Vol. 4, No. 3, March 2008
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Dirt Farmer
Levon Helm • Vanguard
The Band went on to become legendary in its own right; its historic 1976 Thanksgiving Day concert in San Francisco—including Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Joni Mitchell and Muddy Waters—was immortalized in the Martin Scorsese film The Last Waltz.
Helm is the son of a cotton farmer. Dirt Farmer, his latest work—which received a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album—is something of a homage to those origins—a narrative of rural life in the South, mixing bluegrass and folk, with the songs of Robbie Robertson and the Stanley Brothers along with other Dixie standards. This collection of songs, none of which are original works, gets new life under Helm's guidance, and reminds the listener what Johnny Cash was able to accomplish with his American series.
Helm’s voice has undergone something of an odyssey. For most of his career his sound was clear, powerful and distinct. A battle with throat cancer has left it much lower and raspier, but no less moving.
Most of us will never really understand what it means to live in the poor rural South, but the best description I've ever heard is in Helm’s “Poor Old Dirt Farmer,” a Cajun waltz written by Tracy Schwarz.
Another standout track is “The Mountain,” in which Helm weeps, “I was young on this mountain/Now I'm old/I knew every holler/Every cool swimming hole/‘Til one night I lay down and woke to find/That my childhood was over and I went down in the mine.”
Levon Helm is an American icon, and Dirt Farmer is a testament to his enduring journey. To put it another way, this record sounds like Tommy Lee Jones’ leathery face looks in No Country for Old Men.
