At Home in Hespeler

In honour of doing Friday Fluffernutter on Saturday, I offer Thursday, as done on Friday…

On Thanksgiving 1976, November 25th – a Thursday – The Band performed a farewell concert which they filmed and released as The Last Waltz. The final piece on The Last Waltz was shot later on a soundstage, having The Staples Singers join them on their classic, The Weight. Here it is…

Last night – a Friday – Jimmy Fallon said farewell to his TV show, and had some friends join him to sing, you guessed it, The Weight, exactly as The Band did it 38-years prior (well, almost).

Fluffernutter, Friday Jimmy Fallon, Levon Helm, The Band, The Last Waltz, The Muppets

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

The Band was, undeniably, one of the great acts of the rock era. A Canadian band with a lone member from Arkansas, they played Toronto’s haunts for years backing up Ronnie Hawkins as The Hawks. Hawkin’s was a taskmaster and a perfectionist. After performing all night, virtually every night, Hawkins would rehearse his band for hours afterwards into the small hours of the morning.

The practice time paid off, and The Hawks became masters of their craft. So much so that when Bob Dylan decided to change rock’n’roll irretrievably by mixing folk and electric blues, he chose the Hawks to be his back up band. The Arkansas boy however, had had enough of the life and, disappointed by the initial response to Bob Dylan’s decision to “go electric,” quit music and went home. Levon Helm left his bandmates to suffer the indignity of being booed and jeered every night, just because Bob Dylan decided to expand his musical horizons.

In 1967, living in Woodstock with Bob Dylan, Rick Danko contacted Helm asking him to rejoin the band. He did and became one of the staple voices of rock music. Music From the Big Pink, released a year later, became one of the most popular and influential albums of the 1960’s, cited by George Harrison as a great album, and Eric Clapton as the reason he left Cream for more rootsy styled music. Helm, for the record, never really left Woodstock again, his popular Midnight Ramble’s, ongoing until his death, took place in his barn/studio at his home in Woodstock.

A few weeks ago, an announcement appeared on Helm’s webpage, signed his wife and daughter. Helm was, it said, “in the final stages of his battle with cancer.” Usually such notices mean you have days to live. In Helm’s case, it was 2 days, as he succumbed to cancer on April 20th. He was 72.

As the post-mortem tributes came in, none summed Helm up better than Bruce Springsteen, who told a New Jersey audience about a week after Helm’s death:

Both his voice and his drumming were so incredibly personal. He had a feel on the drums that just comes out of a certain place that you can’t replicate.

When Springsteen refers to Helm’s voice as personal, he doesn’t just mean unique, although it was certainly that. Whether he was stretching his voice as in Ophelia, reciting a history lesson as he did in The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down or mock yodeling in Up On Cripple Creek, It felt as though Helm was singing directly to you. His voice had so much soul, every note dripping with that intangible something that made him one of the very special singers.

The Freedom of Music, This Week on my I-Pod Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Cream, Eric Clapton, Levon Helm, Music From the Big Pink, Rick Danko, Ronnie Hawkins, The Band

Bruce Springsteen (and audience) pays tribute to Levon Helm.

“Both his (Levon Helm’s) voice and his drumming were so incredibly personal. ” Bruce Springsteen: May 2, 2012

Meanwhile George Costanza wants to join the 1%.

Cool For Cats Bruce Springsteen, Jason Alexander, Levon Helm

Joe Bonamassa pays tribute to Levon Helm:

Cool For Cats Joe Bonamassa, Levon Helm

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

For some “stars,” it’s all they can do but take advantage of their fans. Apparently, Nicki Manaj, a singer of some form, is one of those.

Manaj was PO’d last weekend when a fan site, NickyDaily.com leaked a new, never before heard song by the rapper. So what did she do? Delete her twitter account. Leaving with a parting shot at an unfair life that has given her money and fame far beyond any ability, Manaj basically blamed her whole fan base for one website.

Like seriously, its but so much a person can take. Good f–king bye,

Twitter loses one: twitter gains one.

After an hiatus from her twitter account following her very public marriage break up, prescription drug problem and rehab stint, Demi Moore returned to twitter this week.

