“It sounds like a classic”: The song that signalled Levon Helm’s miraculous comeback from throat cancer
As a singer, one of the most terrifying prospects you could possibly face is losing your voice, but for Levon Helm, he saw it as just another challenge to overcome.
Diagnosed with throat cancer in the late 1990s as a result of being a heavy smoker for most of his life, the former drummer and occasional vocalist with The Band was advised to undergo a laryngectomy, but instead opted to go for a course of heavy radiotherapy to remove the tumour, in an effort to increase the chances of his voice returning. It was a bold decision, but one that he may have felt was entirely necessary to help him return to working.
Remarkably, he managed to overcome his battle with cancer, but it was a while before he managed to get his voice back as a result. Even when he did, it had dramatically changed from how it had sounded in the past, and singing having gone through such rigorous treatment may not have been helpful in ensuring a swift return to performing.
Helm was noted earlier in his career for his gorgeous tenor register vocal, but his first record that he released after recovering saw him approach songs with more of a gravelly tone. Dirt Farmer was well received by fans and critics alike, but it was significantly different from the Helm that everyone recognised. However, it was on the following album, 2009’s Electric Dirt, where he really overcame everything and delivered something masterful considering the health ordeal he’d been through.
An album of covers, one of the songs he chose to perform for the record was Happy Traum’s ‘Golden Bird’, and during a conversation between the two, alongside fellow guitarist Larry Campbell, for Acoustic Guitar Magazine shortly after the album’s release, Traum shared his appreciation for how Helm approached the track, which he went on to describe as being the perfect song for him to have sung.
“That song is one of my favorites on the album,” Helm stated, “and I gotta thank you for it. It sounds like a classic to me. We had it very stripped down, almost a cappella, and just built the verses as the song progressed.” However, it’s not just his own vocals that he was thrilled with, and the accompaniment from his band was also integral to him achieving the sound he’d wanted.
“Everything is acoustic in it,” he continued. “We have the harmonium, the fiddles, cello, and right at the end, if you listen carefully, Larry added an electric guitar in the middle of all that acoustic stuff, just to bring up the drone and give it more of a bagpipe effect, and it really did work. It adds as it goes and then after the instrumental part is where it gets a little bit more thick.”
His appreciation for the song can be heard in the way he delivers the heartwrenching ballad, but the pain with which he sang after having gone through his cancer recovery added an extra dimension, and is frankly a miraculous show of Helm’s bravery and perseverance, coming back from what ought to have been a career-ending illness.
