Levon Helm Ramble at the Ryman (4.5*)

Monday, 23 July 2012

Recorded by a travelling version of the late Levon Helm's Midnight Ramble, rather than the regular sessions that have been running at Levon’s studio at Woodstock in upstate New York since 2004 Ramble at the Ryman (that’s Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, the former home of the Grand Ol’ Opry) might look to be rather heavy on past glories (six tracks out of fifteen from The Band’s catalogue) but with a crack outfit including multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell and Helm's daughter, vocalist and mandolinist Amy alongside a number of guests (Little Sammy Davis, Buddy Miller, Sam Bush, Sheryl Crow and John Hiatt) the result is a highly listenable collection of rock, blues, country, and folk that rocks along very nicely indeed.

The Band material here, starting with the opening Ophelia  and stretching through Chuck Berry’s Back To Memphis (covered regularly as part of The Band’s live set), Evangeline, Rag Mama Rag, The Shape I’m In, Chest Fever and The Weight are significantly reworked the way you’d have to when you can’t call on Garth Hudson’s keyboards, with the emphasis on the shambling horns and guest vocals from Sheryl Crow (Evangeline), Larry Campbell (Chest Fever) and John Hiatt (The Weight). 

The guest vocals are, in large part, a function of the throat cancer that damaged Levon’s vocal cords and while the predictions that he mighty never sing again didn’t materialise, it took a while before his voice was up to singing, so for much of the early Ramble era he was content to leave the vocal department to others. 

Issues regarding vocal resilience come to the fore in Dirt Farmer’s Anna Lee, where his own voice might not be strong enough to carry the song by itself on his own, but choral support from the ensemble’s female members gets it over the line.

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© Ian Hughes 2012