On the Web site of the children’s label Re-Bop Records is a page called “DianaLand” in which Diana Winn Levine tells young fans about the three different “magic arm” prostheses she has used since she lost her right arm in a medical mishap.
Making whimsy from woe, she invites them, with the click of the mouse, to dress a virtual Diana doll in gowns and hats and artificial arms. “Coolest of all is my guitar arm with a gizmo that holds a guitar pick,” says the accompanying text.
Here, in a well-worn farmhouse chockablock with nostalgic kitsch and places to make music, is the real DianaLand. And here, white-haired and blue-eyed, is the real Diana. A gray sock covers the stump just below the elbow of her right arm, where it was amputated in 2000 after an anti-nausea drug injected to treat a severe migraine accidentally entered an artery and caused the limb’s tissue to die. Levine is thankful that she is left-handed.
In a back room is the cavernous recording studio where Levine works to rebuild the award-winning label she and her late husband launched 15 years ago with “Oldies for Kool Kiddies” and that recently released its 14th album, “Even Kids Get the Blues.”
Re-Bop’s business had plummeted in the aftermath of the amputation. Outdoors is the spot where Levine, who strains her increasingly fragile good arm whenever she scrapes snow and ice from her windshield, will build a garage when–and if–she gets her portion of the $7.4 million a jury awarded her last year for the loss of the arm. Wyeth, the pharmaceutical company that made the drug, has appealed the judgment.
A musician and songwriter accustomed to feeling creativity flow from head to hand–and once proud to be that rarity in rock ‘n’ roll, a female bass player is now constrained to fingering one-handed piano or strumming guitar with that specially made prosthesis with a pick at the end.
“Thirty years of being a musician went down the drain,” says Levine, who is 59. “When you get through the grief, you realize, There’s a lot I can do with my life. Some of it I haven’t discovered yet.”
A widow who reinvented herself in 1993 when her husband died of cancer at age 46, is remaking herself again.
`I can’t do this myself’
“After my husband died, I had a certain amount of I can do this myself,” Levine says. “After losing my arm, I felt, I can’t do this myself. I can’t. At this point I am looking for partners, whether it’s in writing a song, whether it’s producing an album.”
Before sitting down to chat, Levine leads a tour of her modest, fanciful house. Scampering underfoot are her two dogs, a Shih Tzu named Zennie and Elsie Moo.
Outside the recording studio is a dollhouse that first belonged to Levine’s grandmother. Now it distracts children waiting for their turn at Re-Bop’s microphone. A vocal booth, complete with drum set and maracas and space heater, occupies the frigid mudroom off the laundry room. The recording studio–complete with stool and microphone, soundboard and stacks of digital equipment–has a ceiling scarred in the place where an insulating wall installed by Levine’s husband, David “Crow” Levine, once blocked the room’s window.
A family endeavor
She and her husband founded Re-Bop as a way to make music and involve their only child, Jessamine, now a 21-year-old senior at Smith College. They took the oldies music they had played as a band called the Re-Bops, added the voices of Jessamine and her friends, and entered the children’s music market.
Their partner, Re-Bops saxophonist Stephen McArthur, also worked for the distributor that introduced Canadian artists Raffi and Sharon, Lois & Bram to U.S. listeners.
Re-Bop’s trademark is its combination of pep, musicianship, and adult and children’s voices. The backup artists on “Even Kids Get the Blues” — the Unknown Blues Band–have played with the likes of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and B.B. King.
Among Re-Bop’s honors are kudos for five titles from the Parents’ Choice Foundation, which puts its stamp on only 15 percent of the products it receives.
Re-Bop intersperses catchy tunes with clever talk. “Motor City Music for Minors,” for instance, chronicles the spat between a boy named Mark and a girl named Portia (he called her “stupid”) and their eventual “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” reconciliation.
From oldies, Re-Bop moved to original songs, many written by the Levines. In “Daddy’s Lullabies,” the last album before Crow Levine’s death, fathers promise sleepy children waffles in the morning; the new blues album tackles such classic childhood troubles as homesickness and being left out by the “in” crowd.
In 1999, the year before Levine’s fateful migraine, Re-Bop’s annual sales were running at $212,000 and Levine supported herself on the label’s proceeds. Only now, with the recent releases and other endeavors, is the label starting to recoup from the slump it suffered after she lost her arm. “It’s getting better, but it’s hard,” Levine says.
The album “What Is It?” is the result of an ongoing partnership with the Vermont Center for the Book’s Mother Goose Programs. Levine is planning a spring children’s festival and other family entertainment for Smugglers’ Notch Resort. She has begun a project with former Phish frontman and fellow Vermonter Trey Anastasio, whose daughter Eliza sings “Happy Thumb” on the blues album. The idea of the new endeavor, says Levine, is to have parents–famous and not–sing duets with their children.
Good days and bad
Sitting in her kitchen, Levine confesses to good days and bad, to more nuanced feelings than the cheery alter ego on www.reboprecords.com who proclaims, “Here I am, happy again.”
“I anticipate it’s going to be a struggle the rest of my life,” Levine says. “The things you read emphasize the positive. No mention of grief. No mention of any difficulties. You know that story of the girl who lost her arm to a shark? And she’s out surfing again. I want to call that girl and say, `It’s all right. You can feel sad.’
“The same thing with these amputees who come on TV. They’re so glad to be alive, which I am, too. But they’re allowed to feel sad, too. That’s why I think it’s important that Re-Bop not just put out pink and blue music.”
The case against Wyeth
The crux of Levine’s case against Wyeth was that the drug, Phenergan, should be administered only via intramuscular shot or intravenous drip, not direct injection, because the risk of accidentally hitting an artery is too high.
In its appeal of the March verdict, Wyeth argues that its label, whose warning against injecting into an artery was approved by the Food and Drug Administration, is adequate. The jury’s award is one of the largest, if not the largest, product liability judgments in Vermont history, says Richard Rubin, Levine’s lawyer.
“The trial turned out to be very healing and cathartic,” Levine says. “Psychologically it did a lot for me to have those 12 people come back with that size award.”
In addition to the prosthesis with the guitar pick, Levine has a light, cosmetic one that helps her sense of balance and, the Web site notes, “looks great, especially with a lot of bracelets.” A heavier, mechanical one, operated by battery and computer chip, allows her to grasp a steering wheel and other objects.
Adjustment comes with a cost. Levine now suffers from overuse injuries in her good hand and must avoid relying on it too much.
If Levine prevails when Wyeth’s appeal is heard, she’ll pay her lawyer, reimburse her insurance company, and make her house more amputee-friendly. In addition to building a garage, she’ll buy a voice-activated computer.
“I’m glad to be here and getting used to being single-handed,” she says. “I never thought I’d be applying my creativity to this situation. It makes you realize you have to be open to all kinds of possibilities.”
