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," among other classics
Robbie Robertson being interviewed in London, 1971
ROBBIE ROBERTSON, THE Band’s guitarist and primary songwriter who penned “The Weight,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” and many other beloved classics, died Wednesday at age 80.
Robertson’s management company confirmed the musician’s death. “Robbie was surrounded by his family at the time of his death, including his wife, Janet, his ex-wife, Dominique, her partner Nicholas, and his children Alexandra, Sebastian, Delphine, and Delphine’s partner Kenny,” his longtime manager Jared Levine said in a statement. “In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be made to the Six Nations of the Grand River to support the building of their new cultural center.”
The Band only lasted eight years after the release of their 1968 debut LP, Music From Big Pink, but during that time they forever changed the pop-culture landscape by releasing brilliant Americana music at the peak of the psychedelic movement. Their first album sent shockwaves through the industry, inspiring Eric Clapton to break up Cream, the Beatles to attempt their own stripped-back project with Let It Be, and a pair of young British songwriters named Elton John and Bernie Taupin to begin writing and recording their own material.
Robertson took on the role as the group’s leader, writing the majority of their songs and pushing them forward when substance abuse issues and infighting threatened their existence. It was also his decision to pull the plug on the group in 1976 when he couldn’t take it anymore, setting the stage for their legendary farewell concert The Last Waltz.
“The road has taken a lot of the great ones,” he said at the time. “Hank Williams, Buddy Holly, Otis Redding, Janis, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis. It’s a goddamn impossible way of life.”
Bob Dylan and Robertson perform onstage for the Band’s ‘The Last Waltz’ concert at the Winterland Ballroom on Nov. 25, 1976, in San Francisco.
Before the Band began making their own music, Robertson was one of Bob Dylan’s key collaborators, playing guitar on Blonde on Blonde and convincing the songwriter to hire the other members of his group as his backing band. They toured the world in 1965 and 1966, facing a torrent of boos by enraged folk purists. “His friends, his advisors, and everyone told him to blow us off and start from scratch,” Robertson said in 1987. “And it took a tremendous amount of courage for him not to do that.”
Born in Toronto on July 5, 1943, to a Native American mother and Jewish father, Robertson was fascinated by music from a young age. “I’ve been playing guitar for so long I can’t remember when I started,” he told Rolling Stone in 1968. “I guess I got into rock & roll like everybody else.”
He left high school long before graduation to tour Canada with a series of rock bands, joining rockbabilly icon Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band when he was 16. “We played everywhere,” Robertson said, “from Molasses, Texas, to Timmins, Canada, which is a mining town about 100 miles from the tree line.”
The Band’s Garth Hudson, Robertson, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel and Rick Danko (from left) in 1971
It was in Hawkins’ band where he first played with drummer Levon Helm, keyboardist Richard Manuel, organist Garth Hudson, and bassist Rick Danko. They formed a tight musical bond, which continued when they hit the road with Dylan in 1965. “I had never seen anything like it,” Robertson said in 2004. “How much Dylan could deliver with a guitar and a harmonica, and how people would just take the ride.”
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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,…
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