Quotes by Levon Helm

• The crowd is just as important as the group. It takes everything to make it work.
• If you feel like you're getting into a rut with a song, a night off usually fixes it.
• Lord, when the song wants to pick up and go a little faster towards the end, it's hard for me to resist.
• 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.
• My dad and I played music. He teaches me a song or two every time I'm home.
• If things are going slow, I'm itchy.
• If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you.
• The Jungle Bush Beaters didn't last too long as a group, but we had a pretty good time while we did.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Most of our stuff was trial and error. You live with a tape recorder, you turn it on, you play the song and you listen to it.
• When the second record came out, they started calling it The Band. I voted to call it The Crackers. I'm no fool.
• Don't we all want what's best for each other?
• I've had all the lessons I could get. I've learned from everybody I've ever met.
• The Band never really played big concert tours. We never sold millions and millions of albums.
• 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.
• 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.
• Drums just always sounded like the most fun part of that good music for me.
• Drums usually seem to tune themselves.
• I love horns, and the bigger the band, the better it sounds to my ear.
• I was in high school, trying to get out of high school. The only thing slowing me up was grades.
• 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.
• I never subscribe to the stay-at-home policy. I'm not sick of the road or sick of eating in good restaurants around the country. I like to travel.
• Forever Young, by Dylan, is one of my favorite songs.
• I like walking on the edge.
• I like to get within handshaking distance of the crowd. If it happens, they know it, we know it, and that's all we came here for.
• I don't fool with a lot of things that I can't have fun with. There's not much reward in that.
• Good times don't last long sometimes.
• I played some Yamaha drums that I like a lot. And I like the Yamaha people a lot too. They've been really nice to me and The Band.