Robbie Robertson Dies: The Band’s Founding Guitarist Was 80
deadline.comRobbie Robertson, the brilliant founding guitarist of The Band who also wrote many of its most famous songs and whose final farewell show with the group was memorialized in Martin Scorsese’s landmark documentary The Last Waltz, died today in Los Angeles.
He was 80. His longtime manager Jared Levine announced the news in a statement. Read it below. Robertson wrote and played on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group’s classics including “The Weight,” “Up on Cripple Creek” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” the latter of which was was Top 5 hit for Joan Baez in 1971.
In 1969, The Band played at Woodstock and became the first North American rock group to appear on the cover of Time magazine.
A five-time Grammy nominee, Robertson got his break at 16 years old with Ronnie Hawkins’ The Hawks. He was Bob Dylan’s guitarist on the notorious 1966 “electric” world tour and, as leader of The Band, collaborated on groundbreaking album The Basement Tapes, helping to invent the Americana genre.
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