Saturday, May 26, 2012

Musicians' quotes: Levon Helm on music

"We try and play to a tradition. Music is not a fad, and music ain't a style, and it ain't none of that stuff that it has to serve. Music ain't theater... you can make music do lots of things because music don't care."
Levon Helm, who would have been 72 today, interviewed in 1984.








 THE BAND

Richard Manuel: piano and vocals
Rick Danko: bass and vocals
Garth Hudson: organ and keyboards
Robbie Robertson: guitar
Levon Helm: drums and vocals

 with

 Snooky Young: trumpet
Earl McIntyre: trombone
JD Parran: alto sax
Joe Farrell: tenor sax
Howard Johnson: baritone sax

 At Academy of Music, New York,
New Years' Eve, 1971.

2 comments:

Larry W said...

What did Levon mean by "...music don't care"?

Fernando Ortiz de Urbina said...

From the rest of the quote, I think he's saying that music can stand on his own, without the aid of visuals, "theatre", etc., that the actual music doesn't change, whatever you add to it.

But my guess is as good as anyone else's.