How much was Levon Helm worth?
| Net Worth: | $12 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Musician |
| Date of Birth: | May 26, 1940 |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 1.73 m |
About Levon Helm
Mark Lavon “Levon” Helm was an American musician and actor who lived from May 26, 1940, to April 19, 2012. His estimated net worth was $12 million. Mark Lavon “Levon” Helm was born in Marvell, Arkansas in 1940. He changed his name to Levon since his first bandmates had difficulties pronouncing and spelling Lavon. His parents were cotton farmers who also instilled in their offspring a passion of music.
Helm claimed in his autobiography that he first realized he wanted to be a musician at the age of six, while attending a performance by Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys. By the time he was eight years old, he was already playing the guitar and drums. When he was 17 years old, he was already playing in local taverns and tiny clubs.
Growing up, Helm heard music that was a mashup of blues, soul, and country that would eventually transform into rock n’ roll. Blues musicians like Sonny Boy Williamson and Robert Lockwood Jr., as well as budding rockabilly musicians like Elvis Presley and Bo Diddley, had a big impact on him.
Helm was also influenced by Ronnie Hawkins, a rising rockabilly star from Arkansas who invited Helm to join his group, The Hawks. After relocating to Canada, the band produced a number of singles for Roulette Records.
Hawkins quit the group in 1963, but Helm on drums and vocals, Robbie Robertson on guitar, Richard Manuel on piano, Garth Hudson on organ, and Rick Danko on bass kept the group going.
Bob Dylan enlisted The Hawks to be his backing band when he started experimenting with electric rock. Because audiences didn’t appear to enjoy the experiment, Helm decided to leave the group, return to his home state of Arkansas, and start working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
After a few years, Helm was convinced to come back after The Hawks, who were now permanently employed by Dylan, moved to Woodstock, New York, along with Dylan, and started creating and playing their own music.
Due of their close ties to Dylan, The Hawks started to go by “the band” more frequently than by their chosen moniker. When they initially began pitching their own music to record labels, Helm proposed they call themselves The Crackers; but, when they signed a deal with Capitol Records, they were referred to as The Band in the contract, and this is how they have remained ever since.
At initially, Helm sang background while Manuel handled the most of the main vocals. Helm took over most of the lead vocals when Manuel started experiencing health issues, including those on some of The Band’s most well-known songs, like “The Weight” and “Up On Cripple Creek.”
Helm was a multi-instrumentalist, like the other members of The Band, and in addition to playing drums, he also played guitar, bass, and mandolin.
After The Band disbanded in 1976, Helm started touring as a solo performer and put out four albums until The Band came back together in 1983. In 1998, shortly after their second goodbye, Helm started receiving treatment for throat cancer. By 2004, he was giving weekly concerts at Woodstock, which had remained his preferred location, despite the fact that his tenor had changed to a raspy whisper.
He gave those performances the moniker “The Midnight Ramble,” and they not only won over fans but also attracted other A-list performers. He performed the idea live, and his live CD Ramble At The Ryman (from a 2008 concert at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium) won a Grammy in 2011.
In the heyday of his acting career, Helm appeared in about a dozen films. In parts like Loretta Lynn’s father in Coal Miner’s Daughter and the chewing gum-dispensing aviation mechanic (and narrator) in The Right Stuff, his Arkansas drawl was a good fit.
In 1993, he released This Wheel’s On Fire, his autobiography.
One indication of the regard his fellow artists felt for him was the fact that they were always ready to perform with him. Helm served as the basis for several songs, including “Levon,” by Elton John, “Listening to Levon” by Marc Cohn, and “The Man Behind the Drums” by Robert Earl Keen.
On April 19, 2012, Helm passed away in the presence of his loved ones and bandmates after what his family described as “the final stages of his battle with cancer.” Levon Helm had a net worth of $12 million at the time of his passing in 2012. Age-wise, he was 71. He was voted No. 22 in Rolling Stone magazine’s 2016 list of the 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time.
