Dick Clark has passed... and brother Levon is close...

I was saddened to hear of the loss of Dick Clark - an icon of American music - but my sad hit a deep level with the news that brother Levon Helm is in the final stages of cancer.  I can remember coming home from first grade and watching American Bandstand with my Aunt Donna.  She taught me ALL the line dances of the day - and later the Mashed Potato and Twist, too.  (It was a little bit of magic when she put on the Isley Brothers "Shout Parts 1 and 2" or Little Eva.)  She was my musical mentor - turned me on to Little Richard (NOT Pat Boone) before I even went to school, too!

Later, when Clark created the hipper "Where the Action Is" I would groove to that show, too: loved corny Paul Revere and the Raiders but also saw some great acts each afternoon before "Dark Shadows."  Don Cornelius (RIP) wanted to do for Black music what Clark did for POP songs - and both were blessings to artists and fans alike.  My life has been enriched by Dick Clark's commitment to sharing the good times (and I STILL remember seeing these cats back in the day... ooh do I love "Talk, Talk!")

And then Levon Helm.  My first written music review ever began with a reflection on the Band's "Music from Big Pink" - and I've been a stone, cold fan ever since.  We close every Thanksgiving Eve with "The Weight," I still get shivers whenever the opening moans of Garth Hudson's electric organ from "Chest Fever" come on (they are the equivalent of Celtic pipe harmonies played on a HUGE pipe organ), saw the Band at Watkins Glenn along with the Dead and Allman Brothers and have LOVED the roots rock brother Levon has been making these past 20 years.

As you know, he and Robbie Robertson were the first electric players to go on tour with Dyaln back in the day.  True, the Trickster of rock first showed off his electric blues with members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at Newport - Mike Bloomfield et all - but it was Helm and Robertson that made the rockin' real all over the world.  And after Dylan's motorcycle accident took him to Woodstock for quiet recovery, the Band came into their own.  Not only did "Music from Big Pink" take the world by surprise, but the once "Basement Tapes" between Dylan and the Band reclaimed and refashioned the "old, weird music" of Americana for the 20th century.  His voice and back beat were pure, man cuz he was the real deal.

Like many others, I, too thought he had beaten throat cancer... but apparently that was short lived.  Every year for the past 10 years I've been trying to find a way to do either "Don't Do It" or "Rag Momma Rag" for our Thanksgiving Eve gig and now maybe this will come to pass.  He was one of the best and kept on rockin' in the free world until the very end. Blessings to you both, dear brothers in creativity, you have both earned a well-deserved rest.