levon helm

While recovering from the crash, Dylan spent some time in Woodstock, New York, joined soon after by other members of his band, the Hawks – Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson – the group who would soon become well-known simply as “The Band.” In those months of his absence from the public view Dylan and the Band recorded over 100 tracks in houses in and around Woodstock.

Ain’t in It for My Health: A Film About Levon Helm, directed by Jacob Hatley, is not seeped with nostalgia like so many other music documentaries (Martin Scorsese’s treatments of Bob Dylan or George Harrison, the Jim Brown directed tribute to Pete Seeger or even – though to a lesser extent – Lian Lunson’s documentary on Leonard Cohen). It is grittier and, one would believe, more truthful – a candid look into the final years of the life of Levon Helm, in many ways the special ingredient that really gave The Band their flavor.