Amy Helm | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Amy Helm |
Born | Woodstock, New York, U.S. | December 3, 1970
Genres | Folk rock, folk, rock, blues, country, Americana |
Occupation(s) | Musician, producer, artist |
Instrument(s) | Vocals, guitar, mandolin, bass, drums |
Years active | 1997–present |
Spouse | Jay Collins (m. 2007,divorced) |
Website | www |
Amy Helm (born December 3, 1970) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She is the daughter of drummer Levon Helm and singer Libby Titus. [2] She is a past member of the Levon Helm's Midnight Ramble Band and Ollabelle, [3] [4] as well as her own touring band.
Her debut solo album, Didn’t It Rain, was released in July 2015, [5] and her second release This Too Shall Light was released September 2018 on Yep Roc Records. [6]
Helm conducted an in-depth interview about her life and career with The Pods & Sods Network in 2016. [7] That year she and her band performed at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. [8]
Helm was born in Woodstock, New York, United States, and spent her childhood between Woodstock, Los Angeles, and New York City. She attended Trinity High School [2] where she studied jazz with Dr. Aaron Bell, while singing in bands, playing in New York City clubs and bars.
In 1999, Helm joined her father in his blues band The Barn Burners. They toured the country playing traditional blues music.
In 2001, she was a co-founding member of alt-country ensemble Ollabelle, which toured and recorded for 10 years, releasing three critically acclaimed albums, Ollabelle (2004), Riverside Battle Songs (2006), and Neon Blue Bird (2011).
In 2004, she and her father built the Midnight Ramble concerts at his home in Woodstock, New York. The concerts began as a rent party and grew into a Woodstock institution, featuring artists such as Emmylou Harris, Allen Toussaint, Elvis Costello, Phil Lesh, and many others.
Growing out of the Midnight Rambles, Levon Helm recorded his first album in 25 years, Dirt Farmer , which was produced by Amy and Larry Campbell. Dirt Farmer went on to win the Grammy award for Best Traditional Folk Album in February 2008. In 2009, they recorded Electric Dirt , which won the first-ever Grammy award for Best Americana Album in 2010. She also was a part of the live album Ramble at the Ryman , recorded in 2008 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. This album won the 2012 Grammy award for Best Americana Album.
Helm has extensive credits as a background vocalist and whistler on records by artists such as Steely Dan, Mercury Rev, Linda Thompson, William Bell, Rich Robinson, and Rosanne Cash.
In 2015, she released her first solo album, Didn't It Rain which featured her father's last recorded drum performances. The album also featured members of the Midnight Ramble Band and Amy's touring band, as well as other players and singers such as John Medeski, Bill Payne, and Catherine Russell.
In 2017, Helm recorded her second album with producer Joe Henry in Los Angeles. The album features musicians Doyle Bramhall II, Tyler Chester, Jen Condos, and Jay Bellerose, as well as a background vocal section consisting of Allison Russell, JT Nero, and Adam Minkoff. The album, entitled This Too Shall Light, was released on September 21, 2018 on Yep Roc Records. [9] The album's title track premiered on Rolling Stone Country. [10]
Helm resides in Woodstock, New York. She is the stepdaughter of Donald Fagen from the band Steely Dan through his marriage to Libby Titus in 1993.
With Levon Helm
With Ollabelle
With others
The Band was a Canadian-American rock band formed in Toronto, Ontario, in 1967. It consisted of Canadians Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, and American Levon Helm. The Band's music combined elements of Americana, folk, rock, jazz and country, which influenced artists such as George Harrison, Elton John, the Grateful Dead, Eric Clapton and Wilco.
Steely Dan is an American rock band formed in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 1971 by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Originally having a full band lineup, Becker and Fagen chose to stop playing live by the end of 1974 and continued Steely Dan as a studio-only duo, utilizing a revolving cast of session musicians. Rolling Stone has called them "the perfect musical antiheroes for the seventies".
Mark Lavon "Levon" Helm was an American musician who achieved fame as the drummer and one of the three lead vocalists for The Band, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Helm was known for his deeply soulful, country-accented voice, multi-instrumental ability, and creative drumming style, highlighted on many of the Band's recordings, such as "The Weight", "Up on Cripple Creek", and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".
Donald Jay Fagen is an American musician who was the co-founder, lead singer, co-songwriter, and keyboardist of the band Steely Dan, formed in the early 1970s with musical partner Walter Becker. In addition to his work with Steely Dan, Fagen has released four solo albums, beginning with The Nightfly in 1982, which was nominated for seven Grammys.
Larry Campbell is an American singer and multi-instrumentalist who plays many stringed instruments in genres including country, folk, blues, and rock. Campbell is best known for his time as part of Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour band from 1997 to 2004, his association with Levon Helm of The Band, and the musical director of the Midnight Rambles.
