John Lingan

@johnlingan

Writer. "BACKBEATS: A History of Rock and Roll in 15 Drummers" is one of Rolling Stone’s Best Music Books of 2025. Also: "Homeplace," about Patsy Cline's hometown. "A Song for Everyone," about Creedence. johnlingan.com

668 Following1,657 Followers2,335 Posts

YouTube Bluesky

Is this your profile?Claim it and johnlingan.dirty.social is yours.Claim profile

John Lingan@johnlingan· 29d

Here’s the statement(s) from Brian Parillo, who now controls Levon Helm Studios and its performance space. He accuses Amy of malfeasance, of “burning her father’s business to the ground,” and says an investigation has vindicated him. Meanwhile, bands and artists have begun to cancel shows.

levonhelmstudios My name is Brian Parillo, and since May 2026, I have been the president of Levon Helm Studios, Inc, but that's not the beginning of my story with LHS. Back in 2000, Levon invited me and my band to come play with him in Woodstock. A lifelong friendship with Levon and his wife, Sandy, quickly developed. I am saddened that Amy Helm, his daughter, has chosen to make a private family matter public, and we now have no choice but to respond to set the record straight.
In 2004, Levon started the Midnight Rambles, which were a runaway success. Levon, I and two other partners became the founding stockholders of LHS when the company was formed on October 22, 2004. I have never received a penny in connection with my shares in LHS. I have also not received a penny from LHS since becoming president.
LHS is not a birthright. It is Levon Helm's legacy.
After Levon passed away too soon on April 19, 2012, Sandy and Amy split his shares, each becoming 40% owners of LHS. What transpired for the next 14 years was a concerted effort by Amy and her advisors to deny Sandy, me and the other stockholders access to any corporate records or any meaningful updates on how the company was being run.
Sandy and I care deeply about Levon's legacy, and we were worried it was being coopted and mismanaged by Amy.
After attempting for years to resolve the dispute, our patience ran out. Sandy, I and the other stockholder elected me as the sole director of LHS, and I was appointed the president of LHS, so that I could conduct an investigation into how LHS has been run. No one is above being held to the legal, ethical and moral standards of running a company for the benefit of all of its stakeholders, which we believe includes Levon, our performers, guests, employees, officers, directors and stockholders. No claim of "birthright" washes clean a decade plus of malfeasance.

We have concluded the initial phase of our investigation and made the results available to Amy in connection with a settlement offer. Amy has made her response publicly known. She would rather burn her father's company to the ground by mobilizing ignorance and hatred against LHS instead of accepting responsibility for her actions. If she can't have it, then no one can.
In today's day and age, people are quick to judge and slow to forgive. I believe that it should be the exact opposite. We appreciate that you are coming from a good place in expressing your support for Amy, but we urge you to wait for the full story to come out.
Once the full story comes out, I want each and every one of you to know that we will welcome you back with open arms. No hard feelings. Not even our own egos are more important than making sure that we do what Levon asked us to do on his death bed: Keep it going.

John Lingan@johnlingan· 29d

Here is Amy’s statement. Fwiw I would be absolutely shocked if she somehow were acting against the best interests of the venue and her father’s legacy. She’s a celebrated musician herself and utterly devoted to the community that has formed around that place.

amyhelmmusic I have been informed that the August 1st & 2nd Helm Family Midnight Rambles have been "postponed."
In time, I will be able to speak to the disturbing circumstances behind the current situation at my father's home and recording studio.
Neither I, nor our long time core staff, are currently part of Levon Helm Studios and have nothing to do with any decisions made or actions taken by the new "management."
What's paramount to us right now is making sure that The Barn — both the legacy and the community of which we're family - is safe and protected.
It's not only been my responsibility, but my privilege to carry on my Dad's vision. Along with an endless family of musicians and friends who were close to him, we have honored his memory and music, and will continue to do so.
My family and I are walking through this with faith in the legal system, and we thank everyone for the outpouring of love and support, it means so much to my family and me.

John Lingan@johnlingan· Jul 9

"The Rock" by Peter Blume at the Art Institute of Chicago. Created for Fallingwater, it was never displayed there and likely would have driven residents to madness.

Peter Blume's painting The Rock (1944-48), depicting a handful of characters toiling to build a church (?) in a post-apocalyptic scene (?) dominated by a jagged remnant of a green stone orb with a pink interior (?). I don't know, man.

