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Robbie Robertson

Robbie Robertson

24 articles

Audio interviews

The Band's Robbie Robertson (1991)

Interview by Tony Scherman, Rock's Backpages audio, Fall 1991

Robbie looks back at his days as a teenage guitar-slinger with Ronnie Hawkins: why Ronnie hired him; the dreadful gigs they played; fitting in down south; his mother's Indian roots; holding up a craps game; learning from Levon; not being allowed girlfriends; rousted by the cops with Sonny Boy Williamson; the genius of Garth Hudson, and much more...

File format: mp3; file size: 56.9mb, interview length: 59' 14" sound quality: ***

Robbie Robertson (1998)

Interview by Paul Zollo, Rock's Backpages audio, 1998

The erstwhile Band songwriter talks about his Contact from the Underworld of Redboy album; working with Howie B; the involvement of jailed Native American activist Leonard Peltier; the Peyote religion; writing for the different voices in the Band, and writing film music for Martin Scorsese.

File format: mp3; file size: 48.7mb, interview length: 53' 20" sound quality: **½

Robbie Robertson (1998)

Interview by Steve Roeser, Rock's Backpages audio, 10 June 1998

The ex-Band man on Martin Scorsese and movie soundtracks, his Contact from the Underworld of Redboy album, Native-American politics and music, and looks back at Bo Diddley, the Dylan '74 tour and the great bluesmen.

File format: mp3; file size: 29.7mb, interview length: 32' 28" sound quality: * (phoner)

List of articles in the library

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Robbie Robertson: Between Trains

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 6 May 1983

QUALITY IS something that Robbie Robertson definitely understands. ...

Daniel Lanois: The Producer as Conscience

Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, December 1986

"THERE'S A lot of pollution out there," says Daniel Lanois, drinking tea in the gazebo of his Santa Monica hotel one September morning, before continuing ...

Robbie Robertson: Off the Band Stand

Interview by Mark Cooper, The Guardian, 30 October 1987

After turning off the road to rock and ruin, Robbie Robertson is back — on his own terms. Mark Cooper reports ...

Robbie Robertson: "Fireworks were going off in the '60s. Music was happening quicker than people could deal with."

Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 5 November 1987

TWENTY YEARS ago, you and the Band seemed to set yourselves apart from the whole psychedelic scene that was so popular at the time. ...

The Second Coming of Robbie Robertson

Special Feature by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 19 November 1987

Eleven, years ago, the enigmatic leader of the Band walked away from the rock world. Now, after some years of wild living, he's joined with ...

Robbie Robertson: Songs of a native son

Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 23 November 1987

STEPPING OFF a Greyhound bus from Toronto in 1961, a 17-year-old boy found himself in West Helena, Ark., by the banks of the Mississippi River, ...

Robbie Robertson: The Big Easy

Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, October 1991

It's New Orleans, high summer, and everybody's wilting with the heat. Everybody, that is, except Robbie Robertson – the legendary Band guitarist who's just made ...

Robbing America for a storyline thread

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, The Times, 28 October 1991

ROBBIE ROBERTSON should be used to jetlag. He spent 16 years on the road as a member of The Band and knows only too well ...

Youngblood: The Wild Youth of Robbie Robertson

Interview by Tony Scherman, Musician, December 1991

Before Storyville, before the Band, a Toronto street punk headed down the Crazy River. ...

Robbie Robertson: The Q 100 Interview

Interview by Andy Gill, Q, January 1995

How the devil are you? ...

Robbie Robertson: Making a Noise

Interview by Jeff Apter, nyrock.com, May 1998

WHEN ROBBIE ROBERTSON croons "I can't let go ... It's in the blood" during his transcendent new release, Contact from the Underworld of Redboy, he's ...

Robbie Robertson: The Underworld of Redboy

Interview by Steve Roeser, Goldmine, 28 August 1998

TWENTY YEARS ago, a Martin Scorsese film called The Last Waltz was released in theaters. As rock fans easily recall, this star-studded musical event – ...

Wardell Quezergue: Architect of the Sound

Profile and Interview by John Swenson, Offbeat, 1 May 2000

ON AN UNSEASONABLY warm December afternoon, Wardell Quezergue walks carefully into the Musicians Union meeting hall on Esplanade Avenue. ...

The Backpages Interview: Robbie Robertson

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, October 2005

RBP: A Musical History seems like a formidable undertaking. ...

Wardell Quezergue, 1930-2011

Obituary by Richard Williams, The Guardian, 14 September 2011

Distinguished and subtle New Orleans arranger and musician ...

Robbie Robertson: The Man Who Knew Too Much

Retrospective and Interview by Hugh Fielder, Classic Rock, April 2012

SILLY ME. I assumed that I would be interviewing Robbie Robertson in the quaint Kensington mews flat that I had been sent to. But instead ...

Robbie Robertson

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, September 2013

ROBBIE ROBERTSON isn't exactly known for being prolific. In the almost 37 years since The Last Waltz marked his final show with The Band, he ...

Robbie Robertson: Testimony

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 2016

THE BAND'S STORY continues to beguile: how did a group so rich in talent and promise implode so hopelessly, only to pull the rabbit out ...

Robbie Robertson: Testimony (Heineman)

Book Review by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, December 2016

ONE OF THE delightful aspects of The Last Waltz, Martin Scorsese's doc of The Band's goodbye hootenanny, are the scene-setting vignettes from the group that ...

Robbie Robertson: "I remember saying to Dylan, there's too many verses in this"

Interview by Michael Simmons, MOJO, January 2017

DECKED OUT IN an all-black suit, Robbie Robertson exudes elegance and a well-read intelligence – the latter all the more fascinating given his teenage education chicken- pickin' in honky-tonks ...

Robbie Robertson: Testimony

Book Review by Clinton Heylin, The Spectator, 21 January 2017

THE RECENT SPATE of rock memoirs has proved one of the less rewarding sub-genres in the post-digital Gutenberg galaxy. Obeying few rules of a good ...

see also Band, The

see also Little Caesar & the Consuls

see also Levon & the Hawks

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