Jaime Royal "Robbie" Robertson was born on July 5,1943 and is a Canadian musician.
111 Facts About Robbie Robertson
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Robbie Robertson is best known for his work as lead guitarist and songwriter for the Band, and for his career as a solo recording artist.
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Robbie Robertson has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Canadian Music Hall of Fame as a member of the Band, and has been inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame, both with the Band and on his own.
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Robbie Robertson is ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitarists.
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Robbie Robertson has been inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Songwriters.
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Robbie Robertson has worked on many other soundtracks for film and television.
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Robbie Robertson was born Jaime Royal Robbie Robertson on July 5,1943.
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Robbie Robertson's mother was Rosemarie Dolly Chrysler, born February 6,1922.
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Robbie Robertson was Cayuga and Mohawk, raised on the Six Nations Reserve southwest of Toronto, Ontario.
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Robbie Robertson met James Patrick Robertson at the factory and they married in 1942.
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Rosemarie and James Robbie Robertson continued to work at the factory where they met.
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The family lived in several homes in different Toronto neighbourhoods when Robbie Robertson was a child.
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Robbie Robertson often travelled with his mother to the Six Nations Reserve to visit her family.
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When Robbie Robertson was in his early teens, his parents separated.
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Robbie Robertson's mother revealed to Robertson that his biological father was not James, but Alexander David Klegerman, a man she met working at the Coro factory.
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Robbie Robertson became a professional gambler and was killed in a hit-and-run accident on the Queen Elizabeth Way.
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Robbie Robertson had been with him while James Robertson was stationed in Newfoundland with the Canadian Army, before she married James.
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When Robbie Robertson was 14, he worked two brief summer jobs in the travelling carnival circuit, first for a few days in a suburb of Toronto, and later as an assistant at a freak show for three weeks during the Canadian National Exhibition.
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Robbie Robertson drew from this for his song "Life is a Carnival" and the movie Carny, which he produced and starred in.
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Robbie Robertson stayed with the group for almost a year, playing popular songs of the day at local teen dances.
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Traynor and Robbie Robertson joined with pianist Scott Cushnie and became The Suedes.
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Robbie Robertson soon switched from bass to playing lead guitar for the Hawks.
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Robbie Robertson wrote all three of the tracks on Levon and the Hawks' Atco singles.
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Toward the end of Levon and the Hawks' second engagement at Tony Mart's in New Jersey, in August 1965, Robbie Robertson received a call from Albert Grossman Management requesting a meeting with singer Bob Dylan.
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Robbie Robertson suggested they use Levon Helm on drums for the shows.
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Robbie Robertson had met a French-Canadian woman on the Paris stop of Dylan's 1966 world tour, and the two moved into a house in the Woodstock area.
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In 1975, Robbie Robertson would produce an official compilation, The Basement Tapes, which included a selection of tracks from the sessions.
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However, when Robbie Robertson heard the tracks, he liked the starkness of the sound and recommended that Dylan leave the songs as they were.
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Robbie Robertson is listed in the songwriting credits as "JR Robbie Robertson".
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Robbie Robertson sang lead vocal on the track "To Kingdom Come"; he would not sing on another Band song released to the public until "Knockin' Lost John" on 1977's Islands.
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Robbie Robertson did most of the audio engineering on the album.
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Robbie Robertson brought in Todd Rundgren to engineer the album which was recorded in two weeks' time.
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Around the time of the recording of Moondog Matinee, Robbie Robertson began working on an ambitious project entitled Works that was never finished or released.
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One lyric from the Works project, "Lay a flower in the snow," was used in Robbie Robertson's song "Fallen Angel", which appeared on his 1987 self-titled solo album.
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Coincidentally, Robbie Robertson moved to Malibu in the summer of 1973, and by October of the year the rest of the members of the Band had followed suit, moving into properties near Zuma Beach.
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The album, produced by Robbie Robertson, featured a selection of tapes from the original 1967 Basement Tapes sessions with Dylan, as well as demos for tracks eventually recorded for the Music From Big Pink album.
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Robbie Robertson cleaned up the tracks, and the album was released in July 1975.
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Robbie Robertson was inspired to write "Acadian Driftwood" after seeing the documentary L'Acadie, l'Acadie on Canadian television while in Montreal.
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Helm later made the case in his autobiography, This Wheel's on Fire, that Robbie Robertson had forced the Band's breakup on the rest of the group.
