LOS ANGELES – Canadian Robbie Robertson, composer, guitarist and singer of The Band, died at the age of 80 in Los Angeles “after a long illness,” Jared Levine, the artist’s representative, said Wednesday in a statement sent to the US media.
“Robbie was surrounded by his family at the time of his death,” added Robertson’s manager, who did not provide further details about his illness.
Robertson, born in Toronto in 1943, led the Canadian-American group The Band to the pinnacle of rock in the 1970s with hits like “The Weight” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and the band collaborated extensively with figures like Bob Dylan.
The formation, which began with the name of The Hawks and became known precisely as Dylan’s opening act on his “Going Electric” tours in 1965 and 1966, included other Canadians such as Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel, in its ranks. as well as with the American Levon Helm.
In 1968, they moved to New York and signed with the Capitol Records label to materialize their first two albums, “Music From Big Pink” and “The Band”, which captivated the industry, even influencing references such as Eric Clapton.
Their impact was such that in the late 1960s and early 1970s they collaborated with Dylan again and accompanied him at famous festivals such as Woodstock, which placed them among the elite of North American rock.
He was known for his character in the series “Euphoria”.
However, the addiction problems of several members of the group caused the band to experience serious internal problems in the middle of that decade and Robertson himself dissolved the formation.
Before going their separate ways, in 1976, The Band offered a massive concert in San Francisco during Thanksgiving that was included in the documentary “The Last Waltz” (1978), directed by Martin Scorsese.
Along with his bandmates, Robertson was inducted into Canada’s JUNO Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Although the group reunited to record three new albums in 1990 and were without Robertson.
And it is that the guitarist and singer of The Band focused on his facet as a composer from 1980, forging a close relationship with Scorsese and participating in the musical supervision of films such as “Raging Bull”, “Gangs of New York”, ” Shutter Island”, “The Wolf of Wall Street” or “The Irishman”.
In fact, even this 2023 he worked on the new Scorsese tape, “Killers of the Flower Moon”, which will be released on October 20.
Likewise, his last years were also dedicated to writing his memoirs, his love of painting and reissuing the catalog of The Band.
