{"id":573883148,"date":"2012-04-17T22:13:05","date_gmt":"2012-04-18T03:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/?p=573883148"},"modified":"2012-04-19T01:43:53","modified_gmt":"2012-04-19T06:43:53","slug":"we-get-musical-or-they-dont-get-any-cooler-than-levon-helm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/blog\/2012\/04\/17\/we-get-musical-or-they-dont-get-any-cooler-than-levon-helm\/","title":{"rendered":"We get musical (Or: They don’t get any cooler than Levon Helm)"},"content":{"rendered":"

All Levon Helm has done is sing anthems, become an actor, get cancer, lose his voice, ignore doctors and start singing again. He also won, among his other awards, a Grammy for 2011’s Ramble at the Ryman — and you’re missing out if you don’t at least know this performance a little bit:<\/p>\n

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The rambler, his family announced today, is in the final stage of his battle with cancer. <\/p>\n

He released Dirt Farmer in 2007, some quarter of a century after his last studio album — remember, he was diagnosed with throat cancer in the 1990s. Dirt Farmer gives you the impression that everything was on his terms, because Levon Helm, that’s why:<\/p>\n

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There’s also some sort of Steinbeckian quality to it. And I don’t mean to overwrite this here, but he’s one of the last few balladeers of the South. It doesn’t matter that The Weight is set in Pennsylvania, that’s a boy from Arkansas sharing his pain and joy. The Band, at perhaps their peak:<\/p>\n

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And now I’d encourage you to listen to a man approaching 70 singing his absolute soul out:<\/p>\n

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More from Ramble at the Ryman:<\/p>\n

Back To Memphis<\/a>
\nBaby Scratch My Back<\/a> (w\/ Little Sammy Davis)
\nNo Depression in Heaven<\/a>
\nThe Weight<\/a> (w\/ John Hiatt!)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All Levon Helm has done is sing anthems, become an actor, get cancer, lose his voice, ignore doctors and start singing again. He also won, among his other awards, a Grammy for 2011’s Ramble at the Ryman — and you’re missing out if you don’t at least know this performance a little bit: The rambler, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,8,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573883148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-tuesday","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573883148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573883148"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573883148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573883153,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573883148\/revisions\/573883153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573883148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573883148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573883148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}