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
Record making is an extraordinary experience.
When I was playing with Bob Dylan in, like, 1966, I was, like, 20 years old.
I like to work on records when I feel inspired, not because it's expected of me.
When you make a record, your own record, and you don't even recognize it yourself, it's hard to think if anybody else is going to recognize.
When people get together that come from different musical backgrounds, a lot of times there's is a good ... it's very enjoyable to say somebody, let me turn you on to some things, and the other person does the same thing. And they play you stuff that maybe you weren't that familiar with and likewise.
The rock concert experience for people was really pretty stupid, you know, at the time. People would go to concerts not with the idea of listening at all.
The Beatles tried to do some tours and found it to be completely pointless and became a non-touring band after that, and with very good reason.
You never know what could be interesting tomorrow.
It would be nice to abandon the verse-chorus-bridge structure completely, and make it so none of these things are definable. ... Make up new names for them. Instead of a bridge, you can call it a highway, or an overpass. ... Music should never be harmless. ... I remember from my earliest years, people speaking, you know, in a certain kind of rhythm and telling stories and sharing experiences in a way that was different in Indian country than it was other places. And I was really struck by this and obviously very affected by it, because it's always come out in my songs.
Time is not kind to everything.
If I can play one note and make you cry, then that's better than those fancy dancers playing twenty notes.
Musical revolutions, I don't know how many I've been through.
It's extraordinary that revolutions taking place around the world were sparked by communication on the Internet.
I play guitar quite a bit, because I'm always in search of something. I don't play to jam, but because I'm fishing. I'm looking for something, that I hope you can never find. If I do find it, I'm afraid I won't have a need to do this any more.