Ida is an American indie rock band from New York City. They are known for their three-part harmonies; sparse, minimal, often quiet arrangements; and their three singer-songwriters. Their music shows strong folk, pop, punk, world, R&B, and American roots music influences, but there are also avant garde and experimental aspects to their sound.
Elizabeth Titus was an American singer and songwriter.
Aoife O'Donovan is an American singer and Grammy award-winning songwriter. She is best known as the lead singer for the string band Crooked Still and she also co-founded the Grammy Award-winning female folk trio I'm with Her. She has released three critically acclaimed studio albums: Fossils (2013), In the Magic Hour (2016), and Age of Apathy, as well as multiple noteworthy live recordings and EPs, including Blue Light (2010), Peachstone (2012), Man in a Neon Coat: Live From Cambridge (2016), In the Magic Hour: Solo Sessions (2019), and Bull Frog's Croon (2020). She also spent a decade contributing to the radio variety shows Live from Here and A Prairie Home Companion. Her first professional engagement was singing lead for the folk group The Wayfaring Strangers.
Sean Costello was an American blues musician, renowned for his fiery guitar playing and soulful singing. He released five critically acclaimed albums before his career was cut short by his sudden death from a drug overdose at the age of 28. Tinsley Ellis called him ‘the most gifted young blues guitarist on the scene... he was a triple threat on guitar, vocals and as a songwriter’.
The Latebirds are a rock band from Helsinki, Finland. The band was formed in 2000 by drummer Janne Haavisto, bass player Mikko Mäkelä, singer/songwriter Markus Nordenstreng and guitarist Miikka Paatelainen. Guitarist Jussi Jaakonaho replaced Miikka Paatelainen in 2004. Organ player Matti Pitsinki from Finnish instrumental rock group Laika & The Cosmonauts was added to the line-up in 2005.
Brian Mitchell is a musical artist who records and performs his own original music. He has also worked with artists such as Levon Helm & The Midnight Ramble Band, Bob Dylan, BB King, Al Green, Dolly Parton, Buster Poindexter, and Allen Toussaint. Mitchell has appeared on five Grammy Award-winning recordings, three with Levon Helm, and one each with BB King and with Les Paul. In 2015, Brian was inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame. He is known to have versatility on piano, Hammond B-3 organ, accordion, various vintage keyboards and harmonica, plus his distinct vocal stylings. Mitchell believed that music is life music can heal people
Ollabelle is a New York–based folk music group named after the influential Appalachian songwriter Ola Belle Reed. The group is composed of five singing multi-instrumentalists hailing from disparate parts of the United States, Canada and Australia.
Little Sammy Davis was an American blues musician based in New York's Hudson Valley. His music career began in the 1940s, but he was not widely known until the mid-1990s, when he began working in radio, singing, performing on tour, and recording studio albums.
Catherine Russell is an American jazz and blues singer. She is best known for her 2016 album Harlem on My Mind and for touring with David Bowie and Steely Dan.
Ramble at the Ryman is a 2011 live album recorded by American rock multi-instrumentalist Levon Helm during his September 17, 2008 performance at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium. The performance kicked off the beginning of the Americana Music Festival & Conference. The album features six songs by The Band and other cover material, including songs from previous Helm solo releases. Helm's band is led by multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell and Helm's daughter, vocalist and mandolinist Amy Helm.
Love for Levon: Benefit to Save the Barn was a benefit concert held on October 3, 2012 at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The concert was a tribute to the life of The Band's co-lead vocalist and drummer Levon Helm, who died of throat cancer on April 19, 2012. The concert featured a wide variety of musicians who had worked with Helm as well as musicians who were influenced by him. Proceeds from the concert went towards keeping Helm's Woodstock barn in his family's control as well as continuing his Midnight Ramble concert series in the barn. The concert's musical directors were Don Was and Helm's frequent collaborator Larry Campbell. The concert was released on CD and DVD on March 19, 2013.
Alexis P. Suter is an American blues, and soul blues singer and songwriter, best known for her nomination in the 'Koko Taylor Award' category at the 33rd Blues Music Awards in 2015. She and her backing band have released six albums to date.
Anthony Leone is an American musician. He is best known for his membership in the bands Ollabelle and the Chris Robinson Brotherhood. He has also worked with a variety of musicians including Levon Helm of The Band and Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead. In September 2020 he was announced as a new member of Little Feat.
The American singer Buddy Miller has released 10 studio albums, 1 live album, and 2 compilation albums.
Chris Bergson is an American born guitarist, singer and songwriter. Chris Bergson was inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame as a Master Blues Artist in 2015.
Ola Belle was such a revered, influential figure, that young artists have promoted her music vigorously in recent years. The group Ollabelle, anchored by Amy Helm—daughter of rock music's Levon Helm of the Band who, in the traditional folk.
The latter group, a roots-rock band, features Fagen's stepdaughter Amy Helm. The intention is that Ollabelle will open the show and then act as backing band for Fagen and Snow. * * * With the passing of the years, it's no secret that like so [...]