Six Nations helped shape Robbie Robertson’s musical career

Robbie Robertson was a musician, songwriter, film composer, actor, author and master storyteller.

He was also a proud Haudenosaunee man, said former Six Nations elected chief Ava Hill who died his death on Wednesday at age 80.

Robertson was born in Toronto, part-Jewish, part Mohawk, and spent summers at Six Nations of the Grand River where his mother, Rosemarie Dolly Chrysler, grew up.

It was there that a young Robertson first heard the music that would define his life.

“All my aunts and uncles and everybody seemed like they could play an instrument,” Robertson told a crowd gathered at the Six Nations Convention Center in 2017 when he became the first recipient of the Six Nations of the Grand River Lifetime Achievement Award.

“It was on Second Line and Tuscarora Road where my music connection began. I knew I needed to get on this. My uncles and cousins ​​showing me where to put my fingers on the neck of a guitar was the genesis of my whole music career.”

But Robertson, The Band’s lead guitarist and songwriter who wrote such classics as The Weight, Up on Cripple Creek and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, came to embrace his Indigenous roots later in life. During an interview in 2017, he said he didn’t talk about his heritage very much early in his career. That changed when he released his first solo album in 1987, called Robbie Robertson, featuring hits Showdown at Big Sky and Broken Arrow, which displayed a reverence for First Nations through its rhythm and lyrics.

Hill said she and Robertson kept in touch after his visit to Six Nations to receive his award. She said he got his status card, which verifies a person’s First Nation heritage, that same day.

“He was so proud to be there,” said Hill. “He was so excited to get his picture taken for the card. He was wonderful. I just loved listening to him and talking to him. He was so open and accessible. He was just a nice guy.”

Mentored by his Six Nations family members, Robertson was a teenager when he was hired by Arkansas-based rockabiliy group Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, first as a crew member and then a bass player and lead guitarist for the Hawk, soon developing into a guitar virtuoso.

The Hawks left Ronnie Hawkins in 1964, joining Bob Dylan for his first electric tour in the mid-1960s. After leaving Dylan and changing their name to The Band, they released several records to critical and popular acclaim, including their debut album Music from Big Pink in 1968. Together, The Band, including Canadians Robertson, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel and American Levon Helm, created their own roots rock sound, a hybrid of country, folk, blues and rock.

Music From Big Pink included the Robertson-penned classic The Weight.

“Music From Big Pink changed everything,” Randy Andropolis, a senior lecturer in Niagara University’s department of theater and fine arts, told the Six Nations audience in 2017. “It brought music back to earth. The songwriting was so rich and evocative. It gave us all pause.”

Commercial success soon followed with The Band’s 1969 self-titled release, which featured Up on Cripple Creek and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Behind the scenes, Robertson wrote many of the group’s songs and was praised for his storytelling abilities. The group became part of music history as one of the acts at the legendary Woodstock Festival held that year.

When The Band called it quits in 1976, Martin Scorsese filmed their final concert and later released it as the highly-praised The Last Waltz.

Working with Scorsese, Robertson served as producer and arranger for the soundtracks to several films, including Raging Bull and The Color of Money.

In 1994, Robertson returned to his roots with Music for the Native Americans. Native American music also informed his next work, 1998’s Contact from the Underworld of Redboy. Additionally, he created a documentary for television on the subject, Making a Noise: A Native American Journey with Robbie Robertson.

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 on his own. He is ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest guitarists. He has won several Juno awards, is an officer of the Order of Canada, and received the Governor General’s performing arts award.

In 2016, Robertson released his autobiography, Testimony, which ends with The Band’s final performance documented in The Last Waltz.

Robertson’s publicist announced he died in Los Angeles on Wednesday “after a lengthy illness.” Hill said she didn’t know he had been ill and news of his death came as a “complete shock.” She said she sent him a “Happy Birthday from The Bush (Six Nations)” message when he turned 80 in July and he thanked her.

Robertson’s family contacted Hill to ask how to best direct donations in his honor to a Six Nations’ cause. Robertson had recently become the honorary chair of a campaign to build a new Woodland Cultural Centre. The family has asked that in lieu of flowers or gifts, donations be made to the centre.

“I told the family we had many needs in the community,” said Hill. “This seemed to fit. The impact of them doing this is probably going to be huge.”

Heather George, the new executive director at Woodland, said a capital campaign for a new building aims to raise $65 million. She said the current building was constructed in the 1950s and served as classrooms and a gym for the former Mohawk Institute residential school. In 1971, it became a gallery and performance space dedicated to preserving and promoting Indigenous history and culture.

George said many donations have already come in “from all over” in memory of Robertson.

“It’s incredibly generous for his family to direct the funds to Woodland where we will continue the legacy of supporting Indigenous artists and musicians.”