ARTS & FARCES internet

Very few people know that before my family and I landed in Stillwater, MN in 1982, we were headed to Woodstock, NY. We’d already settled on a home on Tinker Street and the local paper had already done a profile on ARTS & FARCES and Karen and me. Our intention was to loosely collaborate with Bart Friedman and Nancy Cain—two of the original Videofreex—and see what happened next.

Just before setting out in our 1970 Volkswagen camper (ingeniously modified at the factory so the refrigerator could be accessed while the bed was folded down) we got cold feet. We decided we would go broke in an inordinate amount of time being that close to New York city.

Instead, we ended up here on the far edge, first in Stillwater and then in Saint Paul.

I find myself wondering from time to time how our lives would have been different had we made the move to the Catskills. The creative community there was unparalleled at the time and incredibly supportive—as was the entire area. The music scene was among the best in the country. Todd Rundgren was just up the road in Bearsville; Pat Metheny was a fixture at various spots around town; and something extra special interesting was always shaking at Levon Helm’s barn. Unlike other musical hot-spots, the area of the Catskills around Woodstock was always known for a vast diversity of musical genres that liked to bump up against each other from time to time and then retreat to their respective corners and think about it. It was (and is I imagine; I haven’t been there in many years), quite simply, a very special place.

Now comes the sad news that Levon Helm is in the final stages of throat cancer. Diagnosed more than 10 years ago, I was pretty sure he had beaten it, but the disease recurred in 2009. His 2010 show with John Hiatt at the Minnesota Zoo sold out within minutes and was stellar, if too short. His 2009 sold-out date at Saint Paul’s Fitzgerald Theater was one of the best shows to take place in that room.

Here’s the setlist from Helm’s 2010 Minnesota Zoo show:

Blind Willie McTell
The Shape I’m In
Ain’t That Good News
Long Black Veil
Opheilia
Bourgeois Blues
Deep Elum Blues
All LA Glory
Tennessee Jed
Mardi Gras Day
The Weight (with John Hiatt)

Here’s the setlist from Helm’s 2009 Fitzgerald Theater show:

Ophelia
Same Thing
Battle Song
Simple Twist of Fate
Bye Bye My Love
Long Black Veil
Got Me a Woman
Ashes of Love
Did You Love Me
Deep Elum Blues
Great Train Robbery
Anna Lee
Rag Mama Rag
Mardi Gras Day
Everybody Loves a Winner
Tennessee Jed
Heaven’s Pearls
Kingfish
I Wish I Knew How
The Shape I’m In
The Genetic Method (Larry Campbell guitar solo)
Chest Fever
The Weight
Stand By Me
Rock ‘n’ Roll Shoes

Update: Wednesday, 18 April 2012 12:22PM CDT: If you don’t do anything else today, please read Charlie Pierce’s “Whip to Grave: Levon Helm, the Real Voice of America” for Esquire. It’s one of the best written pieces I’ve read in quite some time.

Update: Thursday, 19 April 2012 3:11PM CDT: Levon Helm passed a little over an hour ago at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He was 71. Here’s Jon Pareles’s obituary for the New York Times. And here’s Bob Collins’s round-up for Minnesota Public Radio’s NewsCut.