Levon Helm and the Dixie Hummingbirds: When I Go Away

A few years before his death, Levon Helm of The Band recorded an album called Electric Dirt; and on that album he sang a surprisingly upbeat song about dying called “When I Go Away”. I fell in love with it the first time I heard it:

For his sake, I hope he was indeed “bound for glory” when he went away.

More recently, I’ve been hearing another version of the song by an all-male gospel group called the Dixie Hummingbirds. There’s no very good video of it on YouTube; the only one I could find is a video shot at a bookstore where the group was appearing; and I think they just played the album over the loudspeakers. But it’s so good that you ought to listen to it anyway. You’ll want to start at 3:00 in; before that it’s just talking.