This Wheel's on Fire
Levon Helm and the Story of the Band
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4.8 • 12 Ratings
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
The singer and drummer of the Band details, in this book, the history of one of the most influential groups of the 1960s. While their music evoked a Southern mythology with their beautifully crafted, image-rich songs, only their Arkansan drummer, Levon Helm, was the genuine article. This updated edition of his life story includes a new epilogue that covers the last dozen years of his life. From the cotton fields to Woodstock and from seeing Sonny Boy Williamson and Elvis Presley to playing for President Clinton, This Wheel's on Fire replays the tumultuous life of Levon Helm in his own unforgettable folksy drawl.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Arkansas-born Helm, drummer for classic-rock outfit The Band, and Davis ( Fleetwood ) here present a down-home account of the quintet's development. Whereas Barney Hoskyns's recent Across the Great Divide: The Band and America (Nonfiction Forecasts, June 7) portrayed the group as aesthetes squirreled away in Woodstock, N.Y., this firsthand chronicle highlights earthier episodes: the musicians' lowbrow rockabilly antics in Canada and the South, their incarnation as Bob Dylan's much-maligned backup band in the '60s and guitarist Robbie Robertson's estrangement from them in the late '70s. While Hoskyns quotes Robertson almost exclusively, the guitarist is rarely heard from here. Helm denounces notions that he and his fellows were smug: ``Calling it The Band seemed a little on the pretentious, even blowhard side--burdened by greatness--but we never intended it that way.'' Although Helm and Davis open on the predictable downbeat--band member Richard Manuel's suicide--they close positively, with kind words from Dylan and the hope of a comeback. Of the two books, this plainspoken effort proves less dry and doesn't put its subjects on too high a pedestal. Photos not seen by PW .
