Robbie Robertson born 5 July 1943

Jaime Royal Robertson OC (July 5, 1943 – August 9, 2023) was a Canadian musician of Indigenous and Jewish ancestry. He was the lead guitarist for Bob Dylan's backing band in the mid-late 1960s and early-mid 1970s. Robertson was also the guitarist and primary songwriter of The Band from its inception until 1978, after which time he enjoyed a lengthy solo career. 

Jamie Robbie Robertson was born in Toronto, Ontario. He was the only child of Rosemarie (nee Chrysler), known as Dolly, and James Robertson, both workers at a Toronto metal-plating factory. Dolly, of Mohawk and Cayuga descent, had been raised on the Six Nations Indian reserve, where her son heard the campfire stories that, he later said, would shape his songwriting. When he was in his teens, and his parents had separated, his mother divulged the identity of his biological father: a professional gambler named Alexander Klegerman, who had been killed in a road accident. The 20-year-old Dolly was pregnant with her son when she married Jim Robertson in 1942. 

Guitar lessons from the age of nine led to his first electric instrument, a Christmas present when he was 13, and a year later he was playing in his first bands. His professional apprenticeship began at the age of 16, playing bars and clubs in Canada and the American south with the Hawks, the backing band for the extrovert American rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins. The Hawks had been joined by Helm, Danko, Manuel and an organist named Garth Hudson by the time Robertson played a memorably scorching lead part on Hawkins’s recording of Bo Diddley’s Who Do You Love?. 

In 1964 the band left the singer to strike out on their own. The Stones That I Throw, a Robertson song released under the name Levon and the Hawks, had the beginnings of an original sound. But in 1966 it was Robertson who encouraged them to join Dylan on a tumultuous world tour that exposed them to the fury of fans enraged by the singer’s espousal of electric instruments. After Dylan retreated to Woodstock, in rural upstate New York, Robertson and the others joined him to work on songs that became known as the Basement Tapes, plundering a variety of archaic idioms. Big Pink was the large wooden house in whose basement they rehearsed the 11 songs that became their own first album, four of them written by Robertson. 

                                   

Big Pink was followed in 1969 by a second album, recorded in Los Angeles, called simply The Band (and known to many, thanks to the sepia hue of its cover, as the brown album). The inclusion of such seemingly ageless and finely detailed Robertson songs as King Harvest (Has Surely Come) and The Unfaithful Servant convinced many that this was their masterpiece, while live performances underlined the qualities that set them apart. 

The Band dissolved on Thanksgiving Day 1976 following an all-star concert filmed by director Martin Scorsese and later released as The Last Waltz. The project marked the beginning of Robertson's long affiliation with Scorsese, as well as an interest in dramatic acting; in 1980, Robertson produced and starred in Carny, co-starring Jodie Foster and Gary Busey. Also in 1980, he composed the score to Scorsese's brilliant Raging Bull, and continued to confine his musical activity to the film medium for the next several years, later working with Scorsese on the acerbic 1983 satire The King of Comedy and 1986's The Color of Money, the sequel to The Hustler. 

Finally, in 1987, Robertson released his self-titled solo debut, which included guest appearances from onetime Band-mates Danko and Hudson as well as U2, Peter Gabriel, Daniel Lanois, and Gil Evans. Storyville, a conceptual piece steeped in the sounds and imagery of a famed area of New Orleans, followed in 1991. In 1994, Robertson returned to his roots, teaming with the Native American group the Red Road Ensemble for Music for the Native Americans, a collection of songs composed for a television documentary series. Contact from the Underworld of Redboy followed in 1998. 

Robertson remained close to Scorsese. He composed, consulted on, and produced soundtracks for Casino and The Departed, and acted as executive music director on Gangs of New York. He also contributed original music to Shutter Island. Robertson returned to recording with How to Become Clairvoyant on the 429 Records imprint in 2011. The album featured guest appearances by Clapton, Steve Winwood, Trent Reznor, Robert Randolph, Tom Morello, and Angela McCluskey, and entered the Billboard charts at 13. Five years later, Robertson published his memoir, Testimony, releasing a career-spanning compilation of the same name to accompany the book. 

In 2019, Robertson released Sinematic, a record inspired by his work in motion pictures. Fittingly, its first single -- a duet with Van Morrison called "I Heard You Paint Houses" -- was featured in The Irishman, a gangster epic directed by Robertson's old friend Scorsese. He also wrote music for Scorsese's 2023 release Killers of the Flower Moon. It would prove to be Robertson's last major project.

Robertson died in his Los Angeles home on August 9, 2023, at the age of 80, after a year-long battle with prostate cancer. His manager, Jared Levine, reported that Robertson "was surrounded by his family at the time of his death". He asked for donations to the Six Nations of the Grand River in lieu of flowers.             (Edited from AllMusic. The Guardian & Wikipedia)