This Wheel's on Fire Quotes

“Maybe the greatness we heard in [Richard Manuel]'s voice, that catch in it, came from all that pain. To this day, we don't really know.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“For me personally, though, the killer was published in Rolling Stone: “Levon Helm is the only drummer that can make you cry.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“The sound of the blues, rhythm and blues, country music, is what we lived for, black and white alike. It gave you strength to sit on one of those throbbing Allis-Chalmers tractors all day if you knew you were gonna hear something on the radio or maybe see a show that evening.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“So we made some big plans to be Sonny Boy’s band and sat down to some good barbecue in a place I’d been eating in all my life in the black part of town. We ordered sandwiches, coleslaw, and some sodas. While we waited, someone asked Sonny Boy whether he’d known Robert Johnson. “Knew him?” Sonny Boy asked incredulously. “Boy, Robert Johnson died in my arms!”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“The land was our legacy. Most of my father’s generation spent a good part of their lives building levees just to keep the high water off us so we could farm. Most of the farm houses we lived in were raised up on stilts. My dad started me on the tractor that spring. I’d been riding with him for years, and now I got to drive it. We started in April, turned the fields over with the breaking plow, and then got on top of it again with a disk. Some years, if your soil demanded it, you went back and disked it over again into fine-tilled soil. Just before planting, you’d work the ground with a section harrow, a flat, metal-toothed rake that furrowed the ground, smoothed it, and broke up any clods of dirt. Clouds of birds whirled overhead and around the tractor, searching for worms and insects in the freshly plowed earth. Eventually you’d have big fields of fine delta soil in rows about four inches high.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“He hated the Ku Klux Klan. I’m real proud of that. One day when he was farming he heard that some of them were trying to organize in the area. He put his shotgun in the back of his wagon and found a bunch of ’em on the porch of the general store. He went right up and said, “Excuse me, sirs, but have any of you all seen any of them goddamn Ku Kluxers?” No one said anything, so Grandpaw prompted ’em a little. “Those sorry sheet-wearin’ sons of bitches.” They still didn’t say a word. “Well, if you see any of them Ku Kluxers, you tell ’em Wheeler Wilson’s looking for ’em, and you can tell ’em where I live.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“None of us ever thought to write a song about all the shit that was going on back then: war, revolution, civil war, turmoil. Our songs were trying to take you someplace else.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“We were in our early twenties, playing and traveling, and didn’t have to answer to anybody. It was the kind of life where if you had a problem today, you could be five hundred miles away from it the next day.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“When we were unloading or going into a restaurant, the raisin got stepped on and smeared like a flapjack. The Hawk was displeased when he saw that. “Goddamn,” he growled, “I gave you guys a hundred to get off cigarettes. I’ll give you two hundred to get rid of these damn raisins!”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“As rowdy as the place was, I’ve seen rowdier times playing fraternity parties in Oklahoma.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

“After I was old enough to work, they’d have to make three pies: one for each family and one for Lavon. And I’d guard mine.”
― Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band