The life of the legendary drummer and singer is explored through extensive research and personal interviews with family, friends, and fellow musicians. In the Arkansas Delta, a young Levon Helm witnessed “blues, country, and gospel hit in a head-on collision,” as he put it. The result was rock 'n' roll. As a teenager, he joined the raucous Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, then helped merge a hard-driving electric sound with Bob Dylan's folk roots, and revolutionized American rock with the Band. Helm not only provided perfect “in the pocket” rhythm and unforgettable vocals, he was the soul of The Band. Levon traces a rebellious life on the road, from being booed with Bob Dylan to the creative cauldron of Big Pink, the Woodstock Festival, world tours, The Last Waltz, and beyond with the man Dylan called “one of the last true great spirits of my or any other generation.” Author Sandra B. Tooze digs deep into what Helm saw as a devastating betrayal by his closest friend, Band guitarist Robbie Robertson—and Levon’s career collapse, his near bankruptcy, and the loss of his voice due to throat cancer in 1997. Yet Helm found success in an acting career that included roles in Coal Miner’s Daughter and The Right Stuff. Regaining his singing voice, he made his last decade a triumph, opening his barn to the Midnight Rambles and earning three Grammys.

“Helm lays it all bare in vivid, impassioned prose, adding an earthly, backwoods tone that makes the book read like a Southern novel, like Thomas Wolfe writing about rock ’n’ roll.” —Boston Globe “One of the most insightful and intelligent rock bios in recent memory.” —Entertainment Weekly The Band, who backed Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965 and then turned out a half-dozen albums of beautifully crafted, image-rich songs, is now regarded as one of the most influential rock groups of the '60s. But while their music evoked a Southern mythology, only their Arkansawyer drummer, Levon Helm, was the genuine article. From the cotton fields to Woodstock, from seeing Sonny Boy Williamson and Elvis Presley to playing for President Clinton, This Wheel’s on Fire replays the tumultuous history of our times in Levon’s own unforgettable folksy drawl. This edition is expanded with a new epilogue covering the last dozen years of Levon's life. Levon Helm (1940-2012) met Ronnie Hawkins at the age of 17 and formed what would soon become The Band. He maintained a successful career as a singer and actor until his death. Stephen Davis is the author of Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga; More Room in a Broken Heart: The True Adventures of Carly Simon; Old Gods Almost Dead: The 40-Year Odyssey of the Rolling Stones; Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend; Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith; and others.

Two African American men from poor, rural Mississippi wrongfully convicted for crimes they didn't commit. Lost years of their lives spent in jail and finally released a decade a half later thanks to the Innocence Project and DNA testing. This is their life for all to see. In the early 1990s in a small disadvantaged community in rural Mississippi, Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer were wrongfully convicted in separate trials of capital murder. Brooks, despite an alibi, was sentenced to life and was imprisoned for 18 years. A few years later Brewer was convicted and sentenced to death. He was incarcerated for 15. In 2008 the Innocence Project in New York exonerated both men. Vanessa Potkin, longtime attorney at the Innocence Project, along with co-founder of the Innocence Project, Peter Neufeld, spent years investigating the two cases, and discovered a link between them that subsequent DNA testing substantiated. The results of that testing led authorities to the real perpetrator who was responsible for both murders and then to the exonerations of Brooks and Brewer. Without the work of the Innocence Project, Potkin, Neufeld, and a host of others, these photographs-of lives lost, forgotten, and then regained-would not have been possible. The photographs' poignance is made all the more powerful as one contemplates their stark, deeply felt beauty against the haunting realization that they were almost never able to be made or seen at all. The evidence against Brooks and Brewer consisted primarily of bite mark matching evidence. A prosecution expert testified that in both cases multiple bite marks covered the victims' bodies and matched the defendants' teeth impressions. A group of experts retained by the Innocence Project later determined that the marks were not bite marks at all. As a forensic discipline, bite mark matching has come under serious criticism in recent years and led to the exoneration of multiple other prisoners. This same prosecution expert testified not only in Brooks's and Brewer's cases, but a host of others in Mississippi and the region. The extent of the damage is still unknown. In 2012, photographer Isabelle Armand came across an article about these two cases. Such a scenario seemed unbelievable. How, why, and where could this happen? How does one cope with wrongful conviction? For the next five years, she spent several weeks each year documenting Brooks, Brewer, their families and their environment. This intimate photographic essay, akin to looking in a mirror, puts faces on the victims of wrongful convictions. It seeks to raise consciousness, challenge popular perceptions about poverty and inequality in our criminal justice system, and demands that we confront these critical issues.

(Book). Levon Helm's Rambles have quickly become the stuff of legend. Helm, of course, is the charismatic drummer, singer, and sometimes mandolin picker for The Band, a group whose songs and stature have made them a pillar of classic rock and rootsy Americana. Beyond their work with Bob Dylan, their own hits ("Up on Cripple Creek," "The Weight," "The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down," to name just a few) have landed them in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the consciousness of music fans everywhere. The Ramble was Levon's down-home jam session for friends and fans, held on Saturday nights in his studio "Barn" in Woodstock. Levon based his Ramble Sessions on the Southern medicine shows of his youth, and has invited some of the most notable blues entertainers and musicians of our time to perform with him including Robert Plant, Elvis Costello, Rickie Lee Jones, Clarence Clemons, Allison Krauss and others. This book is the official record of these incredibly intimate sessions: the next best thing to being there. Accompanying the spectacular photos are testimonials and remembrances from the superstars who have joined the Ramble.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Levon Helm, the drummer, was born in 1940 in the Arkansas Delta. He recalled going to see a late-night show called the midnight ramble, where the jokes were spicier and the girls did a little hoochie-coochie dance. #2 Arkansas was a state that had never fully recovered from the Civil War. The economy had been devastated by the Great Depression, and slavery was replaced by sharecropping, which was still a form of peonage for blacks and poor whites. #3 The first school district in Arkansas’s Delta region to integrate was Hoxie in 1955, but in 1957, Governor Orval Faubus used the Arkansas National Guard to prevent integration at Little Rock’s Central High School. #4 Levon’s family lived on A. B. Thompson’s land, and he spent his youth there with the Cavette family. He was a close friend of Clyde and Arlena Cavette, and they all went to grade school together.

A highly original collection of high magnification photographs that unlock the hidden beauty of seeds and fruit, from the author of Microsculpture The Hidden Beauty of Seeds & Fruits is a photographic study that celebrates the wonders of nature and science in mind-blowing magnification. Levon Biss’ striking photography captures the breathtaking and beautiful details of the world of carpology, the study of seeds and fruits. Each picture reveals minute features and textures that are normally invisible to the naked eye, providing the audience with an insight into strange and often bizarre adaptations that have evolved over thousands of years. After spending months searching through the carpological collection at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Biss selected over a hundred striking samples to be featured in this book. Captioned with scientific text that provides the backstory for each specimen, The Hidden Beauty of Seeds & Fruits is guaranteed to amaze, entertain, and educate.

A comprehensive overview of the musical career of Elton John provides the full story behind all of the musician's recordings, a complete chronicle of his concert tours, an assessment of his musical odyssey, and a study of his sometimes turbulent personal life, along with more than forty photographs and a complete discography.