Yesterday, October 9, 2009, Rusty Wier passed after a two year battle with cancer. Rusty really framed Americana music for me when I got turned onto him in the mid 70's. His music didn't sound like anyone else's. It was lush, hauntingand meaningful. I was entranced.

When my boss Ed Salamon came over to my house for a Sunday Daily News story that was being written about me and my New York radio station, WHN, he pulled the Rusty Wier music from my library shelves, along with the Gram Parsons, Flying Burrito Brothers, Byrds, Jerry Jeff Walker, Goose Creek Symphony, and the like. Just two songs an hour, wedged in between Glen Campbell, Tanya Tucker, The Oak Ridge Boys, Eddie Rabbitt and Larry Gatlin.  Only two an hour, but I was playing progressive country on the radio in New York City in 1975.

It wasn't long after that we started doing live broadcasts from The Lone Star Café. Many of these were mainstream artists; it was the first place I saw George Strait, after all, but there were off-the-beaten-path acts, too. One night, it was Rusty Wier. After the set, Rusty came up to the radio station to be a guest DJ. We are talking Park Avenue between 54th and 55th Streets, and we are talking 3 am. I ran the board for him. I wonder if anyone has a tape of that night.

One of my most satisfying career achievements was to have a home, lo 25 years later, for the likes of Rusty Wier, and to not have to sandwich his music into other artists' that were mainstream. He was my touchstone. What an artist. I know these last years weren't easy, but I know how intensely he lived, and I know the intensity of what he left us.

-Jessie

Update: Touching story from the comments section of this post.

Losing his voice has not slowed Levon down. He and his band members, Larry Campbell, Jim Weider, Amy Helm, Teresa Williams, Brian Mitchell, Erik Lawrence, Howard Johnson, Clark Gayton, Jay Collins, Byron Isaacs and Steven Bernstein continue to perform to sold out crowds at his weekly ‘midnight ramble concerts’!  There have been no cancellations of shows and the band continues on their various tour stops including this week’s performance at the Austin City Limits Festival on October 3rd. The outpouring of encouragement and warmth from whom Levon has called, “the greatest fans in the world” are sure to inspire a full recovery!

Levon Helm and Larry Campbell recently taped a performance on Elvis Costello’s Spectacle show which will air on the Sundance Channel in January.

Vanguard Records

The Benefits Of Benefits       
By Tommy Womack

Peter Case is a buddy. We’ve worked together in Nashville, Memphis, Lexington, KY, Decatur, GA, and – I kid you not – Sesto Callende, Italy. He’s a true hardcore troubadour who has lived it to his toenails out of a suitcase for decades, playing his guitar and weaving stories with his words, wearing a rumpled suit, with an old hat, looking like a man who took a train into town. 



Peter had open heart surgery earlier this year. A benefit gig was at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in California back in May. Dave Alvin played, T-Bone Burnett, others.They did it because yet another exorbitant medical fix-it bill affected yet another life that has value.



There were benefits for Duane Jarvis and Tim Krekel too, before the hammers fell. Perry Baggs of the Scorchers was a beneficiary of a big two-night one here in town two years ago. A few years back, Government Cheese reunited to help an old friend deal with her bills.



There was even a posthumous benefit once when Jack Emerson passed away suddenly, leaving a mountain of bills. So it goes.