Levon Helm of The Band is in final stage of cancer battle, family says

[Valin]

On The Red Carpet

Carollyn Nguyen

4/19/12

 

Musician Levon Helm is in his final stage of his long battle with cancer, according to family members.

 

The 71-year-old is a former member of The Band, known for hits like "The Weight" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."

 

Levon's wife and daughter posted a message on his website, thanking fans for their support.

 

From Better Days

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_hsp4SBwO4

[cudjo]

saw on Drudge that he has died.

[Valin]

saw on Drudge that he has died.

 

The World is a bit grayer duller today.

 

Levon Helm, key member of The Band, dies at 71

MICHAEL HILL

 

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — With songs like "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," ''The Weight" and "Up on Cripple Creek," The Band fused rock, blues, folk and gospel to create a sound that seemed as authentically American as a Mathew Brady photograph or a Mark Twain short story.

 

In truth, the group had only one American — Levon Helm.

 

Helm, the drummer and singer who brought an urgent beat and a genuine Arkansas twang to some of The Band's best-known songs and helped turn a bunch of musicians known mostly as Bob Dylan's backup group into one of rock's most legendary acts, has died. He was 71.

 

Helm, who was found to have throat cancer in 1998, died Thursday afternoon of complications from cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, said Lucy Sabini of Vanguard Records. On Tuesday, a message on his website said he was in the final stages of cancer.

 

Helm and his bandmates — Canadians Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Robbie Robertson and Richard Manuel — were musical virtuosos who returned to the roots of American music in the late 1960s as other rockers veered into psychedelia, heavy metal and jams. The group's 1968 debut, "Music From the Big Pink," and its follow-up, "The Band," remain landmark albums of the era, and songs such as "The Weight," ''Dixie Down" and "Cripple Creek" have become rock standards.

(Snip)