Seems most commenters know him from the Band, so I thought I'd share how I know him instead since I seem to be in the minority.<p>When I was a kid my father gave me a copy of "Music for the Native Americans"[0], an album he put together in collaboration with several Native American artists as a soundtrack for a documentary. It's my favorite album ever written. I know that's just because I grew up listening to it so it rooted itself somewhere deep in my brain during my formative years, but I hope someone else might find it now and hear something beautiful in it too.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_The_Native_Americans#:~:text=Music%20for%20The%20Native%20Americans%20is%20a%201994%20album%20by,inspired%20by%20his%20Mohawk%20heritage" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_The_Native_Americans...</a>.
Sad.<p>If I had to choose the greatest song ever written, I would not hesitate to go with The Weight. The version [0] from The Waltz is especially brilliant.<p>[0] - <a href="https://youtu.be/q-w9OclUnns" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/q-w9OclUnns</a>
Played The Band's Academy of Music performance [0] last night when I got the news. It's right up there with The Last Waltz. Great and timeless music. Hell some of my favorite Grateful Dead performances were covers of his music. RIP Robbie. Enjoy your weekends fellow heady folks (~);)<p>[0] - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNtcW2LqveU&list=OLAK5uy_khfpVg170ElLnbKxm2ydvxu84BJOIKSRQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNtcW2LqveU&list=OLAK5uy_khf...</a>
RIP, also kudos for one of the most savage Twitter reply burns in history: <a href="https://twitter.com/Steven_Hyden/status/946951877635268608" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://twitter.com/Steven_Hyden/status/946951877635268608</a>
RIP<p>‘Up on Cripple Creek’ was my first explicit introduction to them. After buying their 1969 self titled album on a whim, my jaw dropped from hearing the original sample from GangStarr’s “Beyond Comprehension” off their 1990 ‘Step in the Arena’. That isolated drum roll and guitar lick is so mystical. I could listen to those brief 3 seconds on loop for hours.
Great quote: Speaking of the Band in the 2020 documentary "Once Were Brothers," Bruce Springsteen said, "It's like you've never heard them before and like they'd always been there."
RIP. Recently heard this interview with him, telling a story not actually about himself, but still revealing a lot about himself and what making blues music was like at that time.<p>Robbie Robertson Talks About Sonny Boy Williamson (Language Warning) <a href="https://youtu.be/90-O6c20PLk" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/90-O6c20PLk</a>
Highly recommend checking out the Levon Helm documentary from about 10 years ago: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMCurMyP4n8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMCurMyP4n8</a><p>Robertson's obituary alluded to questions over songwriting credits. That came up in Helm's 2012 documentary and autobiography - he thinks he and the other members of The Band were cheated. Robertson refuted that a few years back, and quite forcefully:<p><i>To this day, on The Band's songs, I share the publishing and songwriting credit with Levon. The other guys said they wanted to sell their part of the publishing. When we started out, everyone was supposed to write songs. [When they didn't] I thought they were being lazy. But some people can write songs, and some can't. Levon didn't write songs. I gave him credit on some songs because he was around. Garth was a great musician, but he couldn't write. Ringo Starr doesn't write songs. Charlie Watts doesn't write songs, and they don't share publishing credit with the other guys in their groups. After 16 years together, Levon never once mentioned songwriting. When it came up, I was generous about it.</i><p><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/23/robbie-robertson-the-band-once-were-brothers/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.salon.com/2020/05/23/robbie-robertson-the-band-o...</a>
He was an extremely influential artist and his time with The Band was legendary of course - but his solo work is also certainly worth investigating especially "Contact from the Underworld of Redboy".
They interviewed Robbie on the Broken Record podcast a while back where he told his story. Great listen if you're interested: <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rewind-robbie-robertson/id1311004083?i=1000623969819" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rewind-robbie-robertso...</a>
my fav era with him was with Bob Dylan, 1966 -<p>here’s a pretty niche video with both of them playing a Dylan song that never made an official album release<p><i>On A Rainy Afternoon</i><p><a href="https://youtu.be/qE3owtjQmSc" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/qE3owtjQmSc</a><p>awesome guitarist / RIP
It would be nice if the post title would include the article title, I didn't know who was Robbie Robertson, what they did, and why it might be relevant.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a>
> his biological father was a Jewish professional gambler named Alexander David Klegerman, who had been killed in a hit-and-run accident before she met James Robertson<p>Killing someone and fleeing the scene isn't something that happens by accident.