Some people think of a drummer as a metronome. Helm believed different aspects of a song often called for different tempos. It came from somewhere in the woods, rising like a mist off a clearing.

Levon Helm, who died in New York on April 19, age 71, from the cancer that he had been fighting for more than a decade, was one of the most celebrated rock drummers of the last 50 years. He uniquely ...

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 ...