Robbie Robertson, guitarist and songwriting force behind The Band, dead at 80

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With The Band, Robertson was credited with writing or co-writing the band's signature songs, including The Weight, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Up on Cripple Creek, The Shape I'm In and Chest Fever.


Robbie Robertson reflects on the process of gathering music, sounds and rhythms during The Band's early touring that contributed to their unique sound in a 2016 CBC interview.
The Band's first two albums were especially hailed, each ranking in the top 100 of Rolling Stone's updated compilation of the top 500 albums of all time in 2020. The same magazine rated Robertson at No. 59 on a list of the 100 greatest guitarists.

The Band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, five years after receiving a similar honour at Canada's Juno Awards. Robertson won an additional five Junos in a solo recording career that began in the mid-1980s and included popular radio songs Showdown at Big Sky, Somewhere Down the Crazy River and What About Now?.

At 16, his first band opened for Ronnie Hawkins, the colourful Arkansan singer who regularly played Eastern Canadian bars with backup group the Hawks, featuring Levon Helm on drums.

In short order, Hawkins cut two early Robertson songwriting efforts for an album and asked him to join. After Helm and Robertson, the rest of the members of what became The Band were recruited in Ontario between 1961-62: bassist Rick Danko from Simcoe, pianist Richard Manuel from Stratford and the classically-trained organist Garth Hudson from London.
 
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