Robbie Robertson
Now there's no love
As true as the love
That dies untold
—Robbie Robertson
I’ve written extensively about the Band and their music in these pages. Robbie Robertson was their primary songwriter. He was also perhaps the most underrated guitar player in rock and roll history. He dropped out of school at the age of 16 to become one of the great chroniclers of America, which is a neat trick for a Canadian. He learned on the job. There’s no juke-joint down south that doesn’t have Robbie’s DNA all over it.
He worked with wild men. Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan most notably. They are an adult dose. Both left of proverbial trail of discarded bodies in their wake. Robbie survived and thrived. He knew when to move and when to stay still. If required, he could stomp on the off beat. He knew when to talk, and when to sit in the backseat with sunglasses on and say nothing. Somehow, he was always in the background, yet you still couldn’t keep your eyes off him. To the end he expressed amazement that he wasn’t killed playing all those dangerous joints with the volatile Hawkins (who promised a then teen-aged Robbie that he wouldn’t make much money, but that he’d get “more pussy than Frank Sinatra”). He then seemed shocked that he ended up in front of thousands of outraged folk fans, pissed off at the loud noises Dylan was suddenly making. And Robbie was still barely in his 20s. He could have stopped and written a memoir right here.
(One of my favorite Robbie / Dylan stories was Robbie trying to reign in Dylan’s wordiness by mentioning a Curtis Mayfield song and saying “They’re not saying anything much and this is killing me, and you’re rambling on for an hour and you’re losing me….”)
In the end Robbie’s talents and charisma could not be contained by either man. He needed to do his own thing and make his own way. The Band’s debut record was like a shiv to the neck of rock and roll bombast. Eric Clapton heard it and immediately quit his band Cream in shame. Songs From Big Pink created a fissure that everybody had to navigate around. It was somehow timeless and groundbreaking at the same time. No softer record ever made so much noise. And their self-titled second album was even better. It is arguably the greatest rock and roll record ever made.
The Band made more records. None of them as potent as the first two, but Robbie still had amazing songs in him. Acadian Driftwood and The Shape I’m In and Stage Fright to name a few. The group had always faced inward to itself. But now the world wanted to see them. Demanded it. They were forced off their mountain. From the basement of Big Pink to the stage of Woodstock and Watkins Glen. Another wild stint with Dylan. There were too many drugs. Too many hangers on. It was too much 1970s. They moved from Woodstock to Malibu, where one of them remarked that seeing Keith Moon at dawn passed out on the sand with the waves lapping over him was truly the end of an era. Robbie could foresee somebody in the Band dying. So he put an end to it. In The Last Waltz you could see and feel it all. Their brotherhood, and their weariness. Fame had hit them across the head like a 2 x 4.
As their songwriter, flush with royalties, Robbie could financially afford to stop and ponder his next move. The rest of the group had no choice. They had to keep playing. So they did….and resentments festered. Richard Manuel, hopelessly alcoholic, took his own life on the road, and Rick Danko literally worked himself to death, playing for his supper until his big heart gave out. Levon Helm grew more and more bitter. Robbie’s songs were filtered through Levon’s eyes. Levon was the only American in the group. Its only southerner. He was the guy whispering into Robbie’s ear. He went to his grave still furious that he wasn’t given writing credit (and thus royalties) for many of Robbie’s greatest works.
Levon Helm was dying of cancer in 2012, and Robbie rushed to his bedside to say goodbye. That’s the part that I’d like to remember. They were brothers once. And maybe forever.
The news that Robbie died hit like a thunderclap, as did the fact that he was 80 years old. He seemed perpetually young to me…frozen in some sort of well coiffed 1970s time warp. He was too cool to get old. His towering intellect (a Rolling Stone reporter said Robbie could “discuss the mechanics of the electric guitar and the surrealist films of Luis Buñuel with equal passion and authority”) sometimes came across as arrogance. He tended to dominate any room he was in, but seemed unaware he was doing so. He was never as beloved as Levon Helm, but nobody commanded more respect.
He’s the greatest Canadian songwriter of all time….and I’ll stand on Neil Young’s coffee table and Joni Mitchell’s couch and say that.
Slow down, Willie boy,
Your heart's gonna give right out on you
It's true, and I believe I know what we should do
Turn to stern and point to shore,
The seven seas won't carry us no more
In a bit…
—tf