Robbie Robertson, who rose to fame as the principal songwriter and often spokesperson for the Band has passed away after a long illness at the age of 80.
Robertson was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1943. Late in life he learned that his biological father had dies in a highway accident while his mother was pregnant with Robbie. She married James Robertson before he was born, so Robbie never questioned who his father might be.
At the age of 16, Robertson joined Ronnie Hawkins’ back-up band, the Hawks. Five years later, in 1964, the Hawks would strike out on their own. Consisting of Robertson, Levon Helms, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson, the band became Bob Dylan’s back-up during his first, very tumultuous tour as a rock & roll act – often playing before hostile crowds of heckling folkies.
When Dylan wrapped up that tour and sustained his infamous motorcycle accident, the Hawks holed up near Dylan at a house in Woodstock, New York in 1967, working on recordings with him that have since become known as “The Basement Tapes.”
The group finally decided to change their name to the Band and became extremely successful with their first two albums for Capitol Records – “Music from Big Pink” and “The Band.” Robertson’s songwriting was essential to the band’s success. He wrote most of their big hits, including “The Weight,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and more.
Drug use and personal problems led the Band to call it quits in 1976. But not before their farewell concert in San Francisco’s Winterland was filmed by Martin Scorsese and released as The Last Waltz. That event produced a lasting friendship and professional relationship between the director and Robertson. Robbie has served as musical director on Scorsese’s Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, The Color of Money, Gangs of New York, The Departed, Shutter Island, The Wolf of Wall Street, Silence, The Irishman and the forthcoming Killers of the Flower Moon.
Robertson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with the rest of the Band in 1994. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Songwriters in 1997.