Robbie Robertson Lyrics

Jaime Robbie Robertson (born July 5, 1943 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is a songwriter, guitarist and singer, probably best known for his membership in The Band. Early life Born to a Jewish father and a Mohawk mother, (he took his stepfather’s last name after his mother remarried), Robertson’s earliest exposure to music was at Six Nations 40, Ontario, where he spent summers with his mother’s family. He studied guitar from his youth and was writing songs and performing from his teen years. By 1958, Robertson was performing in various groups around Toronto. In 1960, he met singer Ronnie Hawkins, who headed up a band called The Hawks (after relocating to Canada), and joined the group, which toured often, before splitting from Hawkins in 1963. The quintet styled themselves as The Canadian Esquires and Levon and the Hawks,(after rejecting such tongue-in-cheek names as The Honkies and The Crackers), before ultimately calling themselves The Band. The Band Bob Dylan hired The Band for his famed, controversial tours of 1965 and 1966, his first wide exposure as an electrified rock and roll performer rather than his earlier acoustic folk sound. Robertson’s distinctive guitar sound was an important part of the music; Dylan famously praised him as “the only mathematical guitar genius I’ve ever run into who doesn’t offend my intestinal nervousness with his rearguard sound.” Read more about Robbie Robertson