Levon Helm's Quotes

My dad and I played music. He teaches me a song or two every time I'm home.

The Band never really played big concert tours. We never sold millions and millions of albums.

The crowd is just as important as the group. It takes everything to make it work.

The Jungle Bush Beaters didn't last too long as a group, but we had a pretty good time while we did.

The way to do it is to put as much life into the song as I can. You can either get it to breathe or you can't.

There were no rules, other than that the song should sound good and be fun to play.

We all love musical architecture; there's no doubt about that.

Well, somebody's got to sing. They won't hire you unless you sing.

With horns and a full rhythm section, the drums always looked like the best seat in the house.

Conway Twitty was always our local hero while I was growing up. He had a series of good bands. I wanted to sit in, if Conway would let me. And he did a couple of times.

We're all dealt with the same hand here, so to speak. I feel like I've had it a lot better than most people. I've had the opportunity to travel and play music all my life.

You can either make it come around or you can't. By the time we would be ready to record a song, we would know for sure that it was the best way we could do it.

Drums usually seem to tune themselves.

If you pour some music on whatever's wrong, it'll sure help out.

Drums just always sounded like the most fun part of that good music for me.

I don't fool with a lot of things that I can't have fun with. There's not much reward in that.

I love horns, and the bigger the band, the better it sounds to my ear.

A friend of mine took me to Memphis advised me that I should get in the musicians' union. He gave me a set of drums and said, Stay on the job, son.

Anytime I switch to another instrument, I immediately turn it into another kind of drum so that I can understand it better.

Forever Young, by Dylan, is one of my favorite songs.

Good times don't last long sometimes.

I was in high school, trying to get out of high school. The only thing slowing me up was grades.

The rock star stuff never came up for us. The Band was never attacked by groupies before, during or after any show that we ever played.

When the second record came out, they started calling it The Band. I voted to call it The Crackers. I'm no fool.

By the time The Band did The Last Waltz, the chemistry had changed, and it wasn't a thrill anymore to live that studio kind of life.

Dad and mom would have preferred that I be a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, or a great humanitarian.