# R.I.P. Robbie Robertson **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** celebrity-death, music\ **Created:** [August 9, 2023, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332 "2023-08-09T20:49:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FinsToTheLeft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finstotheleft/32/2930_2.png) [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/21 "2023-08-11T10:03:07Z")
The Hot Docs Theatre in Toronto has four showings of The Last Waltz Restoration in honour of Robbie. I will be going. > **[The Last Waltz 45th Anniversary Restoration | Hot Docs](https://hotdocs.ca/whats-on/films/last-waltz-45)** > > Perhaps the greatest rock documentary ever made, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz captures what was advertised as legendary rock group The Band’s final farewell concert appearance. Joined on stage by more than a dozen rock legends, The Last Waltz... ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/22 "2023-08-11T10:59:23Z")
He was the Band’s main songwriter and sang on his solo albums, but did Robbie ever sang lead on a Band song? ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/23 "2023-08-11T13:20:53Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > did Robbie ever sang lead on a Band song? Interesting question. I liked his singing in his solo stuff, but I guess when you’re in a band with Levon Helm you get relegated to mostly backup singer. I looked it up, and [Wikipedia says](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie_Robertson#:~:text=He%20sang%20lead%20vocal%20on,touchstones%20in%20the%20group%27s%20career.): > He sang lead vocal on the track “To Kingdom Come”; he did not sing on another Band song released to the public until “Knockin’ Lost John” on 1977’s Islands. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/24 "2023-08-11T13:24:14Z")
Interesting. I’ve always thought that Rick Danko sang “To Kingdom Come”. I’ve never listened to the “Islands” album. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/25 "2023-08-11T16:23:14Z")
“Showdown At Big Sky” is one of my favorite songs of all time. ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/26 "2023-08-11T18:40:01Z")
> [@solost](#): > > when you’re in a band with Levon Helm you get relegated to mostly backup singer And Rick Danko and Richard Manuel. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/27 "2023-08-11T18:55:26Z")
I loved the _Storyville_ album the most, but it always struck me as strange that such a roots-based artist enlisted Stephen Hague as a producer. Hague has worked with folks like new Order, Pet Shop Boys and PiL; he was the original producer of R.E.M.'s _Murmur_ but it wasn’t working and they went with Don Dixon. My favorite tracks of his solo career are almost all on that record: “Night Parade,” “Shake This Town” and “Breaking The Rules,” that last one of which just shatters me every time I get to the climax of _Until the End of the World_. Robertson’s relationship with Scorsese is really interesting. I think they were roommates around the time of _Raging Bull_, around when Scorsese had a pretty bad coke problem. And Robertson assembled the soundtrack for _The King of Comedy_, which apparently wasn’t so much a soundtrack, as just a mix tape of what he liked at the time (I remember the review in _Rolling Stone_ saying something like “I couldn’t hear half of this in the movie and I was listening for it.”) ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2023, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/28 "2023-08-12T02:36:09Z")
Why do the best things always disappear? ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2023, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/29 "2023-08-12T02:42:39Z")
… Because we love music made by people who are old now. . And Robbie ain’t the last genius whose absence we’re going to have to deal with. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2023, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/30 "2023-08-12T03:20:48Z")
Robbie… where have you gone? ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2023, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/31 "2023-08-12T06:48:53Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Why do the best things always disappear? Ophelia f’rinstance. And while I don’t think the family/publicist has released cause of death, I googled and got a reference to Robertson possibly dealing with prostate cancer for a year or so. When my daughter was 2 to 5 years old I’d read her a bedtime story, and sometimes finish off with a lullaby. I don’t know many, and would alternative among Sweet Baby James, Goodnight (Beatles), and All La Glory — which is a pretty song Robertson wrote for his own child. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2023, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/32 "2023-08-12T14:48:39Z")
A great loss; two of my favourite albums when they came out were _Music for the Native Americans_ and _Contact from the Underworld of Redboy_, which was a bit of a departure from anything he had done before. ---
**Author:** ![FinsToTheLeft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finstotheleft/32/2930_2.png) [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2023, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/33 "2023-08-12T20:52:44Z")
> [@Meurglys](#): > > Contact from the Underworld of Redboy I was just blasting this in the car. One of my favourite albums, especially Take Your Partner By the Hand and Unbound. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2023, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/34 "2023-08-14T14:59:54Z")
Strange that I checked out his autobiography from the library a day or so before the announcement of his passing. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2023, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332/35 "2023-08-14T15:14:23Z")
I saw Springsteen in Chicago this weekend – pretty meh overall – and was kind of hoping he’d sneak in a Band cover (“Across the Great Divide,” maybe?) to acknowledge Robertson’s memory and impact. But alas, Bruce never strays from the script anymore. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/r-i-p-robbie-robertson/988332.md?page=1)