Robbie Robertson dead at 80! RIP

[Rolltydr]

Founding member of The Band dies after a long illness.

Robbie Robertson, Guitarist and Songwriter With the Band, Dies at 80

The music he and his bandmates made stood out by inverting the increasing volume and mania of psychedelic rock. “We just went completely left when everyone else went right,” he once said.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Rolltydr]

Robertson was a great musician and made, along with the other members of The Band, some of the best music of my generation. He also had a very successful solo career. My personal favorite is his self titled LP released in 1987. ‘Somewhere Down the Crazy River‘ and ‘Testimony’ are my favorite songs from that album but I liked them all and listened to it extensively.

 

[clifffaith]

Do you know, I could not tell you a single song by The Band?! And if you’d asked me to name band members without any hints, I couldn’t. If you gave me a list of names of people I didn’t know, but if Robbie Robertson was on that list, then I could probably pick his name out. Just googled a song list; recognized one song title (the night they drove old Dixie down), but any memory of that song has a female singing it. 1969 date on it puts it in the midst of my Stones era.

 

[Sandy VDH]

The Weight or Up on Cripple Creek, and the Night they Drove Old Dixie Down

The Weight is one of those songs I enjoy, even in a odd trivia way. It is one of the few songs where the title words never appear in the song. Not many songs like that.

The song is also the inspiration for the name of the band Nazareth. They got it from the opening line in the song "I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead..."

 

[Talent312]

...Just googled a song list; recognized one song title (the night they drove old Dixie down), but any memory of that song has a female singing it.

That would be Joan Baez. Perhaps you've heard of her?

 

[tombanjo]

The Band aren't "pop" or heard on "oldies" stations, they were the kind of music people who listened to entire albums listened to.

So they might not fit into even the "Classic Rock" current format which is Led Zeppelin followed by the Eagles followed by Led Zeppelin, followed by the Eagles

At the dawn of FM and AOR, the Band were certainly on the forefront. I think contemporary radio is not in tune with their type of music, but I still listen to them.

 

[Sandy VDH]

They were in the interesting place and time in the music business. They started out as Ronnie Hawkins backup band, and eventually ended up on the road as Bob Dylan's band. Hence the name "The Band". Martin Scorsese made a movie in 1976 for their final performance, called the Last Waltz. It is hailed as one of the greatest documentary concert films ever made.

There were all together when the singer songwriter grove hit stride in the late 60s into early 70s. Big Pink House was where Dylan and The Band wrote albums. That place was a revolving doors of musicians, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, and so on.

Interesting stories behind them all.

 

[Ralph Sir Edward]

My favorite Robbie Robertson solo song.

The House finally took its percentage. . .

 

[Sandy VDH]

Sweet Fire of Love with U2 and Showdown at Big Sky are also favorites of mine. Actually this whole album is great.

I forgot that Album was produced by Daniel Lanois. I meet and spoke with Daniel on a stadium field after a concert in Dublin Ireland. We had an interesting chat as he was in the middle of producing Actung Baby for U2 at the time.

 

[vikingsholm]

The Weight or Up on Cripple Creek, and the Night they Drove Old Dixie Down

The Weight is one of those songs I enjoy, even in a odd trivia way. It is one of the few songs where the title words never appear in the song. Not many songs like that.

The song is also the inspiration for the name of the band Nazareth. They got it from the opening line in the song "I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead..."

I read the story behind Robbie writing the Weight.

It wasn't some long worked over effort. He went to his work space at his then home in Woodstock, looking for a little inspiration.

He looked down into the hole of his Martin D-28 acoustic guitar, and saw the words "Nazareth Pennsylvania" written there, where the Martins are made.

Off he went. He was just trying to string together some words and phrases that sounded interesting, not create some anthem that many later tried to pick apart and decipher and draw some mysterious meaning from. This is one of those songs that sounds timeless though, even though he was surprised that it took off so much. The vocal phrasings layered one on top of another in stages was one of the things that later became recognized as a signature Band sound. Supposedly Bob Dylan was wowed when he first heard this.

This version done for Playing for Change gives it a good twist too:

 

[Sandy VDH]

I read the story behind Robbie writing the Weight.

That is in fact a bit of what Robbie said he tried to do sometimes when writing a song. "Tell a story. "

 

[Sandy VDH]

The Deeply-Rooted and Everlasting Influence of Robbie Robertson...

Levon Helm sang them, but Robbie Robertson wrote them. Bob Dylan wrote them, but Robbie Robertson played them. There are few men that had their fingers deeper into the foundations of what we consider Americana, rock, and folk music today.

www.savingcountrymusic.com

 

[vikingsholm]

The Deeply-Rooted and Everlasting Influence of Robbie Robertson...

Levon Helm sang them, but Robbie Robertson wrote them. Bob Dylan wrote them, but Robbie Robertson played them. There are few men that had their fingers deeper into the foundations of what we consider Americana, rock, and folk music today.

www.savingcountrymusic.com

Some nice tidbids in there. Good comments after the article too, like how you rarely hear much beyond a few big hits from the catalogs of the Band or Little Feat any more on the radio. Those were the days.

I never saw Robbie live, but caught the re-formed touring Band around 1983 or so in a small venue. Great stuff. Always liked Robbie's spare and tasty guitar fills.

Richard Manuel was the guy I focused on at the live show - one of the best white soul singers ever, though he didn't get to show it as often with so many excellent singers in the Band. He could sing You Don't Know Me as well as Ray Charles did, and that's saying something.

 

[pedro47]

May he RIP, never knew he was that old.

 

[DAman]

I’m a big fan of The Band and Robbie. I thought they and he deserved more recognition.

Although Robbie did not play on it, they did a great cover version of Atlantic City(Bruce Springsteen).

I feel lucky I saw The Band in 1976 at The Greek in LA. I wish I saw them on the Before the Flood tour with Bob Dylan. The record of that tour is on my personal playlist.

RIP.