Robbie Robertson, Lead Guitarist and Songwriter of The Band, Dies at 80
(NEWSnet/AP) – Robbie Robertson, The Band’s lead guitarist and songwriter who in such classics as “The Weight” and “Up on Cripple Creek” mined American music and folklore and helped reshape contemporary rock, died Wednesday at 80.
Robertson died surrounded by family in Los Angeles “after a long illness,” publicist Ray Costa said in a statement.
From their years as Bob Dylan's backing group to their own stardom, The Band profoundly influenced popular music in the 1960s and '70s, first by amplifying Dylan’s transition from folk artist to rock star and then by absorbing Dylan's influences as they fashioned a new sound immersed in the American past.
The Canadian-born Robertson was a high school dropout and one-man melting pot — part-Jewish, part-Mohawk and Cayuga — who fell in love with the seemingly limitless sounds and byways of his adopted country and wrote out of a sense of amazement and discovery at a time when the Vietnam War had alienated millions of young Americans.
He found himself among many of the legends of the rock era — getting guitar tips from Buddy Holly, taking in early performances by Aretha Franklin and by the Velvet Underground, smoking pot with the Beatles, watching the songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller develop material, chatting with Jimi Hendrix when he was a struggling musician calling himself Jimmy James.
The Band began as supporting players for rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins in the early 1960s. They were originally called the Hawks, but ended up as The Band — a conceit their fans would say they earned — because people would point to them when they were with Dylan and refer to them as “the band.”
They remain defined by their first two albums, “Music from Big Pink” and “The Band,” both released in the late 1960s.
The Band regrouped without Robertson in the early 1980s, and Robertson went on to a long career as a solo artist and soundtrack composer. His self-titled 1987 album was certified gold and featured the hit single “Show Down at Big Sky” and the ballad “Fallen Angel,” a tribute to Manuel, who was found dead in 1986 in what was ruled a suicide (Danko died of heart failure in 1999, and Helm of cancer in 2012).
The Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994; Robertson attended.
Robertson married the Canadian journalist Dominique Bourgeois in 1967. They had three children before divorcing. His other survivors include his second wife, Janet Zuccarini, and five grandchildren.
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