(Credits: Far Out / United Artists Films)
Bob Dylan has paid tribute to his former bandmate and friend Robbie Robertson with a touching public statement. The announcement of Robertson’s death arrived on August 9th. He was 80 years old.
Dylan’s brief message simply reads: “This is shocking news. Robbie was a lifelong friend. His passing leaves a vacancy in the world.”
Robertson was a pivotal influence on Dylan’s changing sound as he played guitar with the folk star during his electric transition. Robertson told the Los Angeles Times that this moment in life was also eye-opening for him. “When I started playing with Bob, I didn’t know how so much vocal power could come out of this frail man,” he recalled.
Continuing: “He was so thin. He was singing louder and stronger than James Brown. We were in a battlefield on that tour, and you had to fight back.” While after this period, The Band would go it alone, ties with Dylan were always evident.
In fact, the pair almost worked together again on Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways, with Robertson sadly explaining to Rolling Stone that the scheduling clashed with his work on the score for Martin Scorcese’s The Irishman. “I said, ‘Right now, I’m in the middle of this stuff,’ and I think that he just felt like it was cooked and he needed to bring it out of the oven,” Robertson said.
Dylan has not been alone in paying tribute to ‘The Weight’ star. Actor Kiefer Sutherland, another Canadian native, posted a memorial to Robertson, stating, “The loss of Robbie Robertson is heartbreaking. Canada has lost an icon, and music has lost a poet and a scholar”.
He is survived by his three children and the vast body of work he left behind.
