Robbie Robertson

Toronto‑born Robbie Robertson was the son of a Jewish father and Mohawk mother. Robertson's first brush with live music came at the Six Nations Reservation outside Brantford, Ontario, where his mother was born and raised. He began learning to play the guitar with his cousins when he was about 9 or 10, and started writing songs when he was about 12.

As his musical tastes evolved he dropped out of school. Rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins recorded a couple of Robertson’s early songs, and in 1960 he hired the young musician to work with him and sideman Levon Helm as "Ronnie Hawkins and The Hawks." Fellow Canadians Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel joined The Hawks over the next couple of years.

In 1963, citing musical differences and money conflicts, The Hawks quit as Ronnie Hawkins' band. They released a recording as The Canadian Esquires, then performed as Levon & The Hawks before coming to the attention of infamous manager Albert Grossman and his biggest act, Bob Dylan.

Robertson and the rest of the Hawks joined Dylan on his headline-making "going electric" world tour in 1965-66, and The Hawks became known as The Band.1

After the tour, The Band went on to record album after album of heartland country-styled rock with R&B, Cajun, and soul influences. Their status became legendary, as did their recordings, including Music from Big Pink (1968) and The Band (1969) through to their swan song, The Last Waltz (1976), a live concert recording featuring an all-star musical line-up (including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell). A feature-length documentary by the same name, directed by Martin Scorsese and produced by Robertson, was released in 1978.

Robertson would soon begin an extended association with Scorsese, working on the music for his films, including Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), The Color of Money (1986), and Gangs of New York (2002). He also produced and starred in films, including Carny (1980, with Jodie Foster and Gary Busey).

In 1987, eleven years after The Last Waltz concert, Robertson decided it was time to release a solo album. He signed with Geffen Records and hooked up with Canadian production wunderkind Daniel Lanois, who was career‑hot, having produced the most recent hit albums by Peter Gabriel (So) and U2 (Joshua Tree).

Robertson worked with a new studio band featuring the core of drummer Manu Katche (Peter Gabriel), bassist Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel, King Crimson), and ambient session guitarist Bill Dillon. The line-up would be augmented in recording by Maria McKee (Lone Justice), Peter Gabriel, The BoDeans, and former Band-mates Garth Hudson and Rick Danko.

Robertson’s self-titled debut album included the hits Showdown At Big Sky, Broken Arrow (later to be a hit for Rod Stewart) and Somewhere Down The Crazy River.

In 1991 Robertson released Storyville, which had a definite New Orleans flavour: some of it was recorded in Daniel Lanois’ New Orleans studio with the participation of members of the Neville Brothers band and many renowned New Orleans musicians. The album produced two singles, Go Back To Your Woods and What About Now.

That same year a Japanese cable television production company asked Robertson to host and narrate The Full Moon Show, a retrospective look at the origins of various American musical genres and the impact of various groundbreaking musical influences. The series featured Robertson in conversation with Willie Dixon, Sonic Youth, Dion and others.

In 1994, Robertson returned to his roots, assembling a group of Native American performers he called the Red Road Ensemble for Music for The Native Americans, a collection of songs composed for a television documentary series. He scored the soundtrack for Jimmy Hollywood in 1994 as well, and in 1996 he executive produced the soundtrack to Phenomenon (starring John Travolta), including the single Change The World, performed by Eric Clapton.

Contact from the Underworld of Red Boy (1998) marked a radical departure for Robertson. Enlisting the production aid of Howie B., who had worked with U2, Robertson began experimenting with Native and modern beats.

A PBS special, Making A Noise: A Native American Musical Journey with Robbie Robertson, aired in November 1998 on North American television.

This information ends in 1998. In a ‘phone conversation wth Diana Tyndale on 28 June 2006, Mr. Robertson provided the following updates:

1999–2005: creative executive at DreamWorks (the movie studio founded in 1994 by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg), worked on the music for Shrek and American Beauty. He left DreamWorks in 2005, when the company was bought by Universal. (The separation was cordial, and Robertson remains friends with his fellow DreamWorks executives; he simply wanted to return to music production.)

Over the last 6 years or so:

• Worked on the music for Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday (1999, starring Al Pacino, James Woods, Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz)
• Produced the original soundtrack (never previously released) for Scorsese’s Raging Bull
• Oversaw the remastering campaign for the catalog of The Band (about 8 albums) and the new mixing & release (2001) of The Last Waltz (DVD and extended soundtrack, 4‑CD boxed set); executive produced The Band: A Musical History, 2005's definitive 5-CD+DVD collection.
• Performed at the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics (XIX Olympic Winter Games) in Salt Lake City, Utah, performing his song Unity Stomp with the group Walela (Rita Coolidge, Priscilla Coolidge and Priscilla's daughter Laura Satterfield, all of Cherokee heritage.
• Wrote and performed the finale song, Shine Your Light, for the movie Ladder 49 (2004, starring Joaquin Phoenix and John Travolta)
• Is a special advisor for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies

1. "We weren’t 'conceived as a unit'—as The Hawks, we already were a unit. It was the same group, we just took a different name.