According to a statement on Levon's official website, he was surrounded by family, friends and band mates and will be remembered by all he touched as a brilliant musician and a beautiful soul.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted Levon in 1994, called him the backbone of The Band. Levon's signature groove and Southern drawl helped transform songs such as Up on Cripple Creek and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down into iconic rock classics.

After his initial diagnosis with throat cancer in 1998, which threatened to end his singing career, Levon declined to undergo a recommended laryngectomy, which he believed was certain to terminate his ability to sing. Instead he opted for radiation treatment instead, which left him nearly unable to speak, much less to sing.

Midnight Ramble
Levon struggled to regain his voice and pay spiraling medical bills and started a series of shows at his Woodstock, New York, studios called the Midnight Ramble. Levon said it was an outlet, crucial to keeping his outlook positive. Rehabilitating his voice saw a slow process: it took Levon more than two years before he could speak above a whisper.

Since 2004, his Midnight Ramble shows have grown in legend, attracting everyone from Elvis Costello and Norah Jones to My Morning Jacket, Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris.

The weekly concerts also revived his recording career and produced three back-to-back Grammy-winning albums: 'Dirt Farmer', 'Electric Dirt' and 'Ramble at the Ryman'.

Biography
Levon Helm was born Mark Lavon Helm in Elaine, Arkansas, on May 26, 1940. He grew up in a musical home. At six, he experienced his first live music event: a performance by bluegrass music patriarch Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys. Levon once recalled: "This really tattooed my brain. I’ve never forgotten it."

In 1957 he joined Ronnie Hawkins' band The Hawks. It was during his stint with this band that Levon met with four other musicians who would eventually form the core of The Band: Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson and Garth Hudson.

After they split with Ronnie Hawkins, Levon and his fellow musicians of The Hawks helped Bob Dylan with his transition into an electric sound.

At a time when rock was splintering in disparate directions, from psychedelia and early heavy metal to funk and pop — the Band took listeners back to the root strains that originally gave birth to rock.

Their timeless sound influenced hundreds of musicians who followed in its wake, and The Band almost single-handedly established the template for a genre that has come to be known as Americana music.

After having toured incessantly for 20 years, The Band broke up in 1976 with an all-star Thanksgiving concert at the Winterland ballroom in San Francisco that was filmed by Martin Scorsese and released as 'The Last Waltz', also featuring Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond and numerous others.

The greatest white blues drummer of all time
Grammy Museum executive director Robert Santelli, co-author with Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg of the 1991 book 'The Big Beat: Conversations with Rock’s Great Drummers', says:

"My sense is that Levon Helm was the greatest white blues drummer of all time. He had an innate ability to create something that not only had great authenticity, but also was strikingly original in the way he played it."

In the 1980s Levon was invited by fellow drummer Ringo Starr to join the ex-Beatle's first All-Starr Band tour.

Levon Helm is survived by his wife Sandy, daughter Amy and two grandchildren. The fondly remember:

"Levon has loved nothing more than to play, to fill the room up with music, lay down the back beat, and make the people dance! He did it every time he took the stage..."

Watch these two videos, filmed in February 2012 as part of the Sound Tracks: Quick Hits series. His voice may be raspy, but his energetic drumming and high-beam smile can warm the coldest winter night: