Levon Helm – The Mountain

I remember when this album was released, it sounded so pure. Some singers you can spot a mile away. Dylan, Young, Cash, and Levon are part of that group. His strong southern roots tie him to a worn-in in earthy sound. 

Sometimes a singer is married to a feeling that no one else has, and Levon had that quality. Some songs are meant to be heard by him, and Robbie Robertson was the first to notice this and used it to its full effect.  This song was on Dirt Farmer, Levon’s 2007 comeback record and his first solo album in a quarter-century. He was battling throat cancer when he recorded it, his voice raspier than in the old Band days, but somehow more potent.

The song was written by Steve Earle, and Levon brought the song to life. Earle does a great version of it as well, but it was a perfect song for Levon to interrupt. The arrangement is a slow march of banjo, fiddle, and mandolin, paced like a funeral procession up a foggy Appalachian ridge. But it’s that voice that carries the load. Levon sings it not as a narrator but as a ghost buried with his kin under the mountain he gave his life to.

What’s remarkable about Dirt Farmer is how Helm made it in the twilight of his life, and yet it plays like the core of his legacy. He wasn’t trying to impress anyone or reinvent The Band; it’s pure Levon. It was produced by Larry Campbell and Amy Helm, his daughter. 

The album won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album in February 2008. I usually don’t list Grammy awards, but if any album deserved an award…this one does. 

This live video is shaky but the only one I found. The sound is fine. 

The Mountain

I was born on this mountain a long long time ago
Before they knocked down the timber and stripped mined all the coal
When you rose up in the morning before it was light
To go down in that dark hole and come back up at night
I was born on this mountain, this mountain’s my home
She holds me and she keeps me from a worry and a woe
Well they took everything she gave, she gave it now she’s gone
But I’ll die on this mountain, this mountain’s my home

I was young on this mountain but now I am old
And I knew every holler, every cool swimmin’ hole
Til a one night I lay down and I woke up to find
That my childhood was over I went back down in the mine

There’s a hole in this mountain it’s dark and it’s deep
And God only knows all the secrets that it keeps
There’s a chill in the air only miners can feel
There’re ghosts in the tunnels that the company sealed

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

39 thoughts on “Levon Helm – The Mountain”

  1. Pingback: Levon Helm – The Mountain – MobsterTiger

  2. Great pick, Max. I had not known this song, which is right up my alley. The reality is except for Robbie Robertson, I haven’t listened to any solo music by ex-members of The Band.

    There are two things that strike me right away: Helm’s vocals that sound amazing, which is incredible given he was battling throat cancer. And then there’s this beautiful warm roots rock/America sound I’ve come to love, created by instruments like the mandolin, the fiddle and the accordion.

    Max, this album sounds like a real winner!

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    1. Thanks dude! This fits him so well doesn’t it? Oh the album is great…it got a lot of attention at the time…I think you will like it.

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  5. Good one, Max. Levon was the backbone of The Band, although many would argue it was Robertson. I wasn’t aware of this album, but I will add it to my collection of American folk music, which is now long gone. Now we have Molly Tuttle, Billy Strings, and a few others who try. Old Crow Medicine Show, Allison Krauss, and a handful of others may be the ones to save it. You can feel his goodbye in that song.

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    1. Yes you are right… the list is going down. I like all the ones you mentioned. I saw Bob and Willie this week and they had a bluegrass type of band opening that was good called Trampled With Turtles…they might fit that type.

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  6. Wow. Didn’t know he had solo work. This is a really good piece , lyrically and performance-wise, that could have fit into The Band’s first couple of albums seamlessly. I occasionally have trouble remembering if Kevin or Rick was the American. After hearing this one, no need to ask! Pure Appalachia, although in his case maybe the Ozarks

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    1. You are right…it would have fit perfectly Dave with them. Earle wrote a great song here as well…it fits his voice…it’s almost like it was written for him

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    1. Yes I do…I get it perfectly.
      Levon comes in and owns a song…he makes it his. It’s a bad live video but interesting to hear Steve as well with Levon. The album is fantastic.

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      2. That is one I’ll have to look at CB…or listen to more like it…I don’t think I know it. I loved his version of the song but never heard the album.

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      3. I did a take on the record back in the day. Fantastic if you’re bent that way. The opening cut ‘Texas Eagle’ will or wont hook you. It did me but I’m a card carrying train guy. Del’s a whole other story.

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  10. I can remember driving and listening to the radio (CKUA here) and loving that song and of course bought the CD asap….eventually got tired of the Helm’s bitterness though

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    1. I remember listening to it back then but put it in the back of my mind. I got reminded of it by a blogger and started to listen to it again…it is a great album. Yea I know what you mean about his feelings toward Robbie….that got old. I’m glad Robbie saw him near the end.

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  12. Perfect song for his beat-down hard-worked voice.

    Even a cynic such as I wished he would get past the old Band baggage, but we are who we are, and I wasn’t in Levon’s boots.

    I think his legacy will be surprisingly long, he was one of a kind.

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    1. This song sounds like the kind that Robbie wrote for his voice…
      Yea he was who he was…and part of that was a wonderful singer with those southern roots…the old southern roots.

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