UPDATE (taken from the Daily Freeman, including the photograph by Tania Barricklo): “Dixieland jazz was performed by the Jaguar Memorial Band from Jackson High School in New Jersey. The band — including Larry Campbell, the guitarist in Helm’s most recent group; guitarist Jimmy Vivino; and drummer Steve Jordan — played a New Orleans-style tune as it marched from the gravesite back toward the cemetery entrance after the burial":
Below, and marking a happier occasion, I offer these remarkably recent photographs of Levon in performance, and I thank the photographer, David Winkler, for his permission to reproduce them. (Thanks too to Jack Evans for sending them through to me.) They were taken at the Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee WI on March 14th this year:
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| all three photographs © David Winkler, 2012 |
I knew Levon was going to enjoy his life and keep playing music right up to the end and he did; and that was some serious "soldiering". He radiated Love and positive vibes from the stage and where ever he went. Levon Helm inspired... and he always will...
ReplyDeleteMichael
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting the photographs.
Leaving Dylan aside, it’s hard to think of a singer whose voice was more evocative than Levon Helm’s. It was an extraordinary gift, and he made the most of it. And always it’s the opening lines of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down that do it most for me. Impossible to listen to them and not feel a uniquely thrilling shiver down the spine.
I'm glad that his final years were spent so happily, playing and singing the stuff he loved, to richly deserved acclaim.