Levon Helm's death on Thursday hit Greensboro's Laurelyn Dossett especially hard. Dossett had become friendly with the iconic singer/drummer from The Band in recent years, after he covered her song "Anna Lee" on his Grammy-winning 2007 album "Dirt Farmer." Helm introduced Dossett onstage at one of his "Midnight Ramble" shows as "the lady that wrote that beautiful song that sounds 300 years old," and it does sound like an artifact from the mists of time. "Anna Lee" is a song about a dead woman who comes back to her children in their dreams, singing to them -- which seems fitting now.

"I didn't know when I wrote it that I would be remembering Levon in that same way," Dossett said on Thursday. "He gave my little song a big life and I am forever grateful. I didn't know the iconic Levon, just this sweet old man who sang the hell out of my song, welcomed me into his home numerous times and remembered to ask about my daughters and husband. He was curious and full of life. I took Alice Gerrard up there for a gig; they know a lot of people in common but had never met. It was a thrill to listen to them at the kitchen table, telling stories. And then they started singing some old song that they both knew. Amazing."

Dossett will be at the Shakori Hills Grassroots Folk Festival this weekend,  where she'll sing Helm's signature song "The Weight" with Tara Nevins. That song is very much in the air right now. Check out the scene Thursday night at Cat's Cradle, the encore played by Drive-By Truckers and Megafaun.

It is the nature of events like the Hopscotch Music Festival to either grow to oversized proportions, or wither and die. If Hopscotch's organizers could somehow bottle it and keep the festival right at this year's size indefinitely, that would be a very fine thing because it's really been perfect so far. The clubs have been crowded, but mostly not too crowded, with a great energy at shows around town and out on the street. Hopscotch has brought together a wonderful sense of critical mass -- the feeling that there's not only a lot of people on the town to hear music, but the right people. Bumping into folks I've not seen for a while has been half the fun.

My Hopscotch Friday began with a panel discussion on Simple Words: The Power of Narrative Songs. If you go to that link, you'll see that there were some heavy folks on that panel. So I mostly stayed quiet; said a few things here and there, but I mostly enjoyed having a seat next to Patterson Hood and listening to him hold forth. Everyone had great things to say, even though Stuart McLamb and Heather McEntire took some coaxing. I especially enjoyed hearing John Vanderslice (who has rocketed to a spot near the top of my personal singer-songwriter pantheon, between this panel and his terrific show later Friday night); and it was a special treat to hear a few songs by James Jackson Toth of Wooden Wand; I left there humming "The DNR Waltz."

Hopscotch could not have asked for more perfect weather, and it was a great scene out on City Plaza Friday evening with Drive-By Truckers and Guided By Voices. The Truckers were their usual magnificent behemoth of gothic rock grandeur, with an unusual aspect: This was the first time I've ever seen Patterson Hood onstage without a guitar in his hands. He recently took a fall and cut his left hand, which required 15 stitches. So he began the set standing at the microphone singing "The Fourth Night of My Drinking," playing air guitar. Trooper that he is, however, Hood called for a guitar after that song and gamely soldiered on.

Friday night was billed as the last-ever Guided By Voices show, which no one seems to believe. Let's just say they've said goodbye before. Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster came onstage to introduce the band, declaring that he would eat a fish sandwich for every beer the band drank onstage (it would have been a few) and noting that because this was a festival show, it would be a short set of "only" 71 songs. They actually blazed through 29 songs in a bit more than an hour, and it was ragged boozy fun. Somehow I doubt we've seen the last of them.

Then it was on to a night of club-hopping between the Berkeley Cafe (the aforementioned Vanderslice), Fletcher Opera Hall (the world's loudest, oddest, skronkiest recital with Swans) and Lincoln Theatre (Foreign Exchange with your ubur-cool host, Phonte Coleman). I was up way too late and awoke way too early; but it looks like another perfect day brewing out there, with daytime music and Flaming Lips/Superchunk tonight. I'll see you out there.

This weekend is the second annual Hopscotch Music Festival, with tons of shows all over downtown Raleigh -- including Drive-By Truckers tonight with Guided By Voices, a show previewed here. Truckers guitarist Patterson Hood will also be on a panel discussion called Simple Words: The Power of Narrative Songs, happening from 3 to 5 p.m. today at the Raleigh City Museum and featuring a number of other folks (including me, though I plan to listen a lot more than I talk). Come on by.

Meantime, night one of Hopscotch was mighty fine, with big crowds and fine performances all over. I mostly just drifted around the downtown district popping into clubs to sample the festival's lineup a few songs at a time. I managed to see eight bands over the course of the evening, ranging from fantastic (our hometown heroes The Love Language) to super-fun (Brooklyn's Dinosaur Feathers) to super-baffling (New York's Cold Cave, who appeared to be bucking for a guest spot on "Sprockets"). Here's the night-one photo gallery.

Two more nights of rock beckon, although you'll need a wristband to club-hop and those sold out long ago. Also sold-out are advance tickets for Saturday's Flaming Lips show at City Plaza, but there should be some walk-up tickets available at the gate. And if you don't have either of those, your best bet might be to partake of the various day parties -- which have the added advantage of being free.

I'll see you around and about.

One of the hardest-working bands around is Drive-By Truckers, and they've spent enough years on the road to have had some pretty crazy things happen. Like the time a few years back when they had a near-miss from a meteor.

"It happened when we were all asleep," Patterson Hood said in a recent phone chat. "Our driver back then was a retired Marine Vietnam veteran, really cool and unshakeable. But we woke up in Idaho one morning and he was all shaken up: 'Hope I didn't jolt anybody too bad. We almost got hit by a meteor!' 'What?!' There'd been a meteor shower and a piece of space rock landed in the median right next to the bus. And it was even on the news that day, that there'd been a shower of debris -- and we were in the middle of it. 'God,' I thought, 'after all we've been through, wouldn't that be the craziest way to get taken out?' We're so fatalistic, we were going, 'Great -- they couldn't stop us any other way, so now they're throwing space dust at us.' I'm glad nothing happened, but what a crazy way to go if something had happened. 'Oh yeah? I'll see your plane crash and raise you a meteor!'"

For lots more, including details on the Truckers' shows in Raleigh this weekend, see the story in Friday's paper.

For years, my dream tour match-up was Drive-By Truckers with Guided By Voices, to recreate the vibe, spirit and rockaliciousness of Lynyrd Skynyrd's legendary 1973 tour with The Who (yes, I really do obsess about things like this, which makes me a colossal geek). Alas, that dream went unrequited because GBV broke up a few years back.

But here's a most tantalizing substitute: Drive-By Truckers paired with their '70s-rock-obsessed fellow travelers The Hold Steady on a tour called "Rock And Roll Means Well." They come to Raleigh's Lincoln Theatre on Nov. 3.

True, THS was just here, and it's been just a few months since DBTs' last Triangle show. Still, that's a pretty incredible combination.