Rock legend Levon Helm has been mining a rich vein of American musical genres for decades, so it was truly gratifying to see him win two Grammys on Sunday. The former Band drummer and singer, who also played Loretta Lynn’s father in Coal Miner’s Daughter, won a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album for Dirt Farmer, his first studio album in 25 years. Helm’s work with The Band was also honored by a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement.

Dirt Farmer marks a miraculous comeback for Helm, who nearly lost his voice”and his life”to throat cancer a few years back. Radiation treatments cured his cancer, but the plaintive, evocative voice that graced “The Weight” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” seemed gone forever. The medical bills took their toll, too, forcing Helm into bankruptcy.

But Helm gradually got his voice back, and got back on his feet, too, with help from friends and family, especially his daughter Amy, who’s got her own rootsy band, Ollabelle. Amy encouraged her dad to record Dirt Farmer, a celebration of the songs Helm grew up with on an Arkansas cotton farm and used to sing to his daughter when she was little. Helm’s comeback album, which Amy sang on and co-produced, is also a tribute to the revival of the small family farm, as Deborah Barrow, founder of TheDailyGreen.com, observed after Helm’s Grammy triumph:

Dirt Farmer, the title cut, is a deeply green song. It speaks to the life of a family farmer who wakes one morning to find his corn, his home and his family are all gone. Gone because the crop didn’t come in so the loan didn’t get paid so the farm got taken by the bank so the wife and kids high-tailed it outta there and left him alone. This is the family farm of Farm Aid. It’s the family farm left behind when Big Ag took over.

But happily, it’s the family farm before green people began getting back in touch with the people who grow their food. Before farmer’s markets began dotting the landscape…even in the biggest cities. Before organics. Before CSAs. Before baby mesclun was on every restaurant’s menu. Before localtarianism became a buzzword in glossy magazines like Gourmet.

Because of all of this, the family farm is making a comeback. Growing arugula or heirloom fingerling potatoes instead of corn perhaps. But still farming the dirt, and still farming on a human scale.

I’m glad Helm’s got his voice back, and even gladder he’s using it to champion our family farmers. And it’s great to see his musical achievements get their due. But the two Grammys he won on Sunday couldn’t possibly top the gift his daughter Amy gave him the day before; on Saturday, she gave birth to a son, Levon Henry. Two Grammys and a grandson all in one weekend–no wonder Levon told the Times Herald-Record “my cup has runneth over.”

To learn more about the challenges facing America’s family farmers, check out Farm Aid.