don’t happen for people like us. You’re gonna end
up working down the street, just like me. You’re
gonna get your heart broken. Most of the people
round here just end up in prison, so you might as
well get used to the idea.” So part of that is crushing,
and the other part of it is: “Oh yeah? I’ll show you
a thing or two.” I think I was able to hold my chin
up and say: “I’m on a mission. I’m moving on. And
if you look for me, there’s only going to be dust.”You’ve said that you wrote your best songs in The
Band after studying screenplays. Did
films play a big part in your
formative years?
Oh yeah. I was a movie bug from
when I was very young, and from
there it built and built. I became
mystified by some of the
extraordinary experiences watching
movies, and wanted to know what
was behind the curtain. That’s
what drew me to wanting to
read scripts. If I hadn’t have got so
addicted to music at such a young
age I would’ve ended up in movie
land. I probably would’ve been
a writer or a director.Where did the love of music come from?
My mother was raised in a Six Nations Indian
Reserve, then went to live with an aunt in Toronto
at the age of six. So as a child, when we went back
to visit, the instruments would come out and I
would be exposed to all this music on the reserve.
My parents bought me a small guitar and I would
practice constantly. Then rock’n’roll suddenly hit
me when I was thirteen years old. That was it for
me. Within weeks I was in my first band.You first saw Levon Helm
drumming in Ronnie Hawkins’s
band The Hawks. What did you
make of them?
A local DJ in Toronto had booked
my band to open for them. They
were just the best rockabilly band
around. I thought it was the most
amazing thing I’d ever seen. When
I eventually joined The Hawks,
Levon was my closest brother,
from the very beginning. I was sixteen
years old and Levon was like my older
sibling, someone who knew the ropes
and was from the Mississippi Delta.
I mean, come on, this is the real shithere. Ronnie wanted to have the best band around,
so he depended on Levon and I to help him choose
the best young musicians out there. That’s how we
ended up with Rick, Richard and Garth.The documentary does much to underline the sense
of camaraderie that existed in The Band before the
fallouts later on.
Once Were Brothers was inspired by my book
[Testimony], where I wanted to somehow get to the
truth of that. I wanted to convey that feeling of this
story of The Band. The documentary is really
about the brotherhood, for the most part – the
things that we went through to get to the point of
where we were going. It was a crazy ride, an
unbelievable ride. And a dangerous ride. At the
same time, there was a musical desire and a sound
that we built inside of us. What we did – first with
Ronnie Hawkins, then as The Hawks, then with
Bob Dylan, and after with Music From Big Pink- didn’t sound like anything else. At all.
The Hawks backed Dylan on his infamous electric
tour of 1966, when there was heckling almost
every night. It was too much for Levon Helm, who
quit midway through. Were you able to take any
positives from that experience?GET
TY
x 2“Musically we were
bulletproof. So we
had wonderful times,
doing what we did.”
Ronnie^ Hawkins^ and^
Robertson^ during^ The^
Band’s The^ Last^ Waltz^
concert^ at^ Winterland^
Ballroom,^ San^ Francisco,^
November^25 ,^1976.Robertson and TheBand’s Levon (^) Helm:
not the easiest
relationship.
58 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
ROBBIE ROBERTSON