Levon Helm quotes:

Forever Young, by Dylan, is one of my favorite songs.

If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you.

I was in high school, trying to get out of high school. The only thing slowing me up was grades.

By the time The Band did The Last Waltz, the chemistry had changed, and it wasn't a thrill anymore to live that studio kind of life.

With horns and a full rhythm section, the drums always looked like the best seat in the house.

I don't hear record companies coming up with any good ideas or suggestions. Historically, if it ain't their idea, it ain't no good, so you got that to contend with.

The crowd is just as important as the group. It takes everything to make it work.

The Jungle Bush Beaters didn't last too long as a group, but we had a pretty good time while we did.

Most of our stuff was trial and error. You live with a tape recorder, you turn it on, you play the song and you listen to it.

I played some Yamaha drums that I like a lot. And I like the Yamaha people a lot too. They've been really nice to me and The Band.

Dad and mom would have preferred that I be a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, or a great humanitarian.

I had throat cancer, and I had to have radiation treatments, and I couldn't sing for a long time; and this was in '97. I had 28 radiation treatments. I didn't die, thank God.

You got to pick one - pay your medical bills or pay the mortgage. Most people can't do both, and I'm no different.

Drums just always sounded like the most fun part of that good music for me.

When the second record came out, they started calling it The Band. I voted to call it The Crackers. I'm no fool.

I've always thought it was easier for girls to sing harmonies because their voices can go to that higher plane so much more easy than a male voice.

A friend of mine took me to Memphis advised me that I should get in the musicians' union. He gave me a set of drums and said, Stay on the job, son.

When I was younger, I used to drive up to a bunch of turkeys, roll down the window and say something. They'd all gobble back at once.

I love horns, and the bigger the band, the better it sounds to my ear.

Conway Twitty was always our local hero while I was growing up. He had a series of good bands. I wanted to sit in, if Conway would let me. And he did a couple of times.

Good times don't last long sometimes.

My dad and I played music. He teaches me a song or two every time I'm home.

We all love musical architecture; there's no doubt about that.

The Band never really played big concert tours. We never sold millions and millions of albums.

The way to do it is to put as much life into the song as I can. You can either get it to breathe or you can't.

My mom, God love her, she was one of those Bible people. She thought it was wrong to bother anybody, regardless of race, color or religion. It just wasn't a Christian thing to look down on anybody, and that's what she taught us.

The sound of the blues, rhythm and blues, country music, is what we lived for, black and white alike. It gave you strength to sit on one of those throbbing Allis-Chalmers tractors all day if you knew you were gonna hear something on the radio or maybe see a show that evening.

If you feel like you're getting into a rut with a song, a night off usually fixes it.

If you pour some music on whatever's wrong, it'll sure help out.

If things are going slow, I'm itchy.

The rock star stuff never came up for us. The Band was never attacked by groupies before, during or after any show that we ever played.

My parents wanted me to be smart and be a scholar, and the best I could do was graduate high school.

I've had all the lessons I could get. I've learned from everybody I've ever met.

I like walking on the edge.

It's different playing in a studio than it is playing live, of course.

Don't we all want what's best for each other?

Anytime I switch to another instrument, I immediately turn it into another kind of drum so that I can understand it better.

Drums usually seem to tune themselves.

I don't fool with a lot of things that I can't have fun with. There's not much reward in that.

I don't think I'm a millionaire, but I'm comfortable.

I like to get within handshaking distance of the crowd. If it happens, they know it, we know it, and that's all we came here for.

I never subscribe to the stay-at-home policy. I'm not sick of the road or sick of eating in good restaurants around the country. I like to travel.

I'm not in it for my health. I'm a musician and I wanna live the way I do.

Lord, when the song wants to pick up and go a little faster towards the end, it's hard for me to resist.

Maybe the greatness we heard in [Richard Manuel]'s voice, that catch in it, came from all that pain. To this day, we don't really know.

Music is the language of heaven.

New York, it was an adult portion. It was an adult dose. So it took a couple of trips to get into it. You just go in the first time and you get your ass kicked and you take off. As soon as it heals up, you come back and you try it again. Eventually, you fall right in love with it.

Songs don't wear out. Good songs are good now. If they were a comfort during those hard times in the past, they'll be a comfort in today's age.

Those bad times are important. They give you a chance to practice, listen, take stock, have a life, get your feet back on the ground, and maybe you'll live to tell the story.

We're all dealt with the same hand here, so to speak. I feel like I've had it a lot better than most people. I've had the opportunity to travel and play music all my life.

You can either make it come around or you can't. By the time we would be ready to record a song, we would know for sure that it was the best way we could do it.

If it doesn't come from your heart, music just doesn't work.