Carry it on: Larry Campbell wants the music to continue at Levon’s

“Levon left a lot of debt,” said Campbell. “Our goal is to get that mortgage paid off …So we’re all sort of dedicated to raising the money to keep it together. A fertile atmosphere needs a home.”

Barbara O’Brien, Levon’s manager, confirmed that all of the principal players, along with Levon’s wife Sandy, have expressed a desire to keep the Rambles happening. O’Brien said that there will still be guest artists, like Lesh and Lucinda Williams, August 11 (the next Ramble is August 4 with guests Corky Laing & The Memory Thieves) and that it will be a constant battle keeping everything on an even financial keel. She’s begun a “Keep It Going” campaign in which, for various levels of contributions, you can go from a t-shirt and a digital download of “Drown in My Own Tears,” a live recording from 2009 that was held back from the Volume III, Best of the Rambles CD, to having your name etched on to a piece of artwork that will be hung at the studio. More information on this is available at levonhelm.com.

Also, work is proceeding on a tribute concert in October.

“A lot of artists have expressed an interest in helping with this cause, do a one or two night concert in New York City and get this thing paid off,” said Campbell.

“More than anything, he wanted the music to continue,” writes O’Brien on the website. “He wanted the barn to be host to artists from all walks of life, from all genres. He wanted children to learn from there. He wanted Rambles to continue. He didn’t want a day to go by without some form of music being heard from within these walls.”

Helm’s death has had an effect on the economy of Woodstock, for sure.

“These rambles would get 200 people into this town on a weekend, and that’s 200 people going to shops, B&B’s and spending money in the community here, that otherwise wouldn’t be,” said Campbell. “I’ve heard merchants say that the fact that the Rambles went through the wintertime, allowed them to survive those winters. I remember when I first came up here in the late 70s, this was such a music town, there was a real rich musical community here. I first came up with John Herald in 1978, and he introduced me to everyone, Happy and Artie, John Sebastian, Bill Keith, Jim Rooney…having those Rambles as a permanent, regular event in Woodstock, legitimately holds on to some of the grandeur of that era. This town has held on to its character, it’s a great place to be. Levon was always praising it, saying how he felt like he could be who he was in this town and that’s a great atmosphere for a musician.”

This week found Campbell working with his wife, singer and guitarist Teresa Williams, on a new recording. She’s been an integral part of the Levon Helm Band since Campbell arrived, leading to finally fulfilling a musical promise that the couple has long held.

“She’s been saying for years that I’m like the cobbler whose kids have no shoes — just working on other people’s stuff. But things happen when they’re supposed to happen. One of the greatest residuals of working with Levon was eight years of working with Teresa, too. For years I was on the road and she was on the road. We’d see each other just a couple of times a year. Amy brought Teresa into this…it wasn’t like a decision was made, she came up and started contributing to the Dirt Farmer record, and began singing at the Rambles, and she and Amy sounded so good together. She’s a great musical partner for me. We’d been doing it so long separately, that we reached a point professionally that we can have our personal relationship and a musical relationship and they don’t conflict. It’s pretty rare and incredibly fulfilling. I get to work with the person I want to be with most of the time.”

The plan was to have Levon on the Larry and Teresa recording. “He’s on a couple of tracks…but we weren’t really working on it, just fooling around. And got a couple of things recorded that were fun…I still have to go through it. But right now it’s (bassist) Byron Isaacs, (drummer) Justin Guip, Teresa and I, and we’ll get Amy to sing on it. But it will be Teresa and my material. The bulk of the record will be original. It’s so weird because I’m the guy who’s supposed to be objective, the producer, and I’m really good at that. But in this case I have none. I’m terrible at judging my own work. I believe in it, because it’s what I feel, but I’m a musician and it’s our fate to always be insecure about what we’re creating. But I’ll get over it.”

He feels that the creative atmosphere around the studio still thrives.

