Robbie Robertson, The Band co-founder and guitarist, dead at 80

nypost.com:

Six Nations of the Grand River to support the building of their new cultural center.”Born Jaime Royal Robertson in Toronto on July 5, 1943, Robertson had family roots in the Jewish enclave of the city’s downtown and in the Mohawk community of the Six Nations Reserve outside the city.At age 10, he began playing guitar, and in 1960 at the age of 16, he joined drummer Levon Helm in the Hawks, the backing band for rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins.

The Hawks went on to play with Bob Dylan on tour in 1965 and 1966, after the folk-music star famously decided to “go electric.” Moving to Woodstock in 1967, Robertson and his bandmates recorded the seminal “basement tapes” with Dylan before changing their name to The Band and releasing the groundbreaking “Music from Big Pink” albumin 1968.

Robertson was known for writing some of the group’s classic songs, including “The Weight,” “Up On Cripple Creek,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “The Shape I’m In” and “It Makes No Difference.”By 1978, Robertson claimed, every member of The Band was struggling with drugs and/or alcohol, so he made the decision that the group would be done touring, which led to its demise. “Our musical ability was disappearing before my eyes,” he told The Week in 2015. “You’re in a place and it’s on fire and you say, ‘I’ve got to get out of here.’”Robertson was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame (1989) and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (1994) as a member of The Band.

He also joined Canada’s Walk of Fame as a solo act in 2003 and with The Band in 2014.In 2019, Robertson received the Lifetime Achievement award at the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.Robertson and Scorsese became collaborators after the famed director captured The Band’s farewell concert.