LITTLE ROCK — John Mayer, Gregg Allman, Dierks Bentley and several other musicians are getting together to pay tribute to the late Levon Helm, who was born May 26, 1940, near the Phillips County town of Elaine and grew up on his father’s cotton farm in Turkey Scratch near Marvell. The “Love for Levon” benefit concert will be Oct. 3 at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J. It will include performances from such artists as My MorningJacket, Ray LaMontagne, Eric Church, Patty Griffin, Bruce Hornsby, Mavis Staples and Joe Walsh. The influential Grammy-winning singer and drummer for The Band died of throat cancer earlier this year at age 71. Tickets go on sale to the public Wednesday. Proceeds from the concert will support Levon’s estate and his Midnight Ramble concerts. Other performers will include Warren Haynes, John Hiatt, Lucinda Williams and Marc Cohn.

Natalie Wood’s death certificate has been changed to reflect some of the uncertainties and lingering questions surrounding the actress’s drowning more than 30 years ago in the Pacific Ocean off Southern California. The document was amended earlier this month and shifts Wood’s death from an accidental drowning to “drowning and other undetermined factors,” according to a copy of the certificate obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. The amended document also now states that the circumstances of how Wood ended up in the water off Catalina Island in November 1981 are “not clearly established.” The changes occurred nine months after sheriff’s homicide investigators renewed their inquiry into Wood’s death shortly before its 30th anniversary. Chief of Detectives William McSweeney said the decision to amend the death certificate was ultimately made by the coroner’s office, which has been instructed by detectives not to discuss the case. The changes to the death certificate were approved by Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran in late June, but they were notformally recorded until Aug. 1. The certificate wasn’t made public until just recently. Conflicting versions of what happened on the yacht shared by Wood, her actor-husband Robert Wagner and their friend, actor Christopher Walken, have contributed to the mystery of how the actress died on Thanksgiving weekend in 1981. Authorities have said Wagner is not a suspect in his wife’s death.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 08/24/2012