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Robbie Robertson wanted to document the event on film, and approached director Martin Scorsese to see if he would be interested in shooting the concert.
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Jonathan Taplin assumed the role of executive producer, and Robbie Robertson worked as producer of the film.
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Just after 10 pm, Robbie Robertson introduced Ronnie Hawkins, the first onstage guest, with a succession of guest stars appearing with the group until just after midnight.
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Robbie Robertson produced Jesse Winchester's debut self-titled album, which was released in 1970 on Ampex Records.
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The album features Robbie Robertson playing guitar throughout the album, and co-credits the track "Snow" to Robbie Robertson as well.
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Robbie Robertson played guitar on ex-Beatle Ringo Starr's third solo album, Ringo, performing with four-fifths of the Band on the track "Sunshine Life For Me ".
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Robbie Robertson contributed a guitar solo on the track "Snookeroo" on Starr's fourth album, Goodnight Vienna.
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Robbie Robertson played guitar for Joni Mitchell on the track "Raised on Robbery", which was released on her album Court and Spark.
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In 1974, Robbie Robertson played guitar on Carly Simon's version of "Mockingbird", which featured Simon singing with her then-husband James Taylor.
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Robbie Robertson identified strongly with Martinez' music, helped him to secure a recording contract with Warner Bros.
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Robbie Robertson played guitar on Martinez' follow-up album, Big Bright Street.
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Robbie Robertson produced Diamond's live double album Love at the Greek, which was recorded in 1976 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.
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In 1977, Robbie Robertson contributed to two album projects from the Band alumni.
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Also in 1977, Robbie Robertson contributed to the second self-titled album by singer-songwriter Libby Titus, who was the former girlfriend of Levon Helm.
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Robbie Robertson produced the track "The Night You Took Me To Barbados In My Dreams", and produced and played guitar on the Cole Porter standard "Miss Otis Regrets".
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Robbie Robertson supplied three newly recorded instrumental jazz tracks for sourced music, which he produced.
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Robbie Robertson worked with Scorsese on selecting the film's opening theme music, choosing the intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana by Italian opera composer Pietro Mascagni.
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Robbie Robertson worked with Scorsese again on his next film, The King of Comedy, and is credited in the film's opening credits for "Music Production".
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Robbie Robertson contributed one original song, "Between Trains," to the film's soundtrack.
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Robbie Robertson produced the track, sings lead vocals, and plays guitar and keyboards; the Band alumni Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel appear on the track was well.
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In June 1986, Robbie Robertson began working with Scorsese on his next film The Color of Money.
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Robbie Robertson brought in Canadian jazz composer Gil Evans to orchestrate the arrangements.
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Robbie Robertson produced a song for the film with blues player Willie Dixon entitled "Don't Tell Me Nothin'"; Dixon's track was co-written with Robbie Robertson.
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Robbie Robertson chose fellow Canadian Daniel Lanois to produce the album.
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Robbie Robertson recorded at Bearsville Studios near Woodstock, New York, and in Dublin, Ireland, with U2, and in Bath, England, with Peter Gabriel.
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Robbie Robertson employed a number of guest artists on the album, including U2, Gabriel, the Bodeans, and Maria McKee.
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Robbie Robertson wrote one track, "Fallen Angel", in honor of Richard Manuel, after his passing in March 1986.
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Robbie Robertson received overwhelming critical acclaim at the time of its release, being listed in the Top-Ten Albums of the Year by several critics in Billboard magazine's 1987 "The Critics' Choice" end of the year feature.
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Robbie Robertson had his single largest hit in the UK with "Somewhere Down The Crazy River", which features his spoken word verses contrasted with singing in the choruses.
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In Canada, Robbie Robertson won Album Of The Year, Best Male Vocalist Of The Year and Producer Of The Year at the Juno Award ceremony in 1989.
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Robbie Robertson headed to New Orleans to collaborate with some of the city's natives like Aaron and Ivan Neville and the Rebirth Brass Band.
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Once again, Robbie Robertson brought in Band alumni Garth Hudson and Rick Danko as contributors.
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In 1984, Robbie Robertson co-produced the track "The Best of Everything" with Tom Petty for the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album Southern Accents.
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Robbie Robertson worked on the horn arrangements for the track, and brought in Band alumni Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson as guests.
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In 1986, Robbie Robertson appeared as a guest on the album Reconciled by the Call, playing guitar on the track "The Morning".
