[rating=3.50]
Though perhaps not so startling a work as its predecessor, the Grammy-winning Dirt Farmer, Levon Helm’s new album nevertheless extends its authentically rootsy earthy themes.
This eminently accessible affair begins with sharp cover of Grateful Dead’s "Tennessee Jed," arranged for horns in the jubilant fashion of New Orleans via The Band’s Rock of Ages as well as Levon’s summer 2008 shows (many of which accompanied Phil Lesh and Friends). This witty take on the Garcia/Hunter tune is right in keeping with the modified twelve-bar of The Staples’ "Move It On Train," where Levon’s salty tenor sounds perfectly appropriate with the gospel background vocals and pithy electric guitar from producer Larry Campbell.
Without any overt attempt to duplicate the sense of history evoked so deeply by Helm’s former group, his own Southern roots nevertheless allow him to embody the characters as well as conjure up a sense of time passed and values maintained in the modern world on "Growing Trade." A voice otherwise miraculously recovered from cancer sounds slightly strained on "Golden Bird," but bolstered by Campbell’s fiddle, the singing ultimately communicates empathy for the character.
It’s a further tribute to the nuance Helm commands as a singer that he can convey the tongue-in-cheek attitude within Randy Newman’s "Kingfish" as well as the wry tone of Muddy Waters’ "Stuff You Gotta Watch." (rendered much more authoritatively than the late blues icon’s “You Can’t Lose What You Never Had”). Levon captures the right proportions of melancholy and hope on "Heaven’s Pearls," where the horns again so accurately echo the subtlety in his phrasing.
In much the same way he has done his legacy proud in his Woodstock rambles and recent shows on the road, Levon Helm achieves the same alternately rousing, reflective end on Electric Dirt.
