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Robbie Robertson has achieved something that many of his contemporaries often set out to do, but then never implemented: He has left the rock 'n' roll circus with dignity, which he and The Band 16 years ago from the early 60s to mid 70s.
"We're gonna do one more song and that's it", says the guitarist and singer at the beginning of the legendary concert film "The Last Waltz", the farewell concert of the legendary group in 1976 in San Francisco, documented by Martin Scorsese.
Robertson has kept his word to this day.
The Canadian never took part in the short-lived reunions of his four bandmates.
Three of his former colleagues, Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel, have since died.
Robertson, who sporadically released solo albums but mostly composed soundtracks for Martin Scorsese films, is nonetheless striving to honor The Band's musical legacy.
He recently remixed his third album “Stage Fright”, which was released 50 years ago, and re-released it, expanded to include live recordings and jam sessions in hotel rooms.
When the 77-year-old calls us from Los Angeles for this interview, he seems to some extent perplexed himself about the relevance of some of the songs half a century later.
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WORLD:
Mr. Robertson, half a century ago you and The Band recorded the songs from your album “Stage Fright” in a concert hall in Woodstock - without an audience.
Robbie Robertson:
Yeah, we played from nowhere.
WORLD:
The city administration did not allow spectators at the time because they feared another rush after the hype about the Woodstock Festival.
Now the album is being re-released during a pandemic - a time when musicians, if at all, can only stream virtual concerts from living rooms or empty halls.
What are you thinking about?
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Robertson:
We were probably way ahead of the times when we played without an audience and recorded it live.
Who knows, today's musicians might have learned something from us.
Seriously: It was important to me to re-release this album because we couldn't be there when it was mixed.
And that's what we always did.
Only after the recordings we went on tour straight away.
Now I could go back to work with Bob Clearmountain to improve the sound.
In addition, I released the songs for the first time in the order originally intended.
Believe me, it was like a release for me.
It was like a great load had been lifted from my shoulders.
WORLD:
You originally wanted to record the album in front of the people of Woodstock to apologize to them.
At the Woodstock Festival, The Band was the only group that also lived in the artist colony of the same name.
But your band wasn't responsible for the chaos of the event.
Why did you feel guilty anyway?
Robertson:
When we accepted the festival, we had no idea what dimensions the whole thing would take on.
Apart from that: It was called the Woodstock Festival, but in the end it didn't take place in Woodstock itself, as originally planned, but 70 kilometers away.
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WORLD:
On a pasture near Bethel.
Robertson:
Yeah.
And we were the only group at the festival that actually lived in Woodstock at the time.
After that was all over, the Woodstock residents were very disappointed in us.
They thought we had deliberately fueled the hype and therefore helped to turn a small artist colony into the most famous small town in the world.
Only: The Woodstock people didn't want that kind of attention.
At the time I just thought: “Oh man, I didn't mean that at all.
I didn't want to destroy your privacy and certainly not this beautiful little artist colony. ”We, as The Band, asked ourselves,“ What can we do to make up for this? ”We all continued to live in Woodstock after the festival.
All those who criticized the gigantomania - those were our neighbors.
In any case, we thought about how we could give something back to the community of this small town.
So we came up with the idea of a recording session in the Playhouse, which only the residents of the city could attend.
But then they said: "For God's sake, that only makes things worse." So we played our new songs in front of an empty hall - and then recorded them without an audience.
Robbie Robertson (r.) With Bob Dylan and Van Morrison (l.) In "The Last Waltz" by Martin Scorsese
Source: picture alliance / kpa
WORLD:
The anniversary edition of the album also includes a recording of a concert at London's Royal Albert Hall from 1971. You also played your song "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", a song that deals with the aftermath of the American Civil War.
Robertson:
Yeah.
WORLD:
The lyrics are told from the perspective of a soldier of the Confederate Army, who tells of the pain of defeat, but also of the pride of the people in the south.
Could such a song appear in today's polarization era, with a mob with Confederate flags storming the Capitol and promoting white supremacy?
Robertson:
No.
I don't think a song like that could come out today.
Because people don't even know how to write such a text today.
And because today we live in an extremely damaged time.
It is a time of madness.
Back in the 70s, we thought we were going to move forward and leave racism behind.
Of course, we were aware that racism exists worldwide and will never completely go away.
But we believed we could keep racism in check, so much so that it would hide under some stone.
Today, however, racism is again marching in the streets.
