ROBBIE ROBERTSON

(5 July 1943 - 9 August 2023)

The Canadian musician and composer Robbie Robertson has died at the age of eighty from an extended bout of prostate cancer. He should not be remembered solely for his musical work with Bob Dylan or his outfit The Band, but also for being a composer for film and television. He was born Jaime Royal Robertson to James and Rosemarie Robertson who met while working in a Toronto factory. Robbie’s mother was a Cayuga and Mohawk Native American and her son used to visit the family reservation where he learned to play the guitar. He soon became a rock’n’roll and rhythm and blues fan. In his teens his parents split up and he found out that James Robertson was not his birth father.

Robbie worked on carnivals for summer jobs, experiences that eventually became an inspiration for a song and then a film. In 1956 he joined his first band, Little Caesar and the Consuls, and then, with various changes of personnel, the line-up became The Band in 1967. In 1965 Robertson had met Bob Dylan and the rest is musical history, as they toured the world, influencing the likes of George Harrison, Elton John, Eric Clapton and The Grateful Dead. After years of success, The Band played their farewell concert, ‘The Last Waltz’, in 1976. Jonathan Taplin, a former manager of The Band, thought Martin Scorsese should film the concert, as he had earlier worked with the director on Mean Streets. Apparently, Scorsese always wanted to be a musician, whereas Robertson had hankered to be a filmmaker. So, this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship...

After The Last Waltz, Robertson liked the idea of acting and made a film about the carnival world. It was Carny, with Robertson producing and acting alongside Gary Busey and Jodie Foster. When Carny was finished, Robertson met Scorsese in 1980 to work on Raging Bull. This led to more collaborations on The King of Comedy, The Color of Money, Casino, Gangs of New York, Shutter Island, The Wolf of Wall Street, Silence and The Irishman. Before he died, Robertson scored Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which the director has dedicated to him.

Robertson’s first wife from 1968 to 1977 was journalist Dominique Bourgeois. They have two daughters, Alexandra and Delphine, and a son, the writer-musician Sebastian. In March 2023 Robertson married the entrepreneur and restaurateur Janet Zuccarini.

MICHAEL DARVELL