Guitarist-songwriter-singer Robbie Robertson, who led the Canadian-American group the Band to rock prominence in the 1970s and worked extensively with Bob Dylan and Martin Scorsese, has died after a long illness. He was 80.
In a statement, Robertson’s manager of 34 years, Jared Levine, said, “Robbie was surrounded by his family at the time of his death. Robertson recently completed his fourteenth film music project with frequent collaborator Martin Scorsese, ‘Killers of the Flower Moon.”
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After the Band’s 1976 farewell concert ‘The Last Waltz’ was captured on film by Scorsese, Robertson worked with the director as composer, music supervisor, and music producer starting in 1980 on films including ‘Raging Bull,’ ‘The King of Comedy,’ ‘The Colour of Money,’ ‘Gangs of New York,’ ‘The Departed,’ ‘Shutter Island,’ ‘The Wolf of Wall Street,’ ‘Silence,’ ‘The Irishman’ and ‘Killers of the Flower Moon.’
However, he is best known for the classic songs he wrote for the Band, including ‘The Weight,’ ‘Up on Cripple Creek,’ ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,’ ‘The Shape I’m In’ and ‘It Makes No Difference.’ His story with The Band was captured in the 2019 documentary, ‘Once Were Brothers.’
In 1998, Robertson joined DreamWorks Records – the label arm of DreamWorks SKG – as creative executive. Among his projects at the imprint was the double-platinum 2001 soundtrack to the studio’s animated hit “Shrek.” The record company folded in 2005.
However, the latter years of his career were largely dedicated to memoirs, lavish reissues of the Band’s catalogue, painting and, primarily, film work. Robertson said during his final interview that he was in the formative stages of looking at doing archival projects centred around his songs or his film scoring work with Scorsese.
