Robbie Robertson, Master Storyteller Who Led the Band, Dead at 80 : MoviesLiveTrend

8 min readAug 11, 2023

Toronto doc director Daniel Roher remembers Robbie Robertson as risk-taker and artist

Toronto director Daniel Roher credits late Robbie Robertson for helping him launch his career “When no one was interested in talking about Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous rights, Indigenous sovereignty, Robbie Robertson was beating that drum. He was someone who was sort of on the forefront, who always took on projects that he found interesting, that had some sort of Indigenous slant or perspective,” he said, noting that includes Scorsese’s upcoming film, Killers of the Flower Moon, for which Robertson worked on the soundtrack.

Robbie Robertson’s 16 Essential Songs

The Band’s arrangements evoked bygone eras but weren’t limited by them. Hear some of the best tracks led by the songwriter and guitarist, who died this week at 80, alongside standout solo material. Some of Bob Dylan’s British fans were still outraged that he’d gone electric when he toured in 1966; he was backed by the Hawks, a precursor of the Band. Their response to folkie resistance was to dig in and turn up the volume, in performances that still ring with jubilant defiance. “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” from “Live 1966: The ‘Royal Albert Hall’ Concert,” was actually recorded in Manchester at a show that was bootlegged and mislabeled for years. The tempo is louche and unhurried, and Robertson and Hudson use the spaces between Dylan’s taunting lines to carry on a merry country-vs.-calliope wrangle.

Robbie Robertson was on the verge of his greatest success with Martin Scorsese

The decades-long collaboration between musician and director was about to bear its sweetest fruit: the stirring score for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a career high. “Now, this automatically triggered something in me,” Scorsese told the Hollywood Reporter in 1978 about the line. “It’s like ‘Mean Streets.’ I began to understand the characters a little more. Because nobody ever knew the Band. They had this aura about them that you couldn’t go near. And I began to talk to them and I began to realize what kind of guys they are, and the pain they go through every time they sing a song. That’s what I wanted to capture.”

Watch the historic footage of Robbie Robertson saving Eric Clapton before they go head-to-head in a duel for the ages

Captured by Martin Scorsese for the concert film The Last Waltz, Robbie Robertson and Eric Clapton’s guitar duel is a standout moment from two standout careers Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 37 years in music industry, online for 24. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.

The Weight: Robbie Robertson on life with the Band

In this piece from 2016, CBC Music spoke with the late singer ahead of the release of his memoir, Testimony. It’s because of the songs I wrote. How does a guy from Canada write “The Night They Drove ol’ Dixie Down?” I was just trying to write a song that Levon could sing better than anybody. A whole lot of it has to be credited to that 16-year-old kid on that train going down to the Mississippi Delta to this place where all the music grows right out the ground, and the impact that it had on me. I never got over it. And me wanting to impress Levon so much. So all of this mythology of the South is because my eyes were so wide open, and I was so young that it just washed over me. When it came to music, I was from a school that thought most of great rock ’n’ roll came from people in the South. The founding fathers of rock ’n’ roll, Chuck Berry, Elvis, Fats Domino, Little Richard, everybody is from the South, and it’s like, OK, end of story. For me at 16, I was trying so hard to get into that club that I used the mythology in my own way.

Robbie Robertson Interviewed: “I remember saying to Dylan, there’s too many verses in this”

In remembrance of Robbie Robertson, who has passed away aged 80, MOJO revisits our 2017 interview with The Band’s guitarist and songwriter. There was never one discussion between the guys in the band about me not writing the songs. That would have been preposterous. I worked my ass off and they knew what I did and came to me and apologised for not holding up their end in that area. [Levon] made statements years after The Band that were just blatantly unfounded, and he’d never said one word to me about that in all of our times together. I chose to not say anything ’cos I knew that he was suffering from something and I didn’t want to turn this into anything. It broke my heart, but I knew it was untruthful, and of every song that I ever wrote for The Band, I wrote and brought to them, I never brought a song to them and said, “Can you help me finish this.” I finished some of their songs, but never once did [the opposite] happen. And he played a lesser part in the songwriting than anybody because, as we said earlier, it wasn’t his thing, it didn’t come naturally to him. So, he wrote Strawberry Wine and I helped him finish it, and I gave him credit on Life Is A Carnival and Jemima Surrender ’cos he was there, I loved him and I wanted to give him credit.

