Drummer Levon Helm once backed Bob Dylan and sang with Van Morrison. Now, 30 years after The Band split up — and 10 years after he was diagnosed with throat cancer — Helm is putting out a solo album. The Washington Post has called Dirt Farmer "an exquisitely unvarnished monument to Americana from a man whose keening, lyrical vocals have become synonymous with it."
Helm, the longtime drummer of The Band who backed Bob Dylan and sang with Van Morrison, died Thursday. He was 71. Fresh Air remembers Helm with excerpts from his two appearances on the show in 1993 and 2007.
Drummer and lead vocalist for the rock group The Band, Levon Helm. Helm's Arkansas roots gave the Canadian group an American folk sound. In the 1960's The Band, got it's start backing Bob Dylan. They went on their own in 1968 with "Music From Big Pink." The Band is back with a new album, "Jericho," and a tour. Helm's written a book about The Band called "This Wheel's On Fire" (Morrow).
Coach Bill Resler and former player Devon Crosby Helms are at the heart of the basketball documentary The Heart of the Game. The film follows the Roosevelt High School Roughriders, a Seattle-area girls' team, for six seasons.
Producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff helped pioneer the sound of Philadelphia soul. Their renowned record label, Philadelphia International, produced the hits "Love Train," "Backstabbers" and "The Love I Lost."
Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, ranks as one of the U.S.'s leading addiction researchers. She's helped demonstrate that addiction is in fact a disease — a disease of the brain — and that all addictions, whether it's to drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sex, gambling or even food, are more alike than was previously thought.
Volkow, who's the great-granddaughter of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, grew up in Mexico City — in the house where her famous ancestor was assassinated.
