Most people may know that Bob Dylan celebrated his 80th birthday last Monday. What many may have missed, however, was American singer-songwriter Amy Helm’s Twitter post about her late father Levon Helm on what would have been her 81st birthday.

She said she toured the United States with him 20 years ago.

Her drummer father, she said, had been “sober for two years, had just filed for bankruptcy and was one year after his radiation treatments for throat cancer.”

His voice was barely a whisper, he couldn’t sing, but instead the 60-year-old resolutely set out to change his playing style for the blues.

This anecdote is relevant because Helm was the drummer for The Band, Dylan’s former support group and possibly one of the most underrated bands in American rock history, whose story was told yesterday. evening at the BBC4 network’s premiere of the documentary film produced by Martin Scorsese, Once Were Brothers. : Robbie Robertson and the band.

Of the five members, Helm, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel are no longer with us, and old Garth Hudson remains a recluse.

Last man left to tell the story

That leaves their supernatural talented guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson telling their story, from a group of Toronto teens honing their craft with Arkansas rocker Ronnie Hawkins, to infamy when live band Dylan became electric, to a legacy of their own that began at Woodstock’s “Big Pink” recording studio.

For fans and newcomers alike, the time spent with this fascinating group and their history cannot be commended enough (the film is still on iPlayer), even as circumstances dictate only one take on their triumphant but troubled history. be seen.

Robertson – whose biography director Daniel Roher based the film on – was notoriously the worst singer in a group with three of North America’s greatest musical voices.

Yet her speaking voice is infinitely listenable, and she brings a mythical gravity to a story aided by the contributions of his wife Dominique, George Harrison, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton and Bruce Springsteen, who rightly states that “no band does. emphasizes coming together and becoming more than the sum of their parts more than The Band.

And now something completely luxurious

Meanwhile, in the first episode of Britain’s Most Luxurious Hotels on Channel 4, celebrity glamor of a more bland, contemporary genre abounds, as staff at Langham in London (prices range from $ 1 $ 000- $ 25,000 per night) rushes to finish roof repairs before Ronan Keating arrives, struggles to find an adapter cable to launch a sex-laden podcast to celebrities such as Sam Fox, Denise Welch and Sinitta , and hold their breath as Executive Chef Michel Roux Jr judges the new cookie-based desserts.

© Shutterstock / Willy Barton

That simulated tension is so much of a reality TV thing, of course, and the whole thing was essentially a chic commercial for the prestige hotel.

Still, there were some lovely human moments in there, including Marketing Director Charlotte nervously stopping to tell us about his wife’s impending IVF birth and the look on the postman’s wife’s face when the couple received a 40th birthday at the hotel.

This latest treatment was part of a push to honor essential workers, and it was as a document of an industry trying to get back to normal after the lockdown that the show performed best.