Remembering the Late Robbie Robertson – A 2017 Conversation With WDHA’s Jim Monaghan
Robbie Robertson, founding member of The Band passed away on August 9 at the age of 80 following a year-long battle with prostate cancer.
He left behind an incredible legacy of music as a writer, performer, and producer that saw him inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
In January of 2017, Robertson published his autobiography Testimony covering his career from its earliest days, through his time with Bob Dylan, up to the Thanksgiving 1976 farewell concert by the Band documented in Martin Scorcese’s The Last Waltz.
Robertson called into WDHA and had this conversation with Jim Monaghan on “All Mixed Up” talking about Bob Dylan, Bobby Vee, Martin Scorcese, and more.
ROBBIE ROBERTSON – Hello, Jim in Jersey.
JIM MONAGHAN – And congratulations on this wonderful book Testimony that’s been out a few weeks now. You actually tweeted the other day, Robbie, “40 years later and still ticking.” It almost sounded as if you were amazed by that.
RR – Well, we all are still ticking. Yeah. I was just thinking to myself that this year and the things that I’m with this book and with the 40th anniversary of The Last Waltz and the companion CD and this movie that I worked on with Martin Scorsese, Silence. And I’m in the middle of making a new record, and there’s other film projects looming around that this year is probably going to be the busiest year I’ve ever had. So still kicking, I guess, is an understatement.
JM – There are some wonderful stories in the book, too, going back, obviously, to your teenage years and ultimately ending with The Last Waltz back in 1976. A lot of the book, as you would imagine, Robbie, centers around Bob Dylan, who is a focal character here. And there are some amazing stories with Bob, whether it’s being told on two hours notice that he’s getting married and he’d like you to be there, or the realization from Bob that he at one point worked with Bobby Vee, which I had never known.
RR – Well, that’s what he told me… he told it to me, like, in a funny way because I was curious when I first hooked up with him, I was curious of whether he had any experience working in a band because I knew that what he did was just him with a guitar and a harmonica. That’s what Bob Dylan was known for, right? So he said,. “No, no, I played in bands before,” and he said even at one time he played with Bobby Vee. And I was like, “You played with Bobby Vee?” Okay. Anyway, he’d had limited experience playing in bands, but when we got together, we remedied that.
JM – And remedied it in a big way. Obviously, the shows in Forest Hills. It’s in ’65. And then the one that bootleg that came outa few years ago, that show in Manchester where Bob turned to you guys and said, “PLAY BLEEPING LOUD!”
RR – (laughing) Just everywhere we played because this whole thing of Bob going electric was like it was really being frowned upon and they wanted their folk hero. And so every night, everywhere we played, people booed. And I think when that happened, he had just about had it with all of this. So not only musically were we playing aggressive, he was just feeling his oats and he just got tired of people trying to fight back against what he wanted to do musically.
JM – Well, at one point and you mentioned this in the book, Bob said, “Nobody’s getting what I’m trying to do anyway.”
RR – That’s how it felt. He felt like that he was in a rebellion, and it was a rebellion. But what we did discover in the process is we were in the process of a musical revolution. And when something like that is happening, when something is happening in music, that it’s going to change the course of music forever, you don’t really know it when it’s happening. And this was happening in such an unusual way that you really just had to try to adapt and not be thrown off course by it and just play as good as you possibly could and deal with it.
JM – And that kind of talks to the history of The Band as well I think, Robbie and we’re speaking with Robbie Robertson this morning here at 105.5 WDHA, the recently released book and companion CD called Testimony. When you think about the history of the Band, whether it’s working with Dylan or out on your own, recording those albums ultimately up to The Last Waltz concert, which so many people have such fond memories of watching that film.
RR – Yeah, it’s hard to believe that it’s the 40th anniversary of that concert right now, and the fact that it holds up as well as it does. You know Martin Scorsese, I’ll tell you, that guy, he knows what to do with a camera. I have to have great gratitude for even me at the time, thinking of all of the people, all of the directors out there to go to and say, we are going to do this film called The Last Waltz, and these are the people involved in it. And going to him when he was in the middle of shooting another movie and convincing him to do this, it was such the right thing to do. And the fact that we’re still celebrating this movie, this number of years later, there’s screenings of The Last Waltz all over the world happening right now. We love it when things hold up that well.
JM – I don’t think anybody uses rock music in film better than Scorsese. Would you agree?
RR – I would agree. I would agree. And I work on most of those movies with him.
JM – And you’ve got a new one coming out too, right?
RR – Yeah, this movie, Silence, is coming out now. And it doesn’t have any rock music in it, though it takes place in the 1600’s in Japan. And it is stunning, this movie. It’s probably the best movie of the year.
JM – You talk in the book about the finality of The Band, and we’re speaking with Robbie Robertson this morning here at 105.5 WDHA. And I think maybe in your mind it was really let’s just end the touring part of it, but keep going recording wise. I’ve often thought in the years that have passed, Robbie, were all of the original members still with us, the amount of money that you guys might have been offered on a reunion tour, when you look at some of what’s happened over the last 10, 20, 15 years, it would have to be a staggering amount.
RR – Yeah, but when everybody was having their own discoveries after we did The Last Watlz, just like you said, the idea that some of the guys wanted to make solo records or work on different projects. It was like I thought that was really healthya nd great and people could do stuff and make these new discoveries and then we would come back and we would woodshed again and come up creatively with something fresh and exciting for ourselves. But when everybody went off, our plan of coming back didn’t happen and nobody did come back. And it was disappointing. But by then everybody was doing their own thing and so you had to just go with the flow.
JM – Well, I do hope there’s a Testimony Volume Two, because obviously, Robbie, your career did not end in 1976 with The Last Waltz, you’ve had a number of remarkable solo albums and again, mentioning your work with Martin Scorsese on films. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you. Robbie Robertson the new book, the companion CD Testimony, thanks for spending some time with us here at WDHA.
RR – Thank you, Jim. It was really fun talking with you. Take care.
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