A short film inspired by and featuring music from Levon Helm's GRAMMY Award winning album Dirt Farmer. Features: "Calvary" (Byron Isaacs); (BMI) "Poor Old Dirt Farmer" (Tracy Schwartz); Traditon Music Co., (ASCAP) "False Hearted Lover Blues" (Trad, arrangement by Levon Helm, Larry Campbell); Dirt Farmer Music, Talkhouse Music (BMI) "Got Me a Woman" (Paul Kennerley); Irving Music (BMI)
"Closer to the heart of The Band than anything since The Last Waltz."
-Bill Flanagan, CBS News Sunday Morning
"For my money, the best country album of the year so far."
- Chet Flippo, CMT.com
"Levon's vocals are a welcome miracle... Helm's drawling howl is heavy with the
outrage and sorrow of someone with a deep connection to the land and those who
live by it."
- David Fricke, Rolling Stone
"I love this record. This may be one of my favorite records of the year."
- Meredith Ochs, NPR's All Songs Considered.
"Dirt Farmer is an iconic album, this year’s Time Out of Mind or Freedom. Just
give him a Grammy."
-Karen Schoemer New York Magazine
Levon Helm’s first solo, studio recording in 25 years, Dirt Farmer, was released to the public on October 30, through Dirt Farmer Music LLC in
conjunction with Vanguard Records. Levon sings and plays drums, guitar and
mandolin on the CD, accompanied by Larry Campbell on guitars and fiddle, and the
voices of Amy Helm and Teresa Williams. The record explores songs Levon learned
as a boy in Arkansas and others in that style.
“Growing up on a cotton farm in the Arkansas Delta, Dirt Farmer rings true to
home,” Levon said. “Amy encouraged me to go all the way back and try to record
some of the family songs from home that we always loved best.”
The record reveals the essential beauty of traditional songs like “Little Birds”
and the Stanley Brothers’ “False Hearted Lover Blues,” and takes a new look at
Paul Kennerley’s “A Train Robbery,” Buddy and Julie Miller’s “Wide River To
Cross” and another sentimental favorite, Lauralyn Dossett’s “Anna Lee.”
Levon said: “‘The Girl I Left Behind’ was one of the first songs my parents
taught me as a child, along with ‘Little Birds’and ‘Blind Child.’ ‘The Poor Old
Dirt Farmer’ is a song that my wood-carver musician friend Michael Copus and I
learned together when we worked with Jane Fonda on The Dollmaker down in
Tennessee. ‘Single Girl, Married Girl’ is one of my favorite songs of the whole
session. It gave us the chance to address a traditional standard with the entire
rhythm section using non-electric instruments and a full set of drums. It also
gave us the chance to monkey up the rhythm of a traditional country beat.”
The tracks are elevated by the musicianship of Brian Mitchell on piano and
accordion, Byron Isaacs on bass, Glenn Patscha on pump organ and George Receli’s
percussion. Buddy and Julie Miller contribute backing vocals on Steve Earle’s
“The Mountain.”
