D. A. Pennebaker documentary Don’t Look Back, and after hanging with some of the Beatles and seeing what the Rolling Stones were doing, I guess he felt he had to change clothes and get himself a band.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“Robbie had played on her Court and Spark album a couple”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band