"Electric Dirt" was his ninth album, in a solo career that had begun in 1977 shortly after the dissolution of The Band, in this new release Helm manages to surpass the success of his predecessor the fantastic "Dirt Farmer" with which he had achieved like this "Electric Dirt" the Grammy award for the best album of American music.
However, here, who was then seventy years old, broadens the musical horizon to go a little further, introducing more electrical elements to continue with his gospel, blues and New Orleans jazz influences, all seasoned with his folk style and country.
With his already deteriorated voice (at that time he suffered from throat cancer) Helm is reeling from theme to theme with great sincerity and in an authentic way with versions of songs by The Band, Randy Newman, Staples Singers or Muddy Waters in addition to his own compositions.
Levon Helm is quite a legend in the United States, drummer of the mythical The Band, as well as an actor and one of the greatest percussionists in American folk and country and a patriarch of American roots music.
In 2007 when he was partially recovered from cancer he published his eighth work "Dirt Farmer" where he opened his musical horizon introducing more electric elements with influences from blues, gospel music and even airs that emanate from a city as melomaniac as New Orleans. Levon's voice at the time accused his illness but nevertheless it was perfectly adapted to the new compositions of this work with predominance of versions of The Band, Muddy Waters, Randy Newman, Staples Singers, with some of their own.
A superb record of folk, country and sounds from the deep America.
