‘Levon Is My Brother’

Robbie Robertson forgets decades-long feud as Band drummer Levon Helm faces cancer death: “I am so grateful I got to see him one last time.”

Robbie Robertson has visited his old Band-mate, drummer Levon Helm, in hospital. The latter is in the final stages of his battle with cancer.

Robertson posted on his Facebook page:

“I thought Levon had beaten throat cancer and had no idea that he was this ill. I sat with him for a good while, and thought of the incredible and beautiful times we had together.

“Levon is one of the most extraordinary talented people I’ve ever known and very much like an older brother to me. I am so grateful I got to see him one last time and will miss him and love him forever.”

Robertson and Helm famously fell out after The Band split in the late 1970s and the pair have had a fractured relationship ever since.

Helm offered some particularly barbed remarks against Robertson in his autobiography, This Wheel’s On Fire.

For example, he criticised The Last Waltz, the much-acclaimed Martin Scorsese concert documentary of The Band, saying: “For two hours… the camera focused almost exclusively on Robbie Robertson, long and loving close-ups of his heavily made-up face and expensive haircut.”

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