When Robbie Robertson died, in 2023, he was about to leave his book Insomnia, Chronicle of his relationship with filmmaker Martin Scorsese. There were already printed copies, but everything has stopped for two years (yes, also in North America they are afraid to take advantage of the deceased).
Curious, since Robbie was an expert in bringing water to his mill, he said without the slightest critical intention. Destiny gave him bad letters: he was part of a mostly Canadian group, The Hawks, who had kicked circuit B accompanying a crude rocky, Ronnie Hawkins. Until in 1965 his luck changed. Bob Dylan hired them as companions of their electroacoustic tour. Exactly, the route where the respectable decided to exercise his holy right to boo To the artist.
While his overwhelmed colleagues tried to disappear after the concerts, Robertson became Bob’s squire outside the stage. He did not argue his decisions, supported him in his delusions. He even spoke to the author of the author of Like a Rolling Stone: He and his friends settled as neighbors, in the mountains of Woodstock. Dylan wanted to have musicians at his disposal and Albert Grossman, his manager, paid a stipend to the Canadians (and her friend of Arkansas, Levon Helm).
From those sessions came out the flashing Basement tapes And the seated waterfuertes that integrated Music from Big Pink, premiere of a group that initially renounced to have its own name and that would end up being called the Band. Without considering it, they worked as a purgative against the excesses of the psychedelic era: a group of singers, composers and instrumentalists with umbrella songs, a look Rustic, a frowning attitude. Robertson stood out for his precise guitar and for being the most located, capable – for example – to argue that his The Weight It was a distillation of Luis Buñuel’s existential pessimism.
Robbie opted to close that stage with a stellar concert in San Francisco, baptized as The last waltz, an echo of The last tango in Paris, from Bertolucci. To immortalize it, Martin Scorsese assumed the role of director. Scorsese, who had evidenced his feeling Musicro CON Bad streets, He also brought some of Hollywood’s best cameramen. The result, The Last Waltz, It is a model but dreary documentary, which ignores the public and focuses on musicians who usually look tired, even bitter. They are hangover.
Robertson ended up residing at the filmmaker’s house in Los Angeles. That became a cineclub, where Scorsese brought the films and Robbie contributed the substances to prolong the nights. Both licked the wounds of failed marriages, on the edge of divorce. And they formed one Cordial agreement: Robertson would be the filmmaker’s right hand, working on a dozen of his films, initially looking for foreign music and finally composing the sound bands.
Scorsese offered moral and economic support: alone, Robbie invoiced expensive and not very sellers. Martin even directed the video for his Somewhere Down the Crazy River. He supported him in the recovery of his indigenous roots (his mother was India Mohawk), who marked his record production during the 1990s. Both particular interests agreed on the elaboration of The Moon Killer (2023). That, Ay, Robertson did not see release.