By Steve Israel
also by John Desanto
Times Herald-Record
Published: 2:00 AM - 05/24/10

Down in the cotton fields of Turkey Scratch, Ark., in a house without electricity and a water pump out front, little Levon Helm just couldn't get the music out of his head.
First, his daddy, Diamond Helm, would sit him on his lap and sing old songs like "Sittin' On Top of the World." Later, young Levon would put a wooden box between his legs and, with daddy on guitar, sister Linda on washtub bass and mother Nell singing, he would slap a beat to old songs like "Little Bird." And when traveling music shows like F.S. Wolcott's Rabbit's Foot Minstrel Show came to town, everyone in the Helm clan would be there.
So when it came time to work those cotton fields, Diamond Helm — on his Allis Chalmers tractor — would often find Levon sitting there, daydreaming of making his own music like Little Richard, that new rock 'n' roller he heard shouting up a storm on the radio, which was powered by a two-foot-long battery. And his daddy would look at him and say:

"Let a business thought run through your head, son; let a business thought run through your head,'" Levon recalled at his Woodstock home. "He wanted me to be a scholar or something, not a musician."

And now, at his 70th birthday, it's clear that Turkey Scratch's loss has been the world's gain.

A band in the making
Levon Helm — called "the greatest drummer" by Ringo Starr — would rock whatever world he played in. With his Silvertone guitar, 12-year-old Levon and Linda, on washtub bass, won the 4-H Club talent show in Fayetteville, Ark., playing songs he still plays today, like "Dance With Me Henry."
"And he was a gear or two ahead of everybody even then," said his childhood buddy, Paul Berry, who has stayed friends ever since.

With a local band called the Hawks, led by Arkansas' Ronnie Hawkins and featuring a guitarist nicknamed "Crazy Chester," he hit the road in a '59 Cadillac, picking up members like Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel and Robbie Robertson along the way. When that group became The Band, they backed Bob Dylan, moved to Woodstock and recorded some of rock's classic tunes, like "The Weight" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" — tunes that featured Helm's voice, rich as fertile brown soil.

But then Helm suffered through some times that were as blue as most of the blues he loved. A fire destroyed his home/studio. He declared bankruptcy. He almost lost his voice to throat cancer. He feared it would be replaced by a mechanical box.

But when that earthen voice began to reappear — after 28 radiation treatments — he rebuilt his life by doing the only thing he ever wanted to do: singing and playing the music he learned as a boy. He did it in his new home/studio at his Saturday night Midnight Rambles, modeled on those Rabbit's Foot shows. Then he did it on two albums — 2007's "Dirt Farmer" and 2009's "Electric Dirt" — that won Grammy awards.

So you might think turning 70 might be a time of special reflection for Helm.
And when he stops to think about the milestone in sheer numbers, maybe it is.
"I can't believe it myself," he said after a recent Ramble.
But ...
"I feel the same as I did before," he said. "I've just been feeling that way a whole lot longer."

Musical roots never left him
Fact is, Levon Helm may have left Turkey Scratch, but the music — and his roots — never left him.
Listen to "Dirt Farmer" or "Electric Dirt" and you'll hear the same sort of music he sang and listened to as a boy. They're songs like "Little Bird," "The Girl I Left Behind" and "Blind Child" that feature the harmonies Helm first learned in Turkey Scratch. They're songs that he, his daughter Amy, guitarist Larry Campbell and Theresa Williams often sing at his Rambles. And while they may have won him Grammys for best Traditional Folk and Americana albums, respectively, the albums feature the sort of uncategorizable music that's as much a part of Helm as his father, Diamond, mother, Nell, or that Turkey Scratch dirt.

"It's the dominant force inside him," said friend Berry, "to make music."
So even though Helm is a big star who this summer will tour from New York City's Radio City Music Hall to Los Angeles' Greek Theatre, he also keeps that music alive by playing it at some unlikely places for a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer: at a fundraiser for an Ulster County school, and at a friend's wedding down in Arkansas.
So when you ask Levon Helm about the future after this milestone 70th birthday, he doesn't talk rock star.

"I'm just going to try to make my music better," he said. And then he mentioned how he'd like to help everyone in his Ramble band record their own albums — just like his family back in Turkey Scratch helped him.
"Every one of them is a band leader," he said. "Everyone."
sisrael@th-record.com