FAT Village Celebrates Day of the Dead; We Remember Musicians Who Passed Away in 2012

I'm beginning to think Day of the Dead would have a lot fewer

remembrances if it weren't for cancer. Cancer took Levon Helm at the

age of 71. After fighting back from losing his voice to throat cancer in

the late '90s, he managed to tour up until the disease finally won out

earlier this year.  

multi-instrumentalist folk albums, to his time on the big screen, Helm

was hard not to love.  He made you feel that everyone from the south

must be as big hearted and as well spoken as him. I've always been

touched by "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," and Helm's emotional

presentation. But watch him do it again from The Last Waltz.  If you

don't have goose bumps, something's wrong with you.

'50s and 60's, who would have guess that the hardest living among them

would be a woman?  And that she would have outlived all the men? 

Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Little Walter... none of them

could keep up with the hard drinking and heroin use of Etta James. She

came to Chess in 1960 and managed to produce a debut album covering

blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, gospel, and soul.  While her most famous

song was only a minor blip on the charts at the time of its release, "At

Last" has endured to be its own ofrenda to the beauty of James' amazing

voice.