LEVON HELM BAND STARRING LITTLE SAMMY DAVIS
''THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLE SESSIONS, VOLUME ONE''
FEB 21, 2006
LEVON HELM STUDIOS
LIVE
1 Sad Hours 4:12
2 Oh Baby 4:24
3 I'm Ready 4:15
4 Blow, Wind Blow 4:42
5 Blues with a Feeling 3:28
6 The New Scratch My Back 5:24
7 I Ain't Lyin' 4:29
8 I'm Crazy About You Baby 3:24
9 Boom Boom, Out Go the Lights 3:12
10 Forty Days and Forty Nights 4:13
11 I Want to Take You Downtown 5:04
12 Everything Gonna Be Alright/Wrapped Up In Love Again 4:38
13 California Blues 6:28
Cary Brown/Piano
Little Sammy Davis/Harmonica, Vocals
Levon Helm/Drums, Producer
Frank Luther/Bass
Michael Merritt/Bass
Fred Scribner/Guitar
BIOGRAPHY
by Richard Skelly
The longtime drummer for the Band, Levon Helm wore many musical hats throughout his long career, including multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, singer, impresario, studio owner, studio engineer, and producer. He grew up working on a farm in Arkansas; his first instrument was guitar, which he began playing at age eight, but after seeing the F.S. Walcott Rabbits Foot Minstrels, he decided to switch to drums. As a youth, Helm listened to the music of the area, including radio broadcasts of The Grand Ole Opry and the blues and R&B shows on WLAC, a clear-channel station out of Nashville that became legendary in the development of rhythm & blues and early rock & roll. Accompanied by his sister Linda on washboard bass, he played various fairs and civic club shows until forming his first group, the Jungle Bush Beaters, while in high school.
After seeing an Elvis Presley concert, Helm became keenly interested in rock & roll and musicians like Bo Diddley. Eventually, he moved to Memphis, where he began sitting in with Conway Twitty. Later, he was discovered by a fellow Arkansan, rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins, who asked the 17-year-old Helm to join the Hawks, his backing band. The group soon relocated to Toronto, where they'd heard there was a burgeoning scene for their kind of music. In 1959, Hawkins signed to Roulette Records, where he and the Hawks cut a pair of hit records right out of the gate with "Forty Days" and "Mary Lou," which went on to sell in excess of 700,000 copies.
In the early '60s in Toronto, Helm and Hawkins recruited the rest of the members of the group that would become the Band, adding guitarist Robbie Robertson, pianist Richard Manuel, organist Garth Hudson, and bassist Rick Danko to the lineup. After numerous road trips with Hawkins, the group grew tired of the singer's abrasive manner, and they re-formed as Levon & the Hawks, later changing their name to the Canadian Squires for the purpose of recording two singles. Shortly after, they changed their name back to the Hawks. In the mid-'60s, Bob Dylan decided to electrify his sound and wanted the Hawks to be his backing band. After putting up with too many boos at Dylan's newly electrified shows in 1965, Helm decided he'd had enough, and went back to Arkansas, thinking he would leave the music business behind him forever.
But Helm returned to action in mid-1967, when the Hawks (since renamed simply the Band) began working on Music from Big Pink, the first in a string of classic records that made them one of rock's most legendary acts. After the Band's famed 1976 farewell performance, dubbed The Last Waltz, he cut his 1977 debut solo album, Levon Helm & the RCO All Stars, followed a year later by his self-titled sophomore effort. In 1980 he recorded American Son, while another eponymously titled effort was released in 1982. The Band re-formed in 1983 without Robertson; following Manuel's 1986 suicide, the remaining trio released 1993's Jericho, recorded at Helm's home studio in Woodstock, New York. That same year, Helm published his autobiography, This Wheel's on Fire, co-authored with Stephen Davis. The Band's bluesy High on the Hog followed in 1995. The late '90s (and into the next decade) found Helm still making music in a new blues band called Levon Helm & the Barn Burners, with his daughter Amy on keyboards and vocals, guitarist Pat O'Shea, lead vocalist and harmonica player Chris O'Leary, and upright bassist Frankie Ingrao, and with a similar outfit called Crowmatrix. An album of tracks from this era called Souvenir, Vol. 1 appeared in 2000 from Breeze Hill.
Cancer of the vocal cords silenced Helm's unique voice as the 21st century opened, although he kept up his drumming duties, and in time was able to sing again, emerging with a slightly raspier version of his old vocal style. He began holding intimate concerts with various musical friends at his studio in Woodstock, calling them Midnight Rambles, samples of which were released as Midnight Ramble Music Session, Vol. 1 and Midnight Ramble Music Session, Vol. 2 in 2006. The following year saw the release of Dirt Farmer, Helm's first solo album in 25 years. The similar but looser Electric Dirt followed in 2009. Ramble at the Ryman, which captures highlights of Helm's 2008 Midnight Ramble concert at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, was released on both CD and DVD in 2011.
REVIEW
by Mark Deming
In 2004, former Band drummer Levon Helm, eager to get back into playing music on a regular basis after surviving a bout with cancer, began staging a series of small concerts at the recording studio on his estate in Woodstock, New York. Calling the shows "The Midnight Rambles," a different set of guests tagged along once or twice a month while Helm and his cronies played house band, and on October 23, 2004, Helm set up with guitarist Fred Scribner, bassist Michael Merritt, and bluesman Little Sammy Davis on vocals and harmonica. Like the other shows in the Midnight Ramble series, the gig was recorded and videotaped, and The Midnight Ramble Music Sessions, Vol. 1 features 12 songs from that evening. A more accurate billing for this show would have been "Little Sammy Davis with the Levon Helm Band," since Davis is the clear frontman at this show, and Helm, in deference to his throat problems, doesn't contribute any of his trademark vocals (and while his drumming chops are in fine shape, the repertoire has him playing little more than a steady shuffle most of the time). Davis is a good harp player whose style suggests a more laid-back variation on Little Walter, but his vocals have weakened with age, and though there's a relaxed and comfortable mood to this music that befits a house party with friends in attendance, it rarely catches fire the way you wish it would, and this ends up coming off as a guitar pull with some A-list players rather than a soul-satisfying blues session. This ramble was probably a great party, but The Midnight Ramble Music Sessions, Vol. 1 suggests you really had to be there. (The album is packed with a DVD including the same performances that appear on the CD, and while the video is well-shot and edited, it ultimately isn't any more exciting to watch than to hear.)
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