The actress/cougar hasn’t been seen much since husband Ashton Kutcher stepped out on the MILF queen. Her first tweet since the breakup was a photo of herself lying on her bed (sorry guys, fully clothed). She later tweeted that she was looking to change her twitter name, which is currently @mrskutcher.

I’d suggest @mrsgardiner, but the current occupant of that position might object.

This just in: The Tupac hologram has been shot. I repeat, the Tupac hologram has been shot. RIP Tupac hologram. 2012 – 2012. (h/t to Gord)

Breaking news. Nicky Manaj says the voices in her head made her quit twitter, and she is thinking of rejoining the “look at me” site.

We’re shocked.

Wouldn’t it be nice if once, just once, fans of these vacuous, talentless fame junkies didn’t return when these Diva’s treat them like shite. I know if I was running the free publicity web site she bashed it would have been an ex-web site by about last Sunday.

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Lousy, lousy week to be a music fan. Doesn’t matter if you’re period is the 50’s and 60’s, late 60’s and through the 70’s or disco era, there’s bad news.

Former Bee Gee Robin Gibb is in a London hospital suffering pneumonia. Gibb has been fighting cancer and the pnemonia appears to be of the fatal variety. Friends and family were called to his bedside last weekend where Gibb fell into a coma.

No recent word on his health, but prognosis does not seem to be good.

How did you know you made it in rock’n’roll in the 50’s?

You were on American Bandstand.

And if you were on American Bandstand, you got bigger and you had Dick Clark to thank for that. Clark was the host of the popular music and dance program form 1957 to 1987.

On top of Bandstand, he hosted Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Years Eve from Times Square from 1975-2004, when he stopped hosting duties after suffering a stroke.

On Wednesday Clark died after suffering a heart attack following a medical procedure. The timeless entertainer, known for seeming to have not aged in his 50 years in the public eye was 82.

I don’t normally do mourning for celebrities or are bothered too terribly by the death of someone famous whether I liked them or not. Sure, I have empathy for the deceased, and always try to be graceful if I write a eulogy. But they are people I have never met and the effect on my life is minimal. I note their passing, try and offer some thoughts but don’t get too emotional. So this week when Levon Helm died and I found myself deeply saddened, I can’t answer why.

Helm was by all accounts a decent, easy man who did what he did simply because he loved music. When his health failed and treatment for cancer of the larynx took his voice and his money, he kept on playing, creating the somewhat legendary Midnight Rambles at his farm in Woodstock NY, the greatest show I never made it too but really, really intended too.

It took a number of years, but Helm worked his voice back, and if you listen to Dirt Farmer from 2007, it’s clear he is back in fine form.

After asking the audience at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions to pray for Helm last Saturday, there was a report that ex band mate Robbie Robertson went to Helm to attempt to repair a 30 year rift. On Tuesday, Helms family announced via his web page that his cancer had returned and that he was near the end.

Sadly, he passed Thursday afternoon.

Helm was the drummer, but also played mandolin and guitar, in The Band. The lone American in the otherwise Canadian outfit, Helm had one of the strongest and most soulful voices in rock music. He never really lost his Arkansas accent when he sang, and it gave his singing a character others simply didn’t have.

Levon Helm was, simply put, a vital part of one of the greatest rock bands ever. He was 71.

Fluffernutter Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Dick Clark, Levon Helm, Nicki Manaj, Robbie Robertson, Robin Gibb, The Band, Tupac

…(she’s) a drunkards dream if I ever did see one…

Ringo Starr’s Allstar Band, 1989 (the first one).

Ringo Starr
Billy Preston
Dr. John
Joe Walsh (Eagles)
Levon Helm (Band)
Rick Danko (Band)
Garth Hudson (Band)
Nils Lofgren (Bruce Springsteens E-Street Band, Neil Young’s Crazy Horse)
Clarence Clemons (E Street Band)

And of course, no Ringo Starr Cool For Cats Friday would be complete without Mrs. Ringo Starr

Cool For Cats, YouTube Barbara Bach, Billy Preston, Clarence Clemons, Crazy Horse, Dr. John, E Street Band, Garth Hudson, Joe Walsh, Levon Helm, Nils Lofgren, Rick Danko, Ringo Starr, The Band