Robbie Robertson, The Band co-founder and guitarist, dead at 80

Robbie Robertson, the guitarist-singer-songwriter who co-founded the Canadian-American rock group The Band, has died. He was 80.

Robertson’s longtime supervisor, Jared Levine, confirmed his loss of life to The Publish on Wednesday, saying Robertson died in Los Angeles after a protracted sickness.

“Robbie was surrounded by his household on the time of his loss of life, together with his spouse, Janet, his ex-wife, Dominique, her associate Nicholas, and his kids Alexandra, Sebastian, Delphine, and Delphine’s associate Kenny,” Levine mentioned in an announcement.

“He’s additionally survived by his grandchildren Angelica, Donovan, Dominic, Gabriel, and Seraphina. Robertson just lately accomplished his fourteenth movie music undertaking with frequent collaborator Martin Scorsese, ‘Killers of the Flower Moon.’ In lieu of flowers, the household has requested that donations be made to the Six Nations of the Grand River to help the constructing of their new cultural heart.”

Born Jaime Royal Robertson in Toronto on July 5, 1943, Robertson had household roots within the Jewish enclave of the town’s downtown and within the Mohawk group of the Six Nations Reserve outdoors the town.

At age 10, he started enjoying guitar, and in 1960 on the age of 16, he joined drummer Levon Helm in the Hawks, the backing band for rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins.

The Hawks went on to play with Bob Dylan on tour in 1965 and 1966, after the folk-music star famously determined to “go electrical.” Transferring to Woodstock in 1967, Robertson and his bandmates recorded the seminal “basement tapes” with Dylan earlier than altering their identify to The Band and releasing the groundbreaking “Music from Massive Pink” album in 1968.

Robertson was recognized for writing a number of the group’s traditional songs, together with “The Weight,” “Up On Cripple Creek,” “The Night time They Drove Previous Dixie Down,” “The Form I’m In” and “It Makes No Distinction.”

By 1978, Robertson claimed, each member of The Band was battling medication and/or alcohol, so he made the choice that the group could be performed touring, which led to its demise.

“Our musical potential was disappearing earlier than my eyes,” he instructed The Week in 2015. “You’re in a spot and it’s on hearth and also you say, ‘I’ve obtained to get out of right here.’”

Robertson was inducted into the Canadian Music Corridor of Fame (1989) and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (1994) as a member of The Band.

He additionally joined Canada’s Stroll of Fame as a solo act in 2003 and with The Band in 2014.

In 2019, Robertson obtained the Lifetime Achievement award on the Canadian Music Corridor of Fame.

Robertson and Scorsese grew to become collaborators after the famed director captured The Band’s farewell live performance in 1976 for “The Final Waltz.”

Beginning in 1980, Robertson served as a composer or govt music producer for a lot of of Scorsese’s movies, together with “Raging Bull,” “The King of Comedy,” “The Colour of Cash,” “Gangs of New York,” “Shutter Island,” “The Wolf of Wall Avenue,” “Silence,” “The Irishman” and “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

Robertson launched his solo album in 1987 and would go on to launch 5 extra albums. His solo hits embrace “Someplace Down the Loopy River,” “Shine Your Gentle,” and “Damaged Arrow.”

In 2016, Robertson launched his memoir “Testimony,” which was made into the 2019 documentary movie “As soon as Had been Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band.”

On the time of his loss of life, Robertson was writing his follow-up memoir and had simply completed scoring Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, which is due out Oct. 6.

In an announcement obtained by The Publish, Scorsese known as Robertson “one in every of my closest associates, a relentless in my life and my work.

“I might all the time go to him as a confidante. A collaborator. An advisor. I attempted to be the identical for him. Lengthy earlier than we ever met, his music performed a central function in my life — me and hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of different individuals throughout this world,” the assertion learn.

“The Band’s music, and Robbie’s personal later solo music, appeared to come back from the deepest place on the coronary heart of this continent, its traditions and tragedies and joys. It goes with out saying that he was a large, that his impact on the artwork kind was profound and lasting. There’s by no means sufficient time with anybody you like. And I beloved Robbie.”