In addition to both being prolific and inspiring musicians, Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm shared a much seedier past involving criminals, drugs, and attempts at armed robbery. Before the fame, the equally notorious feud, and the natural passing of time, Robertson and Helm ran with a questionable cast of characters who ranged from eccentric to downright terrifying and plenty in between.
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Fortunately, the musicians’ attempt at armed robbery didn’t pan out. If it had, it’s uncertain whether we would have had the long-lasting musical legacy of The Band at all.
Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm’s Attempt at Armed Robbery
The 1960s had no small shortage of crime, drugs, and unsavory characters. But the scene Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm ran around in stood on its own as a far darker and more dangerous crowd—the kind of people Robertson described as skilled lawbreakers. Their associations with this criminalistic community eventually led to Robertson and Helm attempting to rob an illegal card game. With guns in tow, the future rock stars showed up at the game’s location only to find it canceled.
“In the world that we ran in, we knew so many people from dark places, criminals that were really good at it, thieves [who] took great pride in their gift,” Robertson said in a 2017 interview with MOJO. “They were friends of ours. They came to where we played. Now this is big cities up north. In the South was a different kind of criminal.”
“All of these characters [we met],” Robertson continued, “Playing for Jack Ruby in his club with a one-armed go-go dancer, and then, a month later, he kills [Lee Harvey] Oswald. The circles we ran in made this idea of Levon and I doing this robbery not that far-fetched. We weren’t that different from these people. On both sides of the tracks, they like breaking the rules. They like getting away with stuff that’s naughty.”
Musicians Who Were Thick As Thieves
Despite the decades of camaraderie Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm shared—including the occasional brainstorm about armed robbery—the narrative of a “feud” between the two musicians has overshadowed their friendship in the decades that followed their heyday in The Band. From scathing memoirs to public royalty disputes, many considered Robertson and Helm to be totally at odds with one another. But Robertson disagreed.
“He was the closest thing in my life I’ve ever had to a brother,” Robertson said of Helm in an interview with AXS TV. “It was such an extraordinary relationship. The personal part equaled the music, and the music equaled this relationship and brotherhood. Because everything was that close, we were able to do something unlike anybody else, and I just hold it precious.”
Robertson continued that he never felt like he was “feuding” with Helm. Instead, Robertson said Helm had fallen on hard times mentally, financially, and personally, in the years that followed The Band’s time together. “This was part of his nature,” Robertson said. “He wasn’t great at accepting certain responsibilities on himself.”
“There was no feud; there was no fight,” the musician insisted. “It takes two people to be in a fight.”
Photo by Harvey L. Silver/Corbis via Getty Images
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