Bob Dylan Pays Tribute to “Lifelong Friend” Robbie Robertson

Several days after the death of The Band‘s former singer Robbie Robertson on Wednesday (Aug, 9) at age 80, Bob Dylan, shared a brief statement about his friend and former bandmate. “This is shocking news,” said Dylan in a brief statement. “Robbie was a lifelong friend. His passing leaves a vacancy in the world.”

Robertson first started working with Dylan in 1965, following the release of his sixth album, Highway 61 Revisited. Dylan once called Robertson a “mathematical guitar genius,” and The Band was pivotal in fine-tuning Dylan’s sound during this era.

Still transitioning from acoustic to electric, which he first introduced on his previous album, Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan recruited Robertson and his band, then called the Hawks—Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, and Richard Manuel—as his backing band on tour.

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“When The Hawks hooked up with Dylan, he found this explosive, dynamic thing,” said Robertson in 2017. “Because of his intensity, it raised everything up and we didn’t come down enough and people were saying this music is so loud we can’t hear the words. Part of that was he wanted that raging spirit on these songs. We got booed all over North America, Australia, Europe, and people were saying this isn’t working and we kept on and Bob didn’t budge.”

After Dylan relocated to Woodstock, New York in 1966, The Band followed and began work on their 1968 debut album, Music From Big Pink. ThoughThe Band broke off after the success of Music From the Big Pink, they continued collaborating with Dylan. Portions from their earlier sessions in Woodstock were later released on Dylan’s 16th album, The Basement Tapes, in 1975. Prior to that album, The Band was also featured on Dylan 1974 albums, Before the Flood (live) and Planet Waves.

A year after The Basement Tapes, Dylan played with The Band again, one last time during their final performance in 1976, which was documented in Martin Scorsese’s film The Last Waltz, for a performance of their songs “I Shall Be Released” and “Forever Young.”

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Throughout the decades, Dylan and Robertson remained friends. Robertson nearly worked on Dylan’s 2020 album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, which would have been their first performance on a album together since Planet Waves, but had to pass since he was already working on the score for Scorsese’s 2019 gangster film, The Irishman, and had just finished his album, Sinematic.

“I was just slammed with work,” said Robertson in 2020. “I said, ‘Right now, I’m in the middle of this stuff,’ and I think that he just felt like it was cooked and he needed to bring it out of the oven. So he went in and recorded this album.”

Dylan even read some new lyrics he had for the album to Robertson. “I thought, this is just terrific writing and something that only Bob could do,” added Robertson. “And I would have loved for us to work together on that. But I just couldn’t do it at that time. I was gonna check in with him and just say, ‘God, I’m sorry I wasn’t available then, but let’s see if we can cause some trouble down the line.’”

Photo by Fred Tanneau /AFP/GettyImages