John Lingan@johnlingan· Jul 5

Okay

@stereogum.com
“Julian Casablancas expanded on his recent comments about Israel in a speech at the
Oxford Union.”

John Lingan@johnlingan· Jul 2

Also this banger. Wishing everyone a queer as hell holiday.

MIGHTY REAL: A HISTORY OF LGBTQ
MUSIC, 1969-2000
by BARRY WALTERS

John Lingan@johnlingan· Jul 1

My reading for this heatwave/250th.

THE CHANGING LIGHT AT SANDOVER by James Merrill

John Lingan@johnlingan· Jun 28

Only the middle one is genuine but I still have achieved some kind of decor nirvana.

Three 14x36 posters for THE LONG GOODBYE, THIEVES LIKE USE, and CALIFORNIA SPLIT

John Lingan@johnlingan· Jun 25

Poolside with some literary erotica.

Nettie Jones’s FISH TALES on a beach chair.

John Lingan@johnlingan· Jun 11

Happy 87th birthday to Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, a great Marylander and better drummer. He’s the subject of Chapter 10 in my book “BACKBEATS: A History of Rock and Roll in 15 Drummers” and the only one I’ve met in person.

10
BERNARD "PRETTY” PURDIE
The Sweetener
Buddha-calm and Buddha-bellied, Bernard Purdie sat alone at a huge conference table in the greenroom of the Clef Club in downtown Philadelphia. In his mid-seventies, even with sharp white sideburns, Purdie looked youthful. His impish face, broad cheeks, and squinting eyes made him look like a little boy turning on the charm when Mom gets angry. The showmanship extended to his fashion choices, which that day included cowboy boots, a gold watch, a grape-sized pinkie ring, and a silver chain that pecked out from the collar of a jaggedly striped multicolored sweater. I was there on assignment, watching him eat a sausage and pepper hoagie, preparing to interview and write about "the most recorded drummer in history."
"I'm on over four thousand albums," he told me, a claim he's made often in interviews. It would be nearly impossible to fact-check, though no one's ever disputed it. "I never looked at any one of them as, 'Oh that's a great opportunity?' I's a freaking job. I got paid to do my job."
You have heard Bernard Purdie play drums. He has made you dance. This isn't about musical taste, it's just math. "What a Wonderful

World." "Rock Steady." "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher." "It's a Man's Man's Man's World." And those are just a few of his better-known, uncontested credits. In his heyday, the early '60s through the '70s, he was punctual, nailed songs on the first take, worked for hours on end, and played with inspiring energy and perfect, metronomic time. Producers loved him. They called him "Pretty." Bernard "Pretty" Purdie. You have heard him play drums.

John Lingan@johnlingan· Jun 7

Lovely afternoon in Baltimore with a hometown hero.

Concert poster for the bill Frisell trio at keystone korner.

John Lingan@johnlingan· Jun 5

Thomas Pynchon writes a paragraph.

It was dark. He was in an old cloth jacket, a stocking cap tugged down over his ears, arms linked with a number of young people he

V.
244
didn't know but suspected were students, all singing a death-song and weaving side to side in a chain, broadside to the street's center-line. He could hear bands of other rollickers, drunk and singing lustily in other streets. Beneath a tree, near one of the infrequent street lights, he came upon a boy and girl, coupled, one of the girl's fat and aging thighs exposed to the still-winter wind. He stooped and covered them with his old jacket, his tears fell and froze in mid-air, and rattled like sleet on the couple, who'd turned to stone.

John Lingan@johnlingan· May 31

The whole point of this trip was to see NRBQ, my favorite band, at Levon Helm Studios, which we did last night. By surprise they were joined for the entire set by John Sebastian, one of my favorite songwriters. I’m writing this from heaven.

A poorly lit shot of the instruments at Levon Helm Studios, awaiting the arrival of NRBQ.

John Lingan@johnlingan· May 30

No jokes here, I got chills.

John Lingan@johnlingan· May 30

Crazy Chester followed me

John Lingan@johnlingan· May 30

Music Writer From Big Pink

I’m in the driveway of Rick danko’s rental home from 1967.

John Lingan@johnlingan· May 26

www.theguardian.com/music/2026/m...