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Robbie Robertson appears in film, interviewing Chuck Berry, and then playing guitar while Berry recites poetry.
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In 1988, Robbie Robertson collaborated as a songwriter with Lone Justice lead singer Maria McKee.
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In 1989, Robbie Robertson recorded and produced a new version of the Band's "Christmas Must Be Tonight" for the Scrooged soundtrack.
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In 1990, Robbie Robertson appeared as a guest on the Ryuichi Sakamoto album Beauty, playing guitar on the song "Romance".
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Robbie Robertson contributed to the world music video and album production One World One Voice.
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In 1992, Robbie Robertson produced the song "Love in Time" for Roy Orbison's posthumous album King of Hearts.
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Robbie Robertson set about augmenting Orbison's basic vocal track with new arrangements and instrumentation, with the intent of making it sound like the arrangements were there from the beginning instead of later additions.
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Music for the Native Americans : In 1994, Robbie Robertson returned to his roots, forming a Native American group called the Red Road Ensemble for Music for the Native Americans, a collection of songs that accompanied a television documentary series produced by TBS.
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Robbie Robertson headlined the festival along with other Native American musicians, and portions of the live performance appeared in a PBS documentary.
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Contact from the Underworld of Redboy : On Contact from the Underworld of Redboy, Robbie Robertson departed from his typical production style and delved deep into a mix of rock, native, and electronic music.
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Robbie Robertson employed the services of Howie B, DJ Premier, and producer Marius de Vries.
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The album's opening track, "The Sound Is Fading", samples a recording of a young Native American singer from the 1940s that Robbie Robertson got from the Library Of Congress, and the song "Sacrifice" includes parts of an interview from prison with Leonard Peltier set to a soundscape produced by Robbie Robertson and de Vries.
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The racial epithet in the album's title comes from an experience Robbie Robertson had where some bullies referred to him as "Red Boy" while he was playing with his cousins.
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Robbie Robertson performed "He Don't Live Here No More" on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman and Later.
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Robbie Robertson appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon performing the song "Straight Down The Line," with Robert Randolph and the Roots.
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Robbie Robertson teamed with painter and photographer Richard Prince to produce a special limited-edition collector's release of the album.
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Robbie Robertson worked on Martin Scorsese's movies Casino, The Departed, and Gangs of New York, and he provided music supervision for Shutter Island, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Silence.
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In 1996, as executive soundtrack producer, Robbie Robertson heard a demo of Change the World and sent it to Clapton as a suggestion for the soundtrack of Phenomenon, starring John Travolta.
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In 1999, Robbie Robertson contributed songs to Oliver Stone's film, Any Given Sunday.
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In 2000, David Geffen and Mo Ostin convinced Robbie Robertson to join DreamWorks Records as creative executive.
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On February 9,2002, Robbie Robertson performed "Stomp Dance " as part of the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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In 2005, Robbie Robertson was executive producer of the definitive box set for the Band, entitled A Musical History.
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On July 28,2007, at Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival in Bridgeview, Illinois, Robbie Robertson made a rare live appearance.
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Also in 2007, Robbie Robertson accepted an invitation to participate in Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino.
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In 1997, Robbie Robertson received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Songwriters.
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At the 2003 commencement ceremonies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Robbie Robertson delivered an address to the graduating class and was awarded an honorary degree by the university.
101.
In 2003, Robbie Robertson received the Indspire Aboriginal Lifetime Achievement Award.
102.
In 2003, Robbie Robertson was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.
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In 2005, Robbie Robertson received an honorary doctorate from York University.
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In 2011, Robbie Robertson was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
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On May 27,2011, Robbie Robertson was made an Officer of the Order of Canada by Governor General David Johnston.
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October 14,2017 Robbie Robertson receives the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Native American Music Awards.
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Robbie Robertson co-authored Legends, Icons and Rebels: Music That Changed the World with his son, Sebastian Robbie Robertson, and colleagues Jim Guerinot and Jared Levine.
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Robbie Robertson wrote Hiawatha and the Peacemaker, illustrated by David Shannon.
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On March 24,1968, Robbie Robertson married Dominique Bourgeois, a Canadian journalist.
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In March 2022 Robbie Robertson became engaged to his girlfriend of four years, Canadian entrepreneur, restaurateur, and Top Chef Canada judge Janet Zuccarini.
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Robbie Robertson is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.