Top 10 Songs by Robbie Robertson, Including Collaborations with The Band and Solo Projects

10.08.2023

One of one of the most essential voices in rock of the late 1960s as well as very early ’70s — despite the fact that he didn’t sing lead on much of his most popular tracks — died today. Robbie Robertson, guitar player as well as main songwriter for Rock as well as Roll Hall of Famers The Band (as well as later on solo entertainer as well as movie author), died Wednesday (Aug. 9) at age 80 after a lengthy health problem.

Growing out of the team The Hawks, which acted as the support band for rockabilly vocalist Ronnie Hawkins and afterwards fabulous singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, The Band arised in the late ’60s as a totally created rock attire, with a set of traditional cds: 1968’s Music From Big Pink as well as 1969’s self-titled cd. The team’s rootsy audio as well as emotional efficiencies, incorporated with Robertson’s expressive as well as enigmatic songwriting as well as solid flair for tune, assisted establish the very early requirement for the crossbreed style that would at some point come to be referred to as Americana, motivating whole generations of future artists.

As The Band fractured throughout the ’70s, Robertson likewise ended up being a sought-after manufacturer as well as visitor guitar player — and afterwards in the ’80s, he likewise started a lengthy partnership with filmmaking excellent Martin Scorsese, scoring his The Color of Money (as well as, a lot later on, The Irishman) as well as supplying added songs as well as songs guidance to numerous various other Scorsese movies. He likewise introduced a well-known solo profession, with his self-titled 1987 launching winning the Juno Award in his indigenous Canada for cd of the year.

With a decades-spanning profession that continued to be appropriate as well as important for numerous years after his launching, Robertson’s magazine rankings amongst one of the most important of the rock period. Here are our team’s choices for his most important tracks, provided in sequential order.

“Look Out Cleveland” (The Band)

Something of an outlier amongst The Band’s primarily rootsy very first 2 cds, “Look Out Cleveland” is a rollicking blast of bar-band blues, where the team’s background support Ronnie Hawkins as well as Bob Dylan appears in framework as well as admirable implementation. Rick Danko successfully offers both Robertson’s verses, created from the viewpoint of a storyteller caution people concerning a tornado rolling right into community, as well as his crucial, with a jumping bass line. Surprisingly, “Look Out Cleveland” has actually tackled a 2nd life in the last few years in the jam-band area: Phish covered the track in 2010, as well as the increasing Connecticut team Goose has actually played it numerous times given that presenting the track to its arsenal in 2020. — ERIC RENNER BROWN
“Chest Fever” (Music From Big Pink)

With expressive, elliptical machine lines like “She’s been down in the dunes/ And she’s dealt with goons,” “Chest Fever” is an excellent piece of The Band’s rustic psychedelia — as well as, fittingly, in 1969, the team opened their Woodstock established with the Music From Big Pink track. Garth Hudson’s virtuosic body organ, which leans greatly on Bach’s “Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor,” specifies the track, however its unrelenting, driving crucial is all Robertson. (Levon Helm would certainly later on challenge Robertson’s debt as single verse author.) Not that any one of this implied much to Robertson, that would certainly later say, “If you like ‘Chest Fever,’ it’s for God knows what reason. … It doesn’t make particularly any kind of sense in the lyrics, in the music, in the arrangement, in anything.” — E.R.B.
“Broken Arrow” (Robbie Robertson)

One of Robertson’s most enchanting tracks, “Broken Arrow” is from his 1987 self-titled solo cd. Atmospheric as well as wonderful, Robertson sings of a companion that transforms his “whole world around.” “I gotta hold you in these arms of steel/ Lay your heart on the line,” as he counts “the beads of sweat that cover me.” Whether it is or otherwise, the entire event really feels a little restricted as well as private, contributing to its allure. Rod Stewart had actually a struck with the track, taking his variation to No. 20 in 1991. — MELINDA NEWMAN
“To Kingdom Come” (Music From Big Pink)

Like a lot of the tracks on Music From Big Pink, “To Kingdom Come” is a teamwork; it’s tough to envision its bubbly groove with no of The Band’s participants. But Robertson’s the track’s MVP: He penciled the song, together with its cost-effective however dazzling scriptural verses; provided its legendary, lilting guitar solo, which proceeds right into the perspective also as the track goes out; as well as also took an uncommon as well as engaging lead singing turn. Appropriately, the band’s two-disc 1989 greatest-hits collection utilized the track as its name. — E.R.B.
“Rag Mama Rag” (The Band)

