Robbie Robertson (1942-2023)

It is with the heaviest heart I write this, but today, Wednesday August 9th 2023, Robbie Robertson, leader of legendary recording group, The Band, and longtime Martin Scorsese collaborator, has passed away.

Robbie leaves behind an enormous body of work spanning six decades. In his own words, Robertson was on the front line of two or three musical revolutions. The Band, to those unaware, were the misfit Canadian bar band behind Bob Dylan as he committed musical heresy on the 1965-1966 tour, and who themselves warped into a standalone musical force. After Robbie split from The Band following The Last Waltz (often cited as the greatest concert film ever made), he continued on as a solo act and worked alongside Martin Scorsese as a composer and a musical supervisor on a number of films, including the upcoming, Killers of a Flower Moon.

It’s hard to explain to someone who doesn’t know, especially in 2023, just what is so special about The Band.. Art is often so neurotic, so concerned with engaging with these anal-retentive intellectual games or, alternatively, faux pursuits of authenticity, that it muddies its own waters. The Band make music that feels as though it was pulled from the very earth we stand on, connecting us back through an North American music tradition that is all encompassing beyond boundaries of race or region. It has no pretence. You believe every single note and every single second and every single accompanying image. Music From The Big Pink remains a titanic album, and one which will stand throughout time as a snapshot of how one group of Canadian-American rock and rollers were able to truly find the truth. The Band are the product of Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Ma Rainey, Leadbelly, Louis Armstrong, Earl Scruggs, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and Bob Dylan, but they are also the singular beautiful musical voice of: Robbie Robertson (1943-2023), Levon Helm (1940-2012), Rick Danko (1943-1999), Richard Manuel (1943-1986), and Garth Hudson.

Robbie Robertson leaves us as a man who fought for the rights of First Nations people, who fought against antisemitism, who was controversial in his telling of events, but someone who we should be grateful for having walked this life with us.

All that remains to say, as it was said that night in Manchester in 1966: Play this one fucking loud.

We’ll miss you Robbie.

Ryan Sweeney