A nice tribute to my favorite living musician, the last man standing.

@tomic601: Jim, Amy joined Levon for the tour he did when he was still recovering from throat surgery, therefor unable to sing. I got to hear her singing on the stage at The House Of Blues on Sunset Blvd. sometime in the first decade of this century, with Levon playing drums better than ever.

I never made it to any of the shows held in Levon’s barn, darnit. Leading the band at a lot of those shows was Larry Campbell, who with his wife and singing/writing partner Teresa Williams will be on stage at Mississippi Studios in Portland next month. Can’t wait!

Also coming to town in November is JD McPherson, who has been playing guitar with Alison Krauss and Robert Plant for a coupla years. He’s a younger guy who plays in a cool Rockabilly style, a genre I love. He has a new album out I gotta pick up.

Yeah @mashif, older artists are leaving us behind in increasing regularity. The rest of this decade is going to be brutal. I'm encouraged that there are plenty of younger artists capable of taking their place. Maybe not on the level of a Bob Dylan, but he is a once-in-a-century phenomenon.

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@mashif: I too am grateful for having been born in 1950. But when I met and became acquainted with Billy Swan in the 1990’s (we both lived in Sherman Oaks, California, as did Johnny Ramone and Dave Edmunds), he told me about seeing Elvis, Scotty (Moore), and Bill (Black)---Elvis had not yet hired drummer D.J. Fontana---perform in Tennessee on the back of a flatbed truck in 1956, I wished it had been 1940 instead!

My first live show was The Beach Boys in the Summer of ’64, and by the time I saw The Beatles in ’65 I had already seen all the San Jose Garage bands that popped up in the wake the British Invasion (The Syndicate Of Sound, The Chocolate Watchband, People, Stained Glass, etc.). Younger guys I meet are envious at my having seen Cream, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Who, The Jeff Beck Group, and The Dead and Airplane in ’67 and ’68, but The Band and like-minded groups and artists made them obsolete to me.

And in my opinion, there is music being made now that’s as good as any I have ever heard. It’s a great time to be alive. It will be even better in a coupla months.

Great to hear from youse guys!

@mashif: I saw the original lineup of Band in 1969, at the Berkeley Community Theater, a great sounding room. Their second album had just been released, an album that changed my life. I really relate to the statement the maker of the above video utters in the video: "The Band is really quite central to my conception of myself."

I had moved away from the SF Bay area just before The Last Waltz concert was announced (damnit!), but saw Levon again live at The House Of Blues in Hollywood sometime in the 2000’s. He was still recovering from his throat surgery, and wasn’t singing. But he had his daughter Amy along to sing on the tour, and a great band he had assembled. He was playing drums better than ever, and moved over to mandolin when Richie Hayward of Little Feat came up on stage to play on Levon’s drumset. Richie also played "pretty well".

I have yet to hear Buddy Miller live, but have heard Steve Earle live a few times, including on the tour he did with The Del McCoury Band (also at The House Of Blues), a fantastic show. Steve and the band played their acoustic instruments and sang into a single mic, and sounded amazing. I've also heard Buddy's good pal Jim Lauderdale live a few times, most recently just a few months back. Jim's a great songwriter and singer. The first time I saw him onstage was when he was playing acoustic guitar and singing harmony with Lucinda Williams, on the Car Wheels On A Gravel Road tour. Playing drums was Jim Christie, fresh out of Dwight Yoakam's band.