Robbie Robertson, the band’s lead guitarist and songwriter who, on classics like “The Weight,” “Up on Cripple Creek” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” has extracted and helped reshape American music, has died at age 80. .
Robertson died surrounded by his family, according to a statement from his manager.
From their years as a masterful Bob Dylan organization to their own celebrity as embodiments of the network and outdated virtuosity, The Band profoundly influenced popular music in the 1960s and 1970s, first literally amplifying Dylan’s polarizing transition from folk artist to rock star and then through absorbing Dylan’s works and Dylan’s influences while shaping a new one. It is immersed in the American past.
Robertson, born in Toronto, dropped out of school and was a melting pot of a type (half Jewish, half Mohican and Cayuga) who fell in love with the endless sounds and detours of his country often and wrote with a sense of wonder and discovery. at a time when the Vietnam War had alienated millions of young Americans. His life had a “Candide” quality when he discovered himself among the giants of the rock age: he received the guitar recommendation of Buddy Holly, attended the first performances of Aretha Franklin and The Velvet. Underground, smoking marijuana with the Beatles, watching the songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller expand the material, chatting with Jimi Hendrix while he, a suffering musician, calls himself Jimmy James.
The band began as backing musicians for rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins in the early 1960s and their years in combination in bars and juke joints forged an intensity and versatility that opened them up to virtually any type of music in any type of setting. In addition to Robertson, the band included Arkansan drummer and singer Levon Helm and 3 other Canadians: bassist, singer-songwriter Rick Danko, keyboardist, singer-songwriter Richard Manuel and flexible musical magician Garth Hudson. They were originally called Hawks, but ended up fitting The Band — a vanity their enthusiasts would say they’ve earned — because other people pointed them out when they were with Dylan and called them “the band. “
They are explained through their first two albums, “Music from Big Pink” and “The Band”, both released in the late 1960s. The rock scene moved away from the psychedelic extravagances of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by The Beatles, and a wave of sound effects, long jams and lysergic lyrics. “Music of Big Pink,” named for the former space near Woodstock, New York, where the band members lived and gathered, for many the sound of homecoming. The intimate atmosphere, the lyrics alternate playful, enigmatic and nostalgic, drawn from blues, gospel, folk and country. The organization itself seemed to constitute altruism and a non-unusual and important history, with all five members making unique contributions and appearing in exhibition photographs in simple, dark clothing.
Through the “Basement Tapes” they did with Dylan in 1967 and through their own albums, The Band has been widely identified as a founding source of American or roots music. British supergroup Cream and traveled to Woodstock hoping to join The Band, which influenced albums ranging from The Grateful Dead’s “Workingman’s Dead” to Elton John’s “Tumbleweed Connection. “and many others. During a televised Beatles performance of “Hey Jude,” Paul McCartney shouted the lyrics to “The Weight. “
RIP Robbie Robertson. An intelligent friend and a genius. The band’s music surprised the excess of the Renaissance and is an essential component of the new trend back to basics of the 60s. He is a brilliant underrated guitarist who contributed greatly to Bob. Dylan’s most productive tour and album.
Like Dylan, Robertson, a self-taught musicologist and storyteller who absorbed everything American, from the novels of William Faulkner to the fiery blues of Howlin’ Wolf and the gospel harmonies of Swan Silvertones. At times, his songs seemed not only created, but also unearthed. In “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” he imagined the Civil War through the eyes of a defeated Confederate. On “The Weight”, with his lead vocals circulating among the band members like a glass of wine not unusual, he evokes the arrival of a pilgrim to a village where nothing is impossible:
“I stopped in Nazareth, I felt dead from the afterlife/I just want a position where I can lay my head/Hey, sir, can you tell me where a man can find a bed?/ He just smiled and shook my hand, ‘No,’ that’s all he said. “
The band played at the Woodstock festival in 1969, not far from home, and have become media savvy enough to appear in the canopy of Time magazine. But the spirit behind his most productive paintings was already dissolving. Albums like “Stage Fright” and “Cahoots” were disappointing even for Robertson, who admitted he had trouble finding new ideas. While Manuel and Danko were common participants of the songs at the time of their “Basement Tapes”, at the time of the release of “Cahoots” in 1971, Robertson was the dominant writer.
In this May 29, 1978 file, director Martin Scorsese, left, and manufacturer Robbie Robertson are shown on the French Riviera in Cannes, France, where they will present “Last Waltz” at the Cannes International Film FestivalArray (AP Photo, File)
They toured frequently, recorded the acclaimed live album “Rock of Ages” at Madison Square Garden and joined Dylan for 1974 performances that resulted in another much-loved concert, “Before the Flood. “But in 1976, after Manuel broke his neck in After a Boating Accident, Robertson needed to get off the road and organized the ultimate rock shipment, an all-star gathering at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom that included Dylan, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Muddy Waters and many others. The concert was filmed by Martin Scorsese and served as the basis for his outstanding documentary “The Last Waltz”, released in 1978.
Robertson intended for The Band to continue recording together, but “The Last Waltz” helped permanently break his friendship with Helm, whom he had once considered a big brother. In interviews and in his 1993 memoir “Wheel on Fire”, Helm accused Robertson of greed and outsized ego, noting that Robertson ended up owning his music catalog and calling “The Last Waltz” a vanity task designed to glorify Robertson. In response, Robertson argued that he took over the organization because the others, with the exception of Hudson — were too burdened by drug and alcohol-related disorders to make decisions on their own.
