Concerts & Events Calendar
Amy Helm
Sep 7, 2012
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She was a smiling little girl with a head full of golden curls, the most angelic cherub in Woodstock in the early 70’s. Amy Helm was born in Rhinebeck on December 3rd, 1970. Her mother is the legendary beauty, Libby Titus; co-writer of “Love Has No Pride”, one of the most poignant and perfect ballads in all of pop, and fomenter of much interesting music. (Witness husband Donald Fagen’s thanks to her on winning a Grammy last year.)
Amy’s father is Levon Helm, local hero and international star of music and film through his work as drummer and singer in The Band, and as a superb actor in films like “Coal Miner's Daughter” and “The Right Stuff”. He’s even made a foray into publishing with one of the best bio-books to come out of the music world in our time, This Wheel’s On Fire.
Amy Helm sat for a recent interview in Saugerties, NY, grown into a beautiful, charmingly modest and accomplished woman. She said that as a child, she had no sense of being born into royalty.
“I thought my dad was in Rick Danko's band,” she laughed. “Because the only song I knew was Stage Fright. All the kids loved it! ‘When it gets to the end,/he has to start all over again’. It has that clockwork quality. It was the only thing I wanted to see at The Last Waltz.”
At that historic, Scorcese-filmed finale of The Band, the children, a tight group of Dankos and Robertsons and Manuels, some of whom she is still friends with, were sequestered backstage, she says, “in an insane playroom, with toys and nannies and cartoons. I remember asking if I could go see Stage Fright. It was the favorite of all the Band kids.”
“He got caught in the spotlight...”
It's no accident that her favorite Band song was Stage Fright. You'd know at hello that she is a born singer. Even her speaking voice is mellifluous. Lovely to listen to, and without the artifice or self-consciousness common in the diva. But as an intelligent, thoughtful girl who’d seen it all, she didn't want the spotlight. Although she sang all her life, she ran from it as a career path. She says she was always comfortable onstage in choirs, jazz ensembles, high school bands. Within a small community, it was easy and natural. But she took a long way ‘round to becoming a professional singer.
She lived with her parents in Woodstock and Los Angeles until they split up. Then it was weekends with her dad, and schooling in New York City where she lived with her mother. She went off to college in Madison, Wisconsin and earned a degree in psychology. “It was a chance to be with my friends, away from New York. And maybe hide a little... Part of my running away from music.”
But then, for three years, from 1998 to 2001, she played with her dad in the Barn Burners. She says it was like walking through the fire. At their weekly Joyous Lake gigs in Woodstock and out on tour, Amy played keyboards with the sound turned off in the house. Only she could hear it on her monitor. “It was a chance to practice,” she said. “I worked on singing and being onstage. My dad was showing me how to serve that singular vision, the music. He took me under his wing and taught me how to strive for that.... I think all of us want to be more confident and present in our art.”
Amy’s father is Levon Helm, local hero and international star of music and film through his work as drummer and singer in The Band, and as a superb actor in films like “Coal Miner's Daughter” and “The Right Stuff”. He’s even made a foray into publishing with one of the best bio-books to come out of the music world in our time, This Wheel’s On Fire.
Amy Helm sat for a recent interview in Saugerties, NY, grown into a beautiful, charmingly modest and accomplished woman. She said that as a child, she had no sense of being born into royalty.
“I thought my dad was in Rick Danko's band,” she laughed. “Because the only song I knew was Stage Fright. All the kids loved it! ‘When it gets to the end,/he has to start all over again’. It has that clockwork quality. It was the only thing I wanted to see at The Last Waltz.”
At that historic, Scorcese-filmed finale of The Band, the children, a tight group of Dankos and Robertsons and Manuels, some of whom she is still friends with, were sequestered backstage, she says, “in an insane playroom, with toys and nannies and cartoons. I remember asking if I could go see Stage Fright. It was the favorite of all the Band kids.”
“He got caught in the spotlight...”
It's no accident that her favorite Band song was Stage Fright. You'd know at hello that she is a born singer. Even her speaking voice is mellifluous. Lovely to listen to, and without the artifice or self-consciousness common in the diva. But as an intelligent, thoughtful girl who’d seen it all, she didn't want the spotlight. Although she sang all her life, she ran from it as a career path. She says she was always comfortable onstage in choirs, jazz ensembles, high school bands. Within a small community, it was easy and natural. But she took a long way ‘round to becoming a professional singer.
She lived with her parents in Woodstock and Los Angeles until they split up. Then it was weekends with her dad, and schooling in New York City where she lived with her mother. She went off to college in Madison, Wisconsin and earned a degree in psychology. “It was a chance to be with my friends, away from New York. And maybe hide a little... Part of my running away from music.”
But then, for three years, from 1998 to 2001, she played with her dad in the Barn Burners. She says it was like walking through the fire. At their weekly Joyous Lake gigs in Woodstock and out on tour, Amy played keyboards with the sound turned off in the house. Only she could hear it on her monitor. “It was a chance to practice,” she said. “I worked on singing and being onstage. My dad was showing me how to serve that singular vision, the music. He took me under his wing and taught me how to strive for that.... I think all of us want to be more confident and present in our art.”
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