The background to this kind of contemporary music in Australia is the body of work produced by Dylan, The Byrds, Gram Parsons, The Grateful Dead, Neil Young and The Band in the late 60s and early 1970s. There was a lot of musical interweaving in this alt-country and country-rock, and the interpretations and interesting reworkings that emerged from this period were more than nostalgia of the classic album period of what is now called Americana-- an amalgam of Rock, Country, Folk, Blues, Soul, and R & B.

After enjoying watching The Band is Back some time ago, I took a punt on The Band, Live At Loreley. This was from a concert and the line-up featured 3 original members in Levon Helm (percussion / vocals / bass), Garth Hudson (keyboards / saxophone) and Rick Danko (bass / vocals), plus new additions Jim Weider (lead Guitar), Richard Bell (piano) and Randy Ciarlante (percussion / vocals). Danko died in 1999.

What a shock. The legacy of The Band is a long one, and after Robbie Robertson left The Band hasn't aged well like old red wine. That is the impression given here at the Bobfest---Dylan's 30th Anniversary Concert in 1992.

They are but a shadow of their former selves. The creative juices had gone in the 80s and 90s. The musicians had retreated to poor covers and an old-timey good time version of the folky and country music side of The Band. The new material from High on the Hog is weak, the musical interplay is limited, and the energy has gone. Disappointment.

Levon Helm is the last of the Band to be still creating music and he is better on his own doing his earthy, homespun country music. There is a rejuvenation and freshness here, even after recovering from throat cancer in 1998:

"Poor old Dirt Farmer' is a song about the trials and tribulations of the sharecropper is honest and it has its roots in the soil of rural America today. The voice is weaker, but his conviction is strong in that it matters what happens to the dirt farmer.

The song is from his comeback album Dirt Farmer (2007), which is a look back at Helm's roots as the son of a farm family in the rural South (Turkey Scratch, Arkansas). It works within the acoustic music in the Appalachian tradition and is the work of an old man, with the embedded salt-of-the-earth wisdom and the weariness of a long life. Dirt Farmer earned Helm a 2007 Grammy for best Traditional Folk Album.

If Electric Dirt is an addendum to the critically acclaimed Dirt Farmer, it re-approaches the style of his work with the Band, going electric and upping the energy. It starts with an boogie interpretation of the Grateful Dead's "Tennessee Jed" and so we have come full circle.