With the release of his folk album Dirt Farmer in 2007 Levon Helm celebrated surviving throat cancer. His voice has gained more power since then and the follow-up is more up-tempo and, you guessed it, electric. Kicking of withe Grateful Dead tune Tennessee Jed Helm hammers home his trademark drum style topped off with his growling vocals, sounding like a man who is having a great time among his fellow musicians.
Helm never committed himself to one style of music, so Electic Dirt is filled with Muddy Water's Chicago Blues, folk, gospel, country and the spicy lyricism of Randy Newman's Kingfish. Allen Toussaint wrote the horn arrangement for that song, as well as for the album's closer I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel To Be Free.
If his voice keeps in shape, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones can kill two birds with one stone if they still need a drummer and vocalist.
Electric Dirt is released on Dirt
Framer Music and distributed by Vanguard Records.
Tracks:
- Tennessee Jed (Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter)
- Move Along Train (Roebuck Staples)
- Growing Trade (Levon Helm, Larry Campbell)
- Golden Bird (Happy Traum)
- Stuff You Gotta Watch (Muddy Waters)
- White Dove (Carter Stanley)
- Kingfish (Randy Newman)
- You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had (Muddy Waters)
- When I Go Away (Larry Campbell)
- Heaven's Pearls (Anthony Leone, Byron Isaacs, Fiona McBain, Amy Helm, Glenn Patscha)
- I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel To Be Free (Richard Carroll Lamp, Willy E. Taylor)
Video: Levon Helm - Tennessee Jed
(live on The Late Show with David Letterman 2009/07/09)
Video: Levon Helm: The Making of Electric Dirt
» levonhelm.com
HCTF review of Dirt Farmer.