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

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 where – in the words of his first major employer Ronnie Hawkins – "You had to show your razor and puke twice before they'd let you in the door." We're meeting at his small office in a nondescript Los Angeles neighbourhood. Propped against a wall is the Martin D-28 acoustic on which he wrote 'The Weight' and in a corner the Fender Twin Reverb amp that survived Woodstock and The Last Waltz.