“It hit me hard that in an organization like ours, if we don’t run at full throttle, it derailed the whole machine,” Robertson wrote in his memoir “Testimony,” published in 2016.
The band regrouped without Robertson in the early 1980s, and Robertson had a long career as a solo artist and soundtrack composer. Fallen Angel”, a tribute to Manuel, who was found dead in 1986 in what he called suicide (Danko died of central failure in 1999 and Helm of cancer in 2012).
Robertson, who moved to Los Angeles in the 1970s while others remained near Woodstock, remained close to Scorsese and helped oversee the soundtracks for “The Color of Money,” “The King of Comedy,” “The Departed” and “The Irishman,” among others. other. He also produced Neil Diamond’s album “Beautiful Noise” and explored his legacy through albums such as “Music for the Native Americans” and “Contact from the Underworld of Redboy. “
The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994; Robertson there, Helm not. In 2020, Robertson looked back and cried in the documentary “Once Were Brothers” and in the ballad of the name, in which Robertson sang “When the gentle is fainting and you can’t get past / You miss your brothers, yet they are now past. “
Robbie Robertson speaks at a press conference about “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band” on the opening day of the Toronto International Film Festival, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019, in Toronto. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
Robertson married Canadian journalist Dominique Bourgeois in 1967. They had 3 children before divorcing.
Jaime Royal Robertson was born in Toronto and spent summers on the Six Nations Grand River reserve, where his mother, Rosemarie Dolly Chrysler, grew up. He never met his father, Alexander David Klegerman, who died before his birth and of whom Robertson was not informed. until years later. His mother had since married a factory worker, James Robertson, whom Robbie Robertson first believed to be his biological father.
Music an escape from what he remembered as a violent and abusive home; His parents separated when he was a teenager. He watched his parents play guitar and sing on the Six Nations reservation, and was “mesmerized” by how engrossed they were in their own performances. Robertson soon practiced guitar, played in bands and wrote songs as a teenager.
He had a knack for impressing his elders. At the age of 15, his band opened for Hawkins at a Toronto club. After hearing Hawkins say he needed new equipment, Robertson quickly moved home, composed some songs, and took them to his hotel. Hawkins recorded both “Someone Like You” and “Hey Boba Lu,” and Robertson would soon be doing an exercise at the base of Hawkins’ home in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Over the next few years, he toured with Hawkins in the United States and Canada when the members left and the artists who eventually became The Band were brought in. By 1963, Robertson and the others had distanced themselves from Hawkins and were in a position. only paintings, recording a handful of singles under the name Canadian Squires and entering rock history when mutual acquaintances warned him that they deserved to convert Dylan, then rebelling against his symbol of folk troubadour and infuriating enthusiasts who thought he had sold.
In 1965-66, they were Dylan’s co-adventurers in some of rock’s most memorable displays, with Dylan staking an acoustic opening set, then teaming up via the Hawks for an electric set that booed so fiercely, Helm quit and replaced Mickey Jones on the way. As captured in audio recordings and photographs filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker noticed decades later in Dylan’s documentary “No Direction Home”, the live music of Dylan’s songs such as “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” and “Ballad of a Thin Man”. He far surpassed the fury of his detractors, culminating in a May 1966 exhibition in Manchester, England, when a fan shouted “Judas!”
“I don’t you,” Dylan scolded in response. You are a liar!”Calling on the Hawks to “play hardball,” he led them through an all-out finale, “Like a Rolling Stone. “
“A kind of madness was hinted at,” Robertson wrote in his memoirs. “The overall atmosphere became more intense. I adjusted the strap of my Telecaster so that I could release it with a quick flick of my thumb and use the guitar as a weapon. Concerts were also starting to be unpredictable. “
In this Jan. 20, 1968 record photo, singer Bob Dylan, center, plays with drummer Levon Helm, left, Rick Danko, moment left, and Robbie Robertson of The Band at Carnegie Hall in New York City. (AP Photo, File)
Later in 1966, Dylan was seriously injured in a motorcycle twist of fate and recovered in the Woodstock area, where The Band also temporarily settled. With no contractual obligations or any kind of deadline, Dylan and his fellow musicians are absolutely out of time. on old country and Appalachian songs and worked on originals such as “Tears of Rage” and “I Shall Be Released”, which were originally intended to be demo recordings for other artists. first rock bootlegs before its official release, partly in 1975, and on a full set of six CDs in 2014.
Working and writing with Dylan encouraged The Band to try their own album. “Music from Big Pink” included Dylan-Danko’s collaboration “This Wheel’s On Fire” and Dylan-Manuel’s “Tears of Rage”, as well as band originals such as Manuel’s “En una estación” and Robertson’s “Misión Caledonia”.
In his memoir, Robertson first heard his former boss “Music of Big Pink. “
“After the song, Bob looked at ‘his’ band with proud eyes. When ‘The Weight’ came out, he said, ‘This is fantastic. Me,” I replied. He shook his head, patted my arm, and said, “Damn!Did you write that song?”