Keeping a Steady Helm on the Tiller

The Band never had what you’d call hits--just one Top 30 single (“Up on Cripple Creek”) during its original eight-year recording career. But what the group lacked in commercial appeal it more than made up for in musical impact, which reverberates to this day in the music of such contemporaries as Los Lobos, Son Volt, Mother Hips, Wilco and the Jayhawks.

In its late-’60s heyday, the Band--drummer-vocalist Levon Helm, guitarist Robbie Robertson, bassist-vocalist Rick Danko, pianist-vocalist Richard Manuel and multi-instrumentalist Garth Hudson--was a cause celebre that almost single-handedly shook the psychedelic excesses from rock music.

There have been personnel changes and tragedy over the years--notably the departure of chief songwriter Robertson in 1976 and the 1986 suicide of Manuel--but the sound of the Band, which performs Sunday at the Galaxy Concert Theatre in Santa Ana, remains essentially the same.

The group’s new “High on the Hog” album (which members affectionately refer to as “Music From Pig Pink”), features the hallmark gruff, soulful vocals, crisp rhythm section work, masterful chops and swampy sensibility that has always made the Band’s music timeless.

*

Now consisting of Helm, Danko, Hudson, guitarist Jim Weider, drummer-vocalist Randy Ciarlante and pianist Richard Bell, the Band lays down superb turns on Bruce Chanel’s “Stand Up,” En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind” and Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” (dedicated to the late Jerry Garcia). It also includes a live performance recorded in 1986 with Manuel and a Bo Diddley-esque jam with legendary blues man Champion Jack DuPree, who died shortly after the session.

“We had as much fun doing it as I’ve ever had making a record,” Helm said in a recent phone interview. “A lot of times, with all the pressure, you don’t get as much enjoyment out of making a record as you do remembering it later--but this time it was different. We feel like we sound better than we ever have. I can sing things I couldn’t sing a few years back. It feels like we’ve gotten into another gear with the last two records.”

It’s been a long, twisted road for the Band since starting out as the Hawks, backing rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins in the late ‘50s. Helm and Hawkins were products of rural Arkansas, the other members Canadians.

Striking out on its own in 1963 as Levon & the Hawks, the group eventually gained the attention of Bob Dylan, who recruited the group to back him on his legendary electric tour in 1965-66.

With the first two albums of its own--1968’s “Music From Big Pink” and 1969’s “The Band”--the quintet carved an indelible impression of its own with its dignified simplicity of sound, stellar songwriting and musicianship and humble, spiritual attitude.

“If you were tired of the psychedelic thing, which I never much liked anyway, we were one of the only options around at the time,” Helm said.

After just four more studio albums, the Band called it quits in 1976 with a gala farewell concert on Thanksgiving Day. “The Last Waltz” was made into a 1978 Martin Scorcese-directed film and soundtrack album with a bevy of guest stars. But the good vibes were not all they seemed.

Robertson, Helm said, put the event together and appointed himself band spokesman, going off about how it was time for the Band to call it a day before the rigors of the road drove them all mad. As it turns out though, he spoke for no one but himself.

In his 1993 autobiography, “Wheels on Fire,” Helm contended that “The Last Waltz” was a Robertson-orchestrated power play and career move that the rest of the group went along with in silence.

The book also disputed, among other things, conventional wisdom that Robertson was the group’s sole songwriter. Helm remains exceptionally bitter toward his former bandmate; they haven’t spoken in years.

“When you’re up against the suits, you don’t have much of a say in anything, you know?” he said. “And Robertson was very much aligned with the suits. Anyway, it was nice to finally get the rhythm-section point of view across in the book. If you listen to Robertson taking all the bows and kudos for everything we did, he likes to present it that he masterminded the whole damn thing, like there never was any collaboration at all.”

Robertson went on to a moderately successful solo career as a performer and producer. Helm has acted in such films as “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “The Right Stuff” and “The Dollmaker” and will be appearing in the upcoming “Feeling Minnesota” with Keanu Reeves.

All Band members have recorded solo albums or albums with other groups and have done production and session work.

In 1983, the Band regrouped with Weider taking over for Robertson on lead guitar.

“By that time, everyone had cut an album or been in movie or whatever, but none of it was as satisfying as making music together,” Helm said. “It was just in the cards that we get back together.”

But all was not to good cheer after that reunion. Manuel hanged himself in a motel room in 1986, after a performance in Winter Park, Fla.

“I still don’t know why he did it,” said Helm, his voice cracking even a decade after the incident. “Richard’s main thing was to laugh, and that’s what made me and him so close. I thought we were on an uphill ride.

“What it did was make us all play together more and get closer and tighter. But there’s still no easy way to talk about it. My heart goes out to Billy Kreutzman and Mickey Hart and the rest of the Grateful Dead. I know what they’re going through right now over Jerry and everything.”

The ‘90s have thus far proven to be more Band-friendly. In 1993, the group released “Jericho,” its first album of new material in 16 years. In 1994, the group played Woodstock II--making it one of the few acts to perform at both festivals--and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“Well, there’s a whole lot of gold watch about that,” quipped Helm, who didn’t appear to accept the award, while a beaming Robertson did. “I don’t think too much about it. It doesn’t change a whole lot. I’m happy for it, but my job is still the same as it was before.”

“High on the Hog,” meanwhile, has garnered airplay on college and adult radio, helping introduce the Band to a new generation of fans. And even after nearly 40 years on the road, Helm remains a restless musician with many goals left to reach for.

“We have a lot more evolving to do. I’m thinking about the year after next and what we have a chance to sound like. We have a good chance at making things count.”

* The Band and John Wesley Harding play Sunday at the Galaxy Theater, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. 8 p.m. $21.50. Tickets for the canceled 9:30 show will be honored. (714) 957-0600.