Howard Wyeth

Howard Pyle Wyeth (April 22, 1944 – March 27, 1996), also known as Howie Wyeth, was an American drummer and pianist. Wyeth is remembered for work with the saxophonist James Moody, the rockabilly singer Robert Gordon, the electric guitarist Link Wray, the rhythm and blues singer Don Covay, and the folk singer Christine Lavin. Best known as a drummer for Bob Dylan, he was a member of the Wyeth family of American artists.

Family alt=full length portrait of N.C. with his palette in his studio

Wyeth was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. His mother Caroline Pyle, Howard Pyle’s niece, was interested in the Wyeth family, flirted with some of them, and married Nathaniel C. Wyeth. He had four brothers, John, David, N. Convers, and Andrew, and one sister, Melinda who died very young. A fifth brother (the oldest), Newell died with his grandfather in 1945 when their car stalled on a railroad crossing near their home and they were struck by a milk train. Wyeth was the namesake of his great-uncle Howard Pyle (1853–1911), the artist and illustrator for Harper's Weekly and the author of The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood and four volumes of children's stories about King Arthur. His grandfather N. C. Wyeth was a student of Howard Pyle and a prominent illustrator of children's books for Charles Scribner's Sons. His grandmother Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle was an illustrator of children for The Saturday Evening Post who married Walter Pyle, Howard's younger brother. He was the nephew of the painters Andrew Wyeth, Henriette Wyeth and Carolyn Wyeth.

Desire

The songs were co-written with Jacques Levy, and the personnel were Dylan (vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano), Vinnie Bell (bouzouki), Scarlet Rivera (violin), Dom Cortese (accordion), Stoner (bass, background vocals), Wyeth (drums), Luther Rix (congas), and Emmylou Harris, Ronee Blakley and Soles (background vocals). In September 1975, a few months before the album release in January, Dylan, with Rivera on violin, Stoner on bass and Wyeth on drums (who played left-handed) performed Hurricane, Oh, Sister and Simple Twist of Fate for the PBS tribute to John Hammond recorded at the WTTW television studios in Chicago.

The group found themselves with a Billboard No. 1 pop album, the last Dylan effort to reach that mark for thirty years until 2006 when he released Modern Times. Robert Christgau who distrusted the project thought the song "Joey" was "deceitful bathos," and Dave Marsh called "Joey" "elitist sophistry" and "contemptible," but Rolling Stone counted Desire the 174th greatest album of all time. Desire eventually reached RIAA multi-platinum, selling over two million copies before its re-release in 2003.

The project is remembered for its "loose and swirling" sound and the songs "Hurricane", "Isis", "One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)", "Oh, Sister", "Black Diamond Bay" and "Sara". Sony credited Wyeth as an accompanist with an "uncannily sympathetic ear." Larry Sloman called his drumming "ethereal." The recording artists were Dylan and Joan Baez (vocal & guitar), Blakley (vocal), Gary Burke (drums), T-Bone Burnett (guitar), David Mansfield (steel-guitar, mandolin, violin, dobro), Roger McGuinn (guitar, vocal), Neuwirth (guitar, vocal), Rivera (violin), Rix (drums, percussion, congas), Mick Ronson (guitar), Soles (guitar, vocal), Stoner (bass) and Wyeth (piano, drums).

Joni Mitchell, who flew in to sing for one show, nearly left, but when she told Wyeth goodbye, he was hurt, "And I suddenly realized, more than anybody Wyeth's reaction was so heartfelt, his expression of it was so open. Like it's just his soul is so beautiful. And I stayed."

Isaac Hayes, Richie Havens, Carlos Santana, Ringo Starr, Stephen Stills and Stevie Wonder joined the band, who named themselves Guam,

In pouring rain, the Hard Rain recordings for television and most of the live album were made outdoors at Colorado State University's Hughes Stadium in 1976 at Fort Collins, Colorado. The show was "triumphant" and well received, one reviewer calling "Idiot Wind" the "most passionate and emotional live performance" Dylan had ever made. Stoner said, "everybody is playing and singing for their lives, and that is the spirit that you hear on that record."

Later years McGuinn loved the tour and turned to the studio with Mansfield, Ronson, Stoner and Wyeth to record Cardiff Rose. Burke, Burnett, McGuinn, Ronson, Soles and Wyeth are among the cast of thirty five musicians who recorded Lasso from El Paso for Kinky Friedman who was a guest artist in the revue. Sony continues to release Dylan's music so the Rolling Thunder Revue artists are credited long after they disbanded. Their work is in Masterpieces (1978), The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991 (1991), Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3 (1994), Best of Bob Dylan (1997), Bob Dylan Live 1975 (The Bootleg Series Volume 5) (2002), and Desire (remastered 2003). Wyeth recorded four albums with Gordon, as well as albums with Don McLean, Leslie West and Moody. He is the drummer on Lavin's Attainable Love released by Philo in 1990 and the pianist on "Warmer Days", a song written by John Popper on the 1990 A&M album Blues Traveler. Later he led his own groups on piano, playing ragtime, blues and early jazz.

Also that year, Wyeth played drums on Fishermen's Stew's 7" single release of "Small Life, Hollow Roads, and Fairy Tales" b/w "Fine" released on Berlin's Twang! Records in 1993.

Death Wyeth died of cardiac arrest at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan on March 27, 1996. He was 51.