The loosey-goosey feeling of “Rag Mama Rag” is willful; to drink points up, the team’s participants moved to tools they didn’t typically play, such as Levon Helm playing mandolin rather than drums, along with vocal singing lead, while pianist Richard Manuel played drums. But it’s Garth Hudson’s upright, ragtime-style piano playing that actually supports the track, as the rollicking song seems like it’s floating out right into the evening from a New Orleans jazz hall. — M.N.
“This Wheel’s on Fire” (Music From Big Pink)

Written by Bob Dylan as well as Band bassist Rick Danko, “This Wheel’s on Fire” notes among the team’s most distressing documents — a haunted near-dirge with an ambiguous verse as well as beautiful carolers consistencies, as well as Robertson’s burning guitar job supplying an uncommon source of security. The memory of “Wheel” offered it well, as it got a vast array of remarkable covers over the succeeding years, consisting of a creepy barroom-sing-along variation with Dylan himself on 1975’s The Basement Tapes, an almost-discofied performance from Siouxsie and the Banshees in 1987, as well as a 1968 U.K. struck cover from Julie Driscoll with Brian Auger and the Trinity, re-recorded by Driscoll in the ’90s for the theme to British funny collection Absolutely Fabulous. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER
“The Shape I’m In” (Stage Fright)

Though musically “The Shape I’m In” is just one of The Band’s liveliest, most positive songs, lyrically the 1970 song from Stage Fright has to do with a depressing sack down on his good luck, fresh out of 60 days behind bars for “having no dough,” as well as missing out on “his lady.” As Robertson creates, “Out of nine lives/ I spent seven/ Now, how in the world do you get to heaven?” Richard Manuel’s woebegone singing distribution is excellence. — M.N.
“Somewhere Down the Crazy River” (Robbie Robertson)

Featured on Robertson’s 1987 self-titled launching solo cd, the percussive, rambling story has Robertson talking the knowledgeables as well as weaving among his most motion picture as well as sexiest stories. Even if the verses are enigmatic, it doesn’t matter due to the fact that “Somewhere Down the Crazy River” is everything about the feeling. Just attempt not to shudder when he claims, “You like it now, but you’ll learn to love it later” (with “it” being open to all type of analysis). Bolstered by The Bodeans’ Sam Llanas’ backing vocals as well as Manu Katche’s drumming, Robertson begins a fire that is still smoldering by track’s end. — M.N.
“Up on Cripple Creek” (The Band)

One of The Band’s funkiest tracks, many thanks to Levon Helm’s boggy, yodeling vocals as well as Garth Hudson’s clavinet with wah-wah pedal, “Up on Cripple Creek,” from the team’s self-titled 2nd cd, is likewise among their most enjoyable, with Robertson’s verses concerning Little Bessie that’s “a drunkard’s dream if I ever did see one” as well as the dual entendre of “when that little love of mine dips her doughnut in my tea.” Also significant for the referral to 1950s bandleader Spike Jones, whose wacky setups Robertson appreciated. — M.N.
“The Night They Drive Old Dixie Down” (The Band)

In some means, it’s paradoxical that one of the greatest songs concerning the American Civil War was created by a Canadian. And while occasionally slammed because of its verses originating from the perspective of a beat Confederate soldier, the track is anything however a glorification of the Confederacy, rather a dewy-eyed coming to grips with the after-effects of battle as well as the destruction of the land, as well as of many family members, that it functioned. Levon Helm’s vocals trickle with feeling, while the hook is just one of one of the most unforgettable in the traditional rock canon, with support vocals that just enhance the rawness of the topic available. It’s a real testimony to Robertson’s songwriting capacity that he had the ability to invoke such a nuanced track from such a ruthless item of an additional nation’s background. — DAN RYS
“The Weight” (Music From Big Pink)

Perhaps The Band’s most recognizable song from Music From the Big Pink, the midtempo, ambling track, attributed to Robertson as well as sung by Levon Helm as well as Rick Danko, is a tourist’s take on showing up in a community called Nazareth as well as his journeys therein. The personalities stated, consisting of Fanny, that’s taking the typical tons off in the verses, were supposedly based upon individuals in Helm’s life as well as influenced by Robertson’s love of the flicks of Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel. The track came to a head at No. 63 on the Hot 100 for The Band, however Aretha’s variation got to No. 19 in 1969. — M.N.