Levon Helm – Memphis Flyer

Shiva Baby

Day three of the outdoors segment of Indie Memphis hits a weather-related snag. Memphis director Anwar Jamison’s feature Coming to Africa and the Hometowner Music Video Showcase, scheduled to roll on the riverfront tonight, have been postponed due to a forecast of rain. The film and video block have been rescheduled for Wednesday, October 28 at the Malco Summer Drive-In. The film will still premiere online tonight. You can read my interview with Jamison about his bi-continental film in last week’s Memphis Flyer cover feature on the festival.

The drive-in program for tonight is rain or shine. It kicks off with Shiva Baby, director Emma Seligman’s comedy about a struggling college student named Danielle (Rachel Sennott) who takes on a phone sex side hustle with sugar daddy Max (Danny Deferrari) to help make ends meet. But when he unexpectedly shows up at a family shiva with his wife Kim (Dianna Agron) and their colicky baby, her life is about to get a whole lot more complicated.

Indie Memphis 2020: A Rain Delay, Laura Dern, and Shiva Baby

The second show at the drive-in is a retro screening of Smooth Talk. Based on a Joyce Carole Oates short story, it features a killer early performance by Laura Dern as Connie, a teenager being stalked by sexual predator Arnold, played by the great Treat Williams. Look for a rare acting appearance by The Band’s legendary drummer Levon Helm. The classic indie pic won the Jury Award at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival.

Indie Memphis 2020: A Rain Delay, Laura Dern, and Shiva Baby (2)

Indie Memphis continues through Thursday, October 29. For full information on the online and in-person offerings, visit the Indie Memphis website.

The story leading up to the making of Levon Helm’s first album in 25 years is filled with so much triumph over adversity that you might think it’s made up. In the late ’90s, Helm, who played drums and sang for the Band, was diagnosed with throat cancer, and the radiation treatment robbed him of his voice. Pretty soon he was forced to declare bankruptcy. His home studio in Woodstock, New York, burned, and his friend and Bandmate Rick Danko died in his sleep.

Yet Helm worked to recover his voice. He rebuilt his studio and gradually began playing and singing again, launching a popular concert series called the Midnight Rambles. And, with friends and daughter Amy Helm of Ollabelle, he recorded Dirt Farmer, a stirring collection of old family songs and covers of new songs.

Helm, who grew on the family farm near Marvell, Arkansas, dedicates the album to his parents, who taught him songs like “Little Birds” and “The Girl I Left Behind.” He turns these traditional ditties into lively acoustic numbers whose mix of folk, country, Cajun, bluegrass, and even jazz echoes Helm’s work with the Band. “Poor Old Dirt Farmer” leavens its dire story about a failing farm with potent shots of grim humor: “Well, the poor old dirt farmer, how bad he must feel/He fell off his tractor up under the wheel,” Helm sings. “And now his head is shaped like a tread/But he ain’t quite dead.”

Helm sounds strong and confident on Dirt Farmer. His voice is weathered but not weak, and his drums still pop agilely around the beat. On Paul Kennerley’s “A Train Robbery,” with its period details and dramatic chorus, he sounds sinister, the choir of voices behind him like a gang of thieves. The Carter Family’s “Single Girl, Married Girl” and the Stanley Brothers’ “False Hearted Lover Blues” get dramatically new arrangements that bolster Helm’s alternately soulful and playful performance.

His best moment, however, is his cover of Steve Earle’s “The Mountain,” which loses the bluegrass lilt of the original for Appalachian gravity. Helm sounds defiant and convincingly outraged as he laments the mining industry’s toll on his home, and his delivery of the verse melody is one of many moments that prove Dirt Farmer doesn’t need its back story to be powerful and moving. — Stephen Deusner

Grade: A-