Levon Helm

Turkey Scratch/Marvell/Fayetteville

1940 – 2012

Levon Helm’s sound was rooted in the Arkansas Delta long before the world knew him as the drummer and unmistakable Southern voice of the Band. Born near Elaine and raised around Marvell and the small farming community of Turkey Scratch, Helm grew up working on his family’s cotton farm while absorbing the music around him: gospel in church, country and bluegrass, traveling minstrel shows, rhythm and blues, and the Delta blues coming over KFFA radio from nearby Helena. He saw Bill Monroe as a child, watched the F. S. Walcott Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels, and learned from musicians such as drummer James “Peck” Curtis, who played with Sonny Boy Williamson.

As a teenager, Helm was already playing around eastern Arkansas when he met fellow Arkansan Ronnie Hawkins at the Delta Supper Club in West Helena. Helm joined Hawkins’s band, the Hawks, and followed him to Canada, where the group eventually came to include Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson. After leaving Hawkins, those musicians backed Bob Dylan during his controversial move into electric rock, then emerged on their own as the Band.

On albums such as Music from Big Pink and The Band, Helm’s drumming and weathered, expressive voice helped create a sound that drew freely from blues, country, gospel, folk, R&B, and early rock and roll. That musical blend would become enormously influential in the development of roots rock and what later came to be called Americana.

After surviving throat cancer, Helm experienced a remarkable late-career resurgence. His albums Dirt Farmer and Electric Dirt won Grammy Awards, reconnecting him with the traditional music that had surrounded him in Arkansas as a child.

For all the miles his career traveled, Helm’s musical compass repeatedly pointed back toward the Delta. The rhythms, voices, and communities of eastern Arkansas did not simply influence his music. They became part of the sound he carried into the world.