The Band's Levon Helm Has His Day in Woodstock

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The town of Woodstock, New York, honored iconic drummer Levon Helm by officially declaring Saturday May 20th, 2006, Levon Helm Day. The town presented Helm -- who banged the kit for Bob Dylan before forming the Band in the mid-Sixties -- with a key to the village and with performances from local musicians, including Helm's very own Levon Helm Band.

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Helm, who lives in Woodstock and has a studio there, moved to town in the Sixties, where he joined his fellow Dylan touring partners to woodshed in a rented pink house. Since most Woodstock residents referred to the holed up musicians as "the band," the group stuck to the moniker and went on to release their aptly-titled -- and now classic -- 1968 debut, Music From Big Pink.

Today Helm, a survivor of the throat cancer that plagued him in 1996, continues to jam regularly at his Levon Helm Studios, in freeform performances dubbed the Midnight Ramble Sessions. Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello and Steely Dan's Donald Fagen are among the artists who have taken part.

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Song Stories

“He Will Break Your Heart”

Jerry Butler | 1960

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."

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