Robbie Robertson Dies: The Band’s Founding Guitarist Was 80
09.08.2023 - 20:17
/ deadline.com
Robbie Robertson, the brilliant founding guitarist of The Band who also wrote many of its most famous songs and whose final farewell show with the group was memorialized in Martin Scorsese’s landmark documentary The Last Waltz, died today in Los Angeles. He was 80.
His longtime manager Jared Levine announced the news in a statement. Read it below.
Robertson wrote and played on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group’s classics including “The Weight,” “Up on Cripple Creek” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” the latter of which was was Top 5 hit for Joan Baez in 1971.
In 1969, The Band played at Woodstock and became the first North American rock group to appear on the cover of Time magazine.
A five-time Grammy nominee, Robertson got his break at 16 years old with Ronnie Hawkins’ The Hawks. He was Bob Dylan’s guitarist on the notorious 1966 “electric” world tour and, as leader of The Band, collaborated on groundbreaking album The Basement Tapes, helping to invent the Americana genre.
The Band broke out with its hit 1968 debut album Music from Big Pink, which made the U.S> TOp 30, went gold and featured such classic tracks as “The Weight” and the Dylan cover “I Shall Be Released.”
Robertson went on to have a solo career with his self-titled 1987 album — featuring the Top 10 Mainstream Rock hits “Showdown at Big Sky” and “Sweet Fire” of Love — and Storyville (1991).
He was known in recent years for his soundtrack work on several Scorsese films including The Wolf of Wall Street and the upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon, which premiered at Cannes and hits theaters October 6.
Robertson is survived by his wife, Janet; his children, Alexandra, Sebastian, Delphine; grandchildren Angelica, Donovan, Dominic, Gabriel and