Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson
Jaime Royal "Robbie" Robertson, OC, is a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist best known for his work as lead guitarist and primary songwriter for The Band. As a songwriter, he is credited for "The Weight", "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", "Up on Cripple Creek", "Broken Arrow", "Somewhere Down the Crazy River", and many others. He has been inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and was ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest guitarists...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth5 July 1943
CityToronto, Canada
CountryCanada
After the 'Last Waltz' concert, it just seemed very healthy to me to put making a record as far out of my mind as I possibly could.
I don't know - it's a bit of a mystery of how things come about when they do. I don't have a scientific explanation for it. Sometimes when you're writing a song, you don't know where you're going.
I didn't even remember that we had recorded this, ... It's been lost for years and years. When I first heard it again, it really touched me. It's so Rick in his charm.
I do remember thinking, 'This is a strange way to make a buck. Travel around the world and people boo you wherever you go,' ... Night after night you just know they're going to boo. Then a few years later you do it again, and everybody acts like they knew it was brilliant all along.
In ?66 when we were playing that music, people were flipping out with anger at that music and hated it. Then we?re doing it a few years later, and people said, ?This is the real deal, and we knew it all along.
In a lot of groups, you can change a musician, and it doesn't mean anything.
The direction is going the right way for respect for aboriginal people in North America, and all we can do is stand up and say, 'Please do it faster.'
I do not have yearnings to get back on a bus. If it means getting on a bus, I don't want to do it.
I'm really lucky because I found myself in a position where I can do whatever I want to do. I can make records, produce records, make movies, or I can do nothing. I'm not a slave to the dollar.
Once you establish a foundation of knowing what the greatest recording artists of all time were Wouldn't you want your kids to know this stuff?
I'd always thought Cage's 'Root of an Unfocus' would be great in a movie.
I really have to feel a sense of freedom in my storytelling.
I think the world of Chuck Berry.
Some people love some music, and they hear it a year later and they think, 'What was I thinking?'