Robbie Robertson died in Los Angeles on this day (August 9) in 2023 at age 80 following a year-long battle with prostate cancer. As lead guitarist and chief songwriter for Canadian-American rock group The Band, Robertson helped engineer what listeners later came to know as Americana music.
In addition to releasing six solo albums, he also established a prolific partnership with renowned film director Martin Scorsese. After the pair first collaborated on the 1980 film Raging Bull starring Robert De Niro, Robertson would compose scores for 1986’s The Color of Money, 2019’s The Irishman, and 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon.
Videos by American Songwriter
“Long before we ever met, his music played a central role in my life—me and millions and millions of other people all over this world,” Scorsese, 83, said of Robertson after his death. “The Band’s music, and Robbie’s own later solo music, seemed to come from the deepest place at the heart of this continent, its traditions and tragedies and joys.”
The Oscar winner continued, “It goes without saying that he was a giant, that his effect on the art form was profound and lasting. There’s never enough time with anyone you love. And I loved Robbie.”
Robbie Robertson’s Musical Roots
Jaime Royal “Robbie” Robertson was born July 5, 1943, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to a Jewish father and Mohawk mother.
His musical legacy began taking shape during childhood visits to the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve near Hamilton—southwest of Toronto—where his mother’s family lived.
It was during those summer trips that he learned guitar from an older cousin. Robertson also developed a taste for R&B and rock and roll, often pulling all-nighters listening to John R.’s all-night blues show on the Nashville radio station WLAC.
After brief stints working in the traveling carnival circuit as a teenager, he joined the rock band Little Caesar and the Consuls before forming his own musical group, Robbie and the Rhythm Chords—later Robbie and the Robots.
With the Hawks
Rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins discovered the band at an October 1959 gig in Toronto. Impressed, he invited Robbie Robertson to join his backing band, the Hawks, as lead guitarist in 1960. That’s where he first met his fellow future members of The Band—Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson.
In 1964, the Hawks struck out on their own, making the shift from rockabilly to more bluesy material. The following year, folk-rock titan Bob Dylan was on the hunt for a band that could help him usher in his new “electric” era. He found that in the Hawks, who backed Dylan on his contentious world tour in 1966.
Becoming the Band
After wrapping up with Dylan, the musicians emerged in 1968 as The Band, releasing their seminal album Music from Big Pink.
Robbie Robertson had a hand in writing nearly every piece of The Band’s original material. Songs like “The Weight,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” and “Acadian Driftwood” showcased his ability to infuse his lyrics with the mythos and gravitas of American history, particularly the South.
[RELATED: 4 of the Best Non-Bob Dylan Albums That Featured or Were Produced by The Band]
As Bruce Springsteen put it in the 2019 documentary “Once Were Brothers“: “It’s like you’d never heard them before and like they’d always been there.”
Featured image by Ron Pownall/Getty Images
Credit: Source link