Classic Concert, Concert films, folk, Levon Helm, Live, The Band

August 03: The Levon Helm Band at The Newport Folk Festival in 2008

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Levon Helm

August 03: The Levon Helm Band at The Newport  Folk Festival in 2008

The best way to remember Levon Helm is to enjoy his music.

Today we have searched the cellars of YouTube and found a shining gem: The Levon Helm Band at The Newport Folk Festival in 2008.

I think we got the full show (but not sure). Levon Helm and his band went on stage second to last on the final day of the festival. They gave a tremendous show that confirmed their influence from folk music and they were a fitting act to play at a folk music festival.

Levon Helm was one of the finest drummers and most soulful singers in music history! …and the set list has some traditional songs, some solo stuff and quite a few songs from The Band era. The Band songs are so fresh and fits this band so well, they sound amazing.

Highlights: Chest Fever, Got Me A Woman plus Anna Lee from my favorite Levon Helm album, Dirt Farmer, Long Black Veil and The Weight with guests, Jake Shimabukuro, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings

We also get some very special guests:

Set list:
Ophelia
Deep Elem Blues
Ashes of Love
Anna Lee
Chest Fever
Love Played A Game
Long Black Veil
Got Me A Woman
Rag Mama Rag
Fannie Mae
The Same Thing (incomplete)
The Shape I’m In
The Weight

The Levon Helm Band live at The Newport Folk Festival 2008:

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The Band

August 2: Garth Hudson was born in 1937

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August 2: Garth Hudson was born in 1937

Hudson was just as crucial to the very different sounds made in the Basement the year afterwards: especially since in large part it was Garth who tape-recorded those unique, informal sessions, and had the sense to look after, afterwards, all the dozens of unknown-about extra ones beyond those of immediate interest to Dylan’s music publisher, and which only began to circulate decades later.

Hudson was also the musicians’ musician—and actually gave the other Hawks music lessons—and when the Hawks became the Crackers became The Band, he was the multi-instrumentalist supreme in a group of multi-instrumentalists. If The Band introduced a small orchestra’s worth of olde worlde instruments to mainstream rock music, it was Hudson who had introduced many of them to The Band.
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia)

Members of The Band Accept Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Award at 1994 Inductions:

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Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia

August 1: The late Jerry Garcia was born in 1942

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There’s no way to measure his greatness or magnitude as a person or as a player. I don’t think eulogizing will do him justice. He was that great – much more than a superb musician with an uncanny ear and dexterity. He is the very spirit personified of whatever is Muddy River Country at its core and screams up into the spheres. He really had no equal. To me he wasn’t only a musician and friend, he was more like a big brother who taught and showed me more than he’ll ever know. There are a lot of spaces and advances between the Carter Family, Buddy Holly and, say, Ornette Coleman, a lot of universes, but he filled them all without being a member of any school. His playing was moody, awesome, sophisticated, hypnotic and subtle. There’s no way to convey the loss. It just digs down really deep.
~Bob Dylan (Jerry Garcia’s Obituary – 10 August 1995)

Bruce Hornsby inducts the Grateful Dead at the 1994 Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony:

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Bob Dylan, My Morning Jacket, Video

My Morning Jacket covers Bob Dylan

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Bob Dylan’s songs have become part of the great American songbook and there are a lot of artists covering his compositions. My Morning Jacket is one of the best and most interesting of the contemporary bands around, and their covers of Dylan are all good, some are great.

In honor of Amnesty International’s 50th anniversary, a number of musical heavyweights came together for a new Bob Dylan cover album.  Chimes of Freedom: Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International had a wonderful cover of  “You’re a Big Girl Now” done by My Morning Jacket.


This made me check around to see if My Morning Jacket had done more songs by Dylan and they had.

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Soul, The Best Songs, Video

The Best Song: I Heard It Through The Grapevine – Marvin Gaye (and others)

 

Great song: I Heard It Through The Grapevine – Marvin Gaye (and others)

For me, Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” is Motown’s greatest record. It may be played to death but I still like it, like it? I love it!  It’s pulsating hypnotic rhythm pattern and the melodic singing hovering above it, it grooves and it’s funky as well.

Marvin Gaye (audio only):

It’s a love  song, where one part pleads to the other part after a break up, but it feels deeper than ordinary pop ditty. It’s about lies, loss, gossip, torment, fear and doubt. Dark stuff hidden in a soul tune.

Marvin Gaye (1968 live version):

The sinister rhythm gives us a taste of dark things ahead, it’s a painful story underscored with a cinematic theme. Marvin is in pain, and he tells us, over and over again. Lovely. Terrible. Terribly lovely.
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