A House Concert
I would not mind attending one of these but they are in Upstate New York.
Dang!
From the
NY Times:
Home Is Where the Fans Are
You drive down a rural lane near the base of Mount Overlook, off Route 212 on the east side of Woodstock, and negotiate a stretch of unlit bends and rises until you reach a turnoff marked with only a number. Turn right into the woods, bounce down a pitted dirt road for a bit and you come to a field where an older gentleman with a flashlight helps you find a parking spot. Exiting your car, you find yourself under a canopy of stars outside a large timber building, hearty blues music seeping out into the cold December night.
This backwoods juke joint is the home studio of Levon Helm, 65, the former drummer and vocalist with the Band, and one of rock 'n' roll's great figures. On this Saturday night, as he has once or twice a month for the past couple of years, he plays host to what he calls a Midnight Ramble: a night of music played casually by friends for friends, as well as roughly a hundred fans gathered over the Internet. Guests eat, drink and sit in front of a large bluestone fireplace watching a variety of acts. The night is capped with a set by the Levon Helm Band, a blues outfit featuring a local veteran singer and blues-harp blower, Little Sammy Davis, and a rotating cast of players.
And the music:
In the studio, Alexis P. Suter, a Brooklyn-based blues singer with a powerhouse contralto, belts out the Elvis-associated gospel standard "Precious Lord Take My Hand." Mr. Helm's daughter, Amy, celebrating her 35th birthday this evening, sits on the floor and sings along. Later, her band, Ollabelle, takes the stage. Named for the singer Ola Belle Reed, the band sings old-time spirituals and country songs with handsome, democratic harmonies that conjure the spirit of the Band; it even has a singing drummer.
The evening's special guest is Emmylou Harris, who arrives with Malcolm Burn, a musician and producer who lives in nearby Kingston. Dressed in tight jeans, cowboy boots and a black blouse, Ms. Harris balances a glass of juice on an old drum stool, tosses her trademark mane of white hair and begins a short set of signatures, including Gillian Welch's "Orphan Girl" and the Louvin Brothers' "If I Could Only Win Your Love," the latter sung with dizzying harmonies by the guitarist Larry Campbell, who took a couple of days off a tour with the Grateful Dead's Phil Lesh to come here and play.
But the evening's most moving vocals are yet to come. Near midnight, Helm, clean-shaven in a blue down vest, mounts a stool with his mandolin, his dog, Muddy, rooting around his feet. He sets into Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City," a song he covered on "Jericho," a 1993 album produced by the Band in the wake of its break with the guitarist-songwriter Robbie Robertson and the death of Richard Manuel, the singer and multi-instrumentalist who hanged himself on tour in 1986. It's a song about hope in the face of desperate odds, and Mr. Helm sings it likes he owns it.
In fact, the line "Everything dies, baby that's a fact/ But maybe everything that dies some day comes back" has special resonance because, in the wake of a bout with throat cancer, Mr. Helm has until recently been unable to sing. But the voice tonight sounds strong, essentially the same Deep South holler that created Band classics like "The Weight" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" - a voice as ancient, murky and threatening as the Mississippi. The rasp of age and ailments only enhances the effect.
Ms. Harris then joins Mr. Helm for a couple of numbers: the Stanley Brothers' "Angel Band" and the Band's "Evangeline," which Ms. Harris sang with Mr. Helm on the "Last Waltz" album. Both voices well-weathered since then, they still mesh like blood kin. The evening finishes with Mr. Helm behind the drum kit, driving through a set that includes Bob Dylan's "Don't Ya Tell Henry" and "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry," Willie Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man," and the Band's "W. S. Walcott Medicine Show," complete with a New Orleans-flavored horn section approximating Allen Toussaint's arrangement on the group's "Rock of Ages" album.
The sessions are available for sale at
Levon's webpage.
Posted by DaveH at December 19, 2005 4:47 PM