WORLD:
Sounds bitter.
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Robertson:
It's like we haven't achieved anything and learned nothing.
Stupidity has got the upper hand.
And yes, this is really disappointing after all that people have been through for progress.
The shadows are back.
WORLD:
In “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” you show empathy for people who lost in the civil war without defending their worldview.
It is your most successful song to date.
Were there any reservations about it at the time?
Robertson:
No, no, no.
There were no reservations at the time.
You see, to me that song was like a movie going on in my head.
My main drive was to write a song that our Arkansas drummer and singer Levon Helm could sing with all his heart.
WELT:
Did you know that there was a German version of it in 1972, “On the day when Conny Kramer died” - a number one hit, sung by Juliane Werding, then 15?
Robertson:
Ha ha ha!
No, I didn't know that.
WORLD:
The German version tells a completely different story, about a man who died of drug abuse.
Robertson:
Oh my god.
Nobody had told me that either before.
Well, I'm glad to hear about it.
WORLD:
Let's stay with the damaged times you spoke of.
Her mother was a Mohawk Indian.
In the United States, Deb Haaland is the first woman with indigenous roots to become Minister of the Interior.
Doesn't that make you confident?
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Robertson:
Yes, that's great.
Despite the regression of the past few years - racism, white Suprematists, all that stupid, crazy shit - there is progress again.
Joe Biden won, the Senate went to the Democrats, and so did the House of Representatives.
There is some good news again - apart from this terrible virus.
WORLD:
When you toured Europe with The Band in 1971, it initially brought back very bad memories of the concerts you gave there in 1966 with Bob Dylan.
Back then they were booed every evening because the former folk icon Dylan first appeared with an electrically amplified rock band.
Did you ever think of canceling the tour at the time?
Robertson:
We never thought of quitting because of it.
All these boos have only hardened us and made us stronger.
That constant rejection made us play better.
Dylan and us, we were like blood brothers back then.
WORLD:
In a few weeks, on May 24th, Bob Dylan will be 80.
Robertson:
God, is that old.
WORLD:
You gave your last concert with The Band in 1976, in the following years you concentrated on solo albums, but above all on composing film music.
Dylan, on the other hand, still wants to go on tour.
Can you understand why he still gives concerts?
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Robertson:
The concerts still make him bloom, they fill him.
He just enjoys it a lot.
It's also a pretty good way of making a living: you go out, people celebrate you, they applaud you, they love you - and they give you a lot of money for it.
WORLD:
In the booklet of “Stage Fright” there is an old review of the album by Robert Hilburn from the “Los Angeles Times”.
Hilburn wrote in 1971 that The Band had the very best of prospects of filling the void that had left after the breakup of the Beatles.
We now know that things turned out differently.
What is going through your head as you read this today?
Robertson:
That was of course very flattering for us, a nice compliment.
The Beatles were friends of ours.
We thought they were fantastic, they were exceptional songwriters.
In any case, we didn't think at the time: “Oh God, now we have to let our hair grow longer!” Or anything like that.
WORLD:
The two Beatles, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney, who are still alive, are in the process of rewriting the story of the end of the band with all the arguments in the studio.
There are 55 hours of unpublished film passages from the footage of her “Let It Be” film.
Director Peter Jackson has now put together a new movie from it.
The first trailer shows four musicians fooling around, laughing and apparently having a lot of fun in the presence of the others.
How do you find that?
Robertson:
History is being rewritten, yes.
I did something similar when editing our “Stage Fright” album, albeit in a different context.
I think it's wonderful that Peter Jackson is doing this film.
I look forward to seeing him.
WORLD:
Can you imagine something similar for “The Waltz”, the Martin Scorsese film about The Band's last concert in 1976?
Robertson:
What do you mean?
WORLD:
Back then, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Neil Young and other stars were your guests.
After the concert, many musicians are said to have jammed for hours in a hotel room.
Are there any recordings of it?
Robertson:
No.
After the concert there was no more filming.
Most of us went back to our hotels.
Well, some of them met and jammed on.
But Martin Scorsese and I were exhausted by the end of the concert.
I was collapsed.
Believe me, the last thing I wanted to do after this concert would have been an hour-long jam session.
There are no film recordings of it either.
However, there are still unpublished excerpts from the “The Last Waltz” concert, interviews and other scenes.
But all this material got lost somewhere.
We haven't found it yet.
We'd have to hire a private investigator to find it.