Beloved Woodstock Concert Series Is on Hold as a Rock Legend's Studio Sues His Own Daughter for at Least $2 Million

All 17 shows on the Levon Helm Studios calendar between Aug. 13 and Dec. 12 are marked canceled.

Artists have been pulling out of the Woodstock barn for a month. The next date not marked canceled is a Foy Vance concert on April 29, 2027. On Monday the company that runs the barn suedAmy Helm, the singer-songwriter and daughter of the late Levon Helm, for at least $2 million.

The complaint says she took nearly $200,000 in unauthorized loans from her father’s estate and related businesses, about half from an LLC that distributes royalties on three of his albums. Those transfers left it unable to pay royalties for roughly four years, the suit alleges.

It also accuses her of self-dealing as president of the studio, known as the Barn, and says about $400,000 was charged to the company with no apparent business purpose, including rent, insurance and her touring van lease. Roughly $167,000 stayed on the books as “Due from Amy,” the complaint says.

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Levon Helm launched the Saturday night shows in 2004 as rent parties, when throat cancer left him needing money for treatment. They ran weekly until he died in April 2012. He drummed and sang for The Band, the group behind “The Weight” and The Last Waltz.

Amy Helm Says She Is Out of the Company

A representative said Amy Helm was preparing a response. In a July social media post she wrote that neither she “nor our long time core staff” are part of Levon Helm Studios now, and that she would speak in time to the “disturbing circumstances” there.

Brian Parillo, a 10 percent shareholder and vice president when the company formed in 2004, took over as president in May. Sandra Helm, Levon’s widow, and former manager Barbara O’Brien assigned him their voting rights, giving him 60 percent of the vote. He said in a statement that Levon Helm Studios “is not a birthright.”

Amy Helm accused him in a June court filing of financial exploitation and elder abuse of Sandra Helm. Parillo has denied it, and she has said she acted of her own volition. Katie Pruitt and Shinyribs moved their canceled dates to the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock.