Man, Levon Helm could sing. America’s greatest band weren’t even American (Helm excepted). There are tons of great clips from The Last Waltz on YouTube, though the comments are a bit of a morass of Robbie Robertson bashing (seems mostly to be supported by Levon Helm’s 2000 book.)
I hadn’t realized that Richard Manuel had committed suicide in Winter Park, just up the road from our house (the club where The Band played the set that night is now a CVS Pharmacy, the motel where he hung himself is now a strip mall). Though morbid, it’s among the most interesting bits of Orlando music history I’ve read.
