Levon Helm made his name drumming and singing for The Band, but in Jacob Hatley’s documentary, it’s Helm’s speaking voice that’s heard first — a magical Arkansas drawl untouched by decades of living in upstate New York.
What’s heard of the singing voice is less instantly familiar; during 2007 to 2009, when this was filmed, Helm was recovering from one bout of throat cancer and already showing signs of a recurrence that finally killed him last year. At times the singing wobbles, slows, even croaks; at other times the voice rushes out with all the power it held in The Band’s heyday.
The film shows Helm as a working musician — he was recording “Electric Dirt” at the time — and it assumes familiarity with him, to an extent that may baffle anyone born after The Band broke up in 1977. Most of the old songs remain unsung, although “Up on Cripple Creek” gets a workout.
There are also warm, often funny scenes with friends — including Billy Bob Thornton and the Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson — sitting around the table of Helm’s Woodstock home as he reminisces over plastic cups of what’s probably water. Background comes from interviews with people from the old days, though most assuredly not Robbie Robertson; Helm’s bitterness about The Band’s old leader is not skipped.
It’s a sympathetic portrait of an artist whose heart lay more with new work than old glories, right up to the end.