“Then Amy’s got her record almost done and it’s fabulous. She’s just about through with it. So there’s a diverse future for all of us. There’s the Amy Helm band, the Dirt Farmer Band, the Larry and Teresa band and whatever we end up calling the Levon Helm band, and everyone in that has their own project, too. I’m sure this will be presenting scheduling problems in the future but it’s a good problem to have. It’s a very fertile environment.”

Campbell is a special musician. Aside from a touch that finds exactly the right complement for a wide diversity of styles of music, he seems to be able to fluently express himself on many instruments — guitars, of course, and fiddle, mandolin, banjo, pedal steel guitar, Dobro…

“I started playing guitar in 1966, and it was all about the Beatles back then. But I always had this affinity for country and bluegrass. When I’d hear bands like the Burrito Brothers, Poco, the Byrds, I decided to combine it all together…I knew that this is where I’ve got to live now. I think the first was the fiddle. I was going back and listening to my mother’s collection, Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, the Harry Smith collection on 78s. And the fiddle, it just spoke to me, in a rock and roll kind of way, hitting those same nerves. That’s what I started trying to learn, and that’s not easy. That’s the one that requires the most attention. Fiddle led to mandolin, same tuning. Then, when I heard Sneaky Pete playing pedal steel with Burrito Brothers, I had to go there, and I got deep into that for many years. And if you’re going to play fiddle and mandolin, well then comes the banjo.

“Needless to say, they all require a tremendous amount of dedication. At least from me they do. I only get out what I put into it. Some players with innate abilities just pick it up and run, but I need the hard work. The fortunate thing is that I always enjoyed the practicing and the exploration of music through these instruments. And still do. My philosophy is that I’m not the greatest in the world on these instruments, but I’m going to be, and that’s still my goal. The realism of it doesn’t matter, it keeps me going.”

“This thing has to be named. Maybe it’s just the Ramble Band, we don’t know what to call it. It’s got five horns, keyboards, bass, two guitars, drums and Amy and Teresa. Erik Lawrence and Steve Bernstein are the core horn members. The trombone chair varies, Earl McIntyre, Clark Gayton is out with Springsteen now, it’s basically his spot. Jay Collins, Amy’s husband, is out with (Donald) Fagen now. Howard Johnson comes in when he can, and no one can replace him on tuba. We are blessed with incredibly talented horn players as subs. I could keep naming names…”

The band also includes Isaacs on bass, Guip on drums, Jim Weider on guitar, Brian Mitchell on keyboards. Jimmy Vivino, of the Conan O’Brien band, is a frequent contributor, as is Fagen.

“Then there’s the Dirt Farmer Band, basically the band that did that record — Teresa, Amy, Byron Isaacs, Justin Guip and me. What we’ve been doing is opening the Rambles with this configuration. The structure with Levon was that we’d take the middle of the set and break it down to a more acoustic section. Now, there’s a hidden implication that we’re opening to sort of host the thing. It just feels like a good way to kick it off. There was a time before Levon died when we talked about just taking the acoustic thing out by itself…

“So my feeling is that as we keep doing more of these, we’ll go through the same process as when we started from scratch. The primary thing is that we all assemble with open hearts and minds and just focus on having a good time playing music. As long as we can keep that going, it will continue to evolve and be a pleasure to the audience.

“This band had an eight year experience that no other band has had. It’s one of the things that hit me when we did that first Ramble, who are we now? And it was evident that we still are that band, with his blessing. There’s so much potential in this band and once we start acquiring more diverse material and original material there’s no limit to what we can do. Not to mention that it’s probably the best backing band that any guest artist can get. The idea is to continue to bring in guests to perform, either with the band or their own musicians, or a combination of all that, all of us on stage. The ‘everybody’s welcome’ atmosphere needs to continue, too.

“I’m not apprehensive about what’s coming up because this thing was so pure and so real and so honest and joyful…that hasn’t stopped. If those attributes are not a recipe forsuccess, than what is?”

Editor’s note: A correction was made to this story to reflect the fact that Little Sammy Davis has not passed on, as pointed out by readers. Our apologies.