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
The Band is probably the ultimate example of people taking all kinds of music, from gospel to blues to mountain music to folk music to on and on and on and on and putting them all in this big pot and mixing up a new gumbo.
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 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 1966, when we were playing that music, ... people were flipping out with anger at that music and hated it.
A lot of people from my generation can't write songs anymore, or it's really hard and it's an unpleasant experience. I don't feel that way at all.
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.
Think about the number of people who do film music, make records and have a Native American heritage - and I may be the only one on the list.
I think the most important thing here is... paying homage to other artists. Everybody (is) passing the baton because there are many people who are going to be in this show. If it wasn't for them, a lot of the rest of us wouldn't be doing this.
People think I left The Band and spoiled this whole thing, and that's not what happened. Nobody broke up The Band. Nobody ever said, 'That's it, we're done.'
Do you know what a skin walker is? It's a thing in Indian mythology. There are certain people born with this gift, and they're able to actually get inside you and mess with your feelings and with your mind. And if a skin walker chooses to get a hold of you, there's not much you can do.
I thought of a lot of people from the same era when I was making a lot of records that had continued making a lot of records. A lot of it didn't seem terribly inspired.
It made me look like I all of a sudden stumbled upon my heritage. It's not like that. You don't stumble upon your heritage. It's there, just waiting to be explored and shared. But what you need is a sign that somebody wants to share this with you.
I was a storyteller for The Band. It was never, 'Hey guys, here's a song about what happened to me.' I was always more comfortable writing fiction.
In Americana, the facts and the dreams seem to be all the same to me.