Rollins once described himself as "primitive ... I'm going with my feelings more than my brain" and it was this willingness to break with convention and embrace improvisation that helped chart a new course for jazz alongside Davis, Charlie Parker and others in the bebop scene that soon loosened further into hard bop and post-bop. Davis himself wrote about how Rollins quickly became "a legend, almost a god to a lot of the younger musicians... he was an aggressive, innovative player who always had
fresh musical ideas"
. For his part, Rollins said when reminiscing about his early life: "Jazz is good. It's not just lecture music, it's not shake your booty music. It's everything. It doesn't make you feel like fighting. It makes you feel that there is a god.”

John Lingan@johnlingan· May 13

????

An alternate and mystifying package for Neil Young’s “Harvest” from Melody Recordings Inc, featuring a crown and scepter on royal blue velvet for the cover.

John Lingan@johnlingan· May 12

Got these masterpieces on vinyl this weekend & it occurred to me they’re also among my fav drum albums. Mickey Waller should be on the cover with Rod, maybe on a bank note. Robert Crenshaw is the lead instrument on “Field Day,” w/ top-tier Lillywhite production. David Lindley defines “rock solid.”

Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells as Story, Marshall Crenshaw’s Field Day, Lucinda Williams’ self-titled masterpiece.

John Lingan@johnlingan· May 12

Delany #14. Written 1969, unpublished for 25 yrs. Breathtakingly disgusting, nothing but awful violence and sadism. Obv he needed to free himself from sf & morality generally. Like “…Nest of Spiders” it’s impossible to recommend & crucial for understanding one of the most fascinating writers ever.

John Lingan@johnlingan· May 11

Can’t remember the last time I finished a book and regretted it but I shoulda bounced from this one rather than go the full 650pp. Very much an “all will be revealed“ plot and I stopped caring around p. 400, then little was revealed. Awful characters. Boring writing. Apparently people love it!

John Lingan@johnlingan· May 9

One of the most important musicians of my life! Happy birthday.

LP box set of Keith Jarrett’s “Solo Concerts Bremen/Lausanne”

John Lingan@johnlingan· May 6

Here's Modern Drummer magazine raving about the book. I played drums before I ever dreamed of being a writer, and this was the monthly bible. Having my name in there is literally a dream come true.

John Lingan@johnlingan· Apr 25

My brother sent me some of the greatest wall art I’ll ever have to celebrate my new apartment.

A 1974 original 14x36 poster for Robert Altman’s “Thieves Like Us,” one of my favorite movies.

John Lingan@johnlingan· Mar 25

Stopped to see an old friend.

John Lingan@johnlingan· Mar 17

And the picture of you two looks like a big thief album cover.

Cover of Big Thief's "Capacity," with a young man holding a baby.

John Lingan@johnlingan· Mar 9

Even without windows he always builds a huge depth of field. You can really feel the thoughtfully layered effect in every scene. It makes the eventual close ups and kisses with Kim Novak feel so intense when they arrive. Movies!

Jimmy Stewart pointing a finger at Gavin in Vertigo, inside an opulent room for men of leisure.

A closeup of Kim Novak in Vertigo, in a relatively drab room with a flat background but lit and framed to seem like a precious jewel.

John Lingan@johnlingan· Mar 9

“Glad you could come, John. I’ve been mulling an awful conundrum and not even the infinite San Francisco sky behind me can help me untie it.”

Gavin’s enormous window in Vertigo, with major commercial machinery looming in the distance

John Lingan@johnlingan· Mar 9

Saw Vertigo on 70mm tonight, what a gift. So many subtle ways that Hitchcock destabilizes the audience, but my favorite is the constant presence of huge windows in every interior, which gives even calm conversational shots an enormous depth. Also, I feel like we still undervalue Jimmy Stewart.

Midges apartment in Vertigo with a view for miles.

John Lingan@johnlingan· Mar 7

Fun with Infante.

A text that gets smaller as it tapers to the bottom like an inverted pyramid.

Four progressively gibberish versions of Auld Lang Syne.

Two consecutive pages that are mirror images of each other.

An entire page of the word “blen,” meant to symbolize percussion.

John Lingan@johnlingan· Mar 1

Wrote my undergrad thesis on Tristram Shandy so I’ve been meaning to read this supposed Cuban version for two decades. It’s stylistically/formally nothing like Sterne (or Ulysses) but it’s a riot and Infante got Nestor Almendros to shoot this incredible author photo.