Robbie Robertson on ‘Dark Period’ of His Life and Rooming With Martin Scorsese

In our 1991 magazine feature, Robertson also shares stories from his days as Bob Dylan’s guitarist and reflects on his second solo album Storyville Already, on the record of “Who Do You Love” that you made with Ronnie Hawkins, your sound is recognizable. From that record to Storyville, I hear the same voice.Part of what I played [on “Who Do You Love”] developed out of this misunderstanding. When I first heard these records by Muddy Waters and Elmore James, in Canada, I didn’t know they were playing guitar with a slide, so I spent a lot of time studying how to do what they were doing with my fingers. The first time I saw somebody with a slide, I thought: “What’s that thing? That’s cheating!”What circuit did you guys play?It was Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, universities in states like Alabama and Mississippi, then a few places in New York and New Jersey, and then Detroit and into Canada. We played some shitholes for sure, some dangerous places, and there were nights when I’d just think it was amazing I was still alive. Ronnie was fearless; he almost tempted fate. That was scary in itself. But I was just so thrilled to be in that Cadillac, with that trailer with a hawk on the back, that I thought it was worth dying for.Did you continue to write songs for Hawkins?I was writing all along, but writing songs somehow became an insignificant part of this life on the road. Ronnie got to this place where the records weren’t as important anymore as the jobs were. Really, we were in a survival situation, just making a living from week to week. And we never talked about it, but Ronnie started kind of settling in. His thing was, okay, maybe it’s time to start becoming a more mature human being. I don’t know whether that’s happened yet, but it was crossing his mind. We were younger and still had this fire that we had to deal with. This is one of the big reasons we finally left Ronnie: Our curiosity factor was still out of control. We were at another crossroads.

Robbie Robertson, Master Storyteller Who Led the Band, Dead at 80

The Band’s guitarist and primary songwriter collaborated with Bob Dylan and penned “The Weight,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” and “Up on Cripple Creek,… In 2016, he published the memoir Testimony, following it up in 2019 with the documentary Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band. At the time of his death, he was working on a second volume of his memoir series. That work ethic was consistent with his life, says Jonathan Taplin, who road managed the Band and was in touch with Robertson in recent months. “Robbie was disciplined, and he didn’t indulge the way others did,” says Taplin. “On the Festival Express in 1970, there was a bar car with all those all-night drunken jams. Robbie was not a stay-up-late-at-night guy. That’s why he was so efficient as a songwriter. In Woodstock I’d go over to his house at 9:30 in the morning and he’d already be in his little studio at the piano, writing. He would tell you it was his upbringing. He watched Bob Dylan go a little crazy in 1966 taking lot of speed and staying up all night.” Trending Johnny Hardwick, Voice of Conspiracy Nut Dale Gribble on ‘King of the Hill,’ Dead at 64 Tory Lanez After 10-Year Sentence for Megan Thee Stallion Shooting: ‘I Refuse to Apologize’ Rauw Alejandro Didn’t Need to Share His Rosalia Breakup Song With the Entire World Bill Maher’s ‘Barbie’ Movie Review Is a Total Embarrassment

The Last Waltz: the coke-fuelled saga behind the greatest concert film ever made

An all-star cast and an A-list director made The Band’s final gig a night to remember. But Neil Young, for one, enjoyed it more than others A more significant issue was the shabby venue. “Winterland had been an ice-skating rink and was looking pretty funky,” Robertson remembered. “Bill Graham was concerned about the appearance of the façade of the upper balcony and thought he would need $5,000 out of the budget to fix it. [Cameraman] Michael Chapman and Steve Prince, Marty’s assistant, noted that the floor had “give” to it. With the audience moving around and dancing, this would make the cameras unsteady. Michael said, “It’s going to take some construction.”

“Playing with Bob Dylan was like entering The Twilight Zone of music. You thought, ‘They’re going to wake me up tomorrow because all of this is impossible’”: Robbie Robertson reflects on his remarkable career and the end of the Band

In his final Guitar World interview, the late guitar legend shared his earliest guitar influences, what it was like to get booed onstage with Dylan and why the Band’s final days were so heartbreaking Alan Paul is the author of three books, Texas Flood: The Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan, One Way Way Out: The Inside Story of the Allman Brothers Band — which were both New York Times bestsellers — and Big in China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising a Family, Playing the Blues and Becoming a Star in Beijing, a memoir about raising a family in Beijing and forming a Chinese blues band that toured the nation. He’s been associated with Guitar World for 30 years, serving as Managing Editor from 1991–96. He plays in two bands: Big in China and Friends of the Brothers, with Guitar World’s Andy Aledort.

‘He was our national treasure’ — reflections on the legacy of Robbie Robertson

Robbie Robertson, who died Wednesday, is remembered as a great storytelling songwriter, a versatile and consummate musician, and a man of integrity. Robbie Robertson in 1978. The Toronto-born musician joined Little Caesar and the Consuls when he was 15, then Ronnie Hawkins’ backing group the Hawks two years later, embarking on a career path that would involve game-changing moments with Bob Dylan; the solidification of the Band; the scoring of several Martin Scorsese projects and a solo career that spanned several albums.

Read Full Article : Robbie Robertson dies at 80

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