Episode 98 - Robbie Robertson

The night they drove old Dixie down, the shape I'm in, and up on Cripple Creek to name but several.

The band continued under their own steam, resulting in their nineteen sixty eight debut album Music from Big Pink.

until something feels good. And then if something comes to mind all of a sudden some words start appearing. That's the obvious. And that happens on rare occasions. And I think that perhaps when I think about it maybe a little bit more years ago than it does now. Right. There are so many other ways to go about it as time goes on. So then there is the next most obvious way that it happens is that you find something musically that feels good.

And this has been going along for a long time for me, that you feel something and it's either rhythmic And it can be on, you know, a drum uh machine or anything. You think, ah, something about that just makes me wanna do something. Makes me wanna explore some chord changes or some riffs or some feels and so you kinda join in and you go along and then if you happen to find the beginning of a structure. Then you follow that path. Then you stay with it. Sometimes you're doing it

And it's okay where you are, but it doesn't go anywhere. Then you usually drift off and you know, you lose your attention span with it. But where this is going is to build something musically, a foundation that you think I can write something to this, I can write some words to this.

It either feels good enough, or the structure, or the chord changes, or something is inspiring enough. Now, this reminds me, and it goes back. to the early days of Tin Pan Alley when there would be the guy who would write the music usually on a piano, right? He would write some chord changes and a melody. And then another guy that he works with would write words to that. Very, very common. A lot of times, songwriting, a two man job. So the Gershwin brothers.

George Gershwin writes a thing, Wow, I got something going here. Ira, come on over here. I think I got something, right? Now, in some cases, they don't have anybody to call in and write the other part, right? So you gotta do it all yourself. And sometimes a lot of songwriters only wanna do it themselves. For example, uh Paul Simon. I think for the most part He makes a track. It isn't just, you know, a guitar and uh and a melody and I'll write some words to that. Now he makes a track.

and the track is inspiring enough to write to. And you kick around ideas that sound good, feel good, or you look at your notebook that you've written down some uh some clues. Songwriting clues can be a big thing too. And then there is all of the other ways that you don't know where any of this is coming from. And sometimes you just think of a title of a song and that's enough of a clue to go on. Sometimes you find three little notes that when you play them a certain way

it just cries out to keep going, to keep doing that, and then you'll do something against that. And that's the origin of it. So we could talk for hours about these origins, about these clues that set something off. And so for me, the way it's always been is I've just tried to stay in this place Of being receptive and being open. It's almost a bit of a game of trying to catch yourself off guard.

Like you're kind of walking by the piano and you look at it out of the side of your eye and all of a sudden you jump down and you just start playing something and you don't know what you're gonna play or why you're gonna play at anything. And you're just hoping that you'll trip over the right mistake. And a lot of times it can be something like that. Like

I don't wanna tell the muse that I'm gonna write a song. I'm gonna sneak up on her and surprise her and then maybe I won't get stuck in that place of the usual We know what you're gonna try to do and we're not gonna give you any ideas. We're just gonna let you struggle and beat your head against the wall. That's what we're trying to avoid. So anyway, so this day and after all of these years. I love this process. You throw a hook in the water and you see if you can catch something.

Well, for me, sometimes I would get it, and sometimes I would lose patience with it. And I couldn't quite do what the guy was doing. So I would say, Oh nuts, the heck with it. I'll just make up my own. And so I would then go off and try to find something that that inspired me to do, but that was original. And not because of originality, because of frustration, you know, and lacking some kind of skills. You know, but you do think, well, in time I'll be able to master that.

And sometimes I would be playing with another guitar guy and he'd figured it out and he would show it to me and that would be a shortcut. But in the meantime, I'd already found another riff of my own. And I like that feeling. I was drawn to that. So that's what I mean by you get it any way you can.

to create in that kind of way, wherever that comes from, whatever that is. So by now I'm fifteen and I think The Brill Building. This is where these guys and these women come every day and they write songs and they send them out to the whole wide world.

Wow, what can possibly be better than that? And that was the feeling that I went in there with. Then to be introduced to Otis Blackwell. Otis Blackwell had written Don't Be Cruel for Elvis Presley and Great Balls of Fire for Jerry Lee Lord. So you think, My God. So anyway, I meet Otis Blackwell and he goes over to a little piano he has in his writing room in the building. Waves me over. And then he played me a couple of little tunes he was working on. And they were fabulous.

But I knew that they weren't exactly what Ronnie was looking for. But I had met the great Otis Blackwell. So then I go to another room. And it's Doc Thomas and Mark Schumann. Right. And they are fascinating guys. They're great characters as well as amazing songwriters. So you know, they're thinking about it with one another, talking about Ronnie Hawkins and

Ronnie Hawkins was an extremely lovable character and very funny. When he met them, He said, I want you to know there is no difference between Elvis Presley and me. except for looks and talent.

because they're thinking about Ronnie and what would be truthful and Ronnie was had a wonderful loose craziness about him. And then Mort says, I know, but he's from Arkansas. Maybe we should write one of those songs like Kansas City or something about Arkansas in this case. And they were asking me things as they were going along. Do you think Ronnie would like this? And I was, you know, doing my best to give them the feedback that they were looking for.

But they said, Okay, just give us a little bit of time and I'm like, These are the guys that wrote Save the Last Dance for Me. They want some time and I was like, Take all the time you want, you know? If you're gonna write something that amazing. And then I go to the next room in a celebre installer. And these guys, there's something about the feeling with them. that they've got some kind of a system down. They've got a routine. And that's how it works.

And Jerry Lieber, he was kind of the word Meister guy. You know, he was thinking of catchy phrases and and these are the guys that wrote Hound Dog and Kansas City for that matter. And Mike Stoller, he was the guy that would try to find that feel good thing on the piano. And it would be something that Jerry would say, Whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute. Play that. Bring it up a key. Let's see. Oh, that's great. Okay. So, anyway, to see their process.

was quite magical and I thought, God, look at that. Lever and Stoller are playing songs for me, right? And I'm so honored and impressed, you know, just having the opportunity to be there, that I can't help it. And I said, God, that was great. Do you have another one?

And they would think for a minute and Mike would play around and Jerry would say, Oh yeah, that reminds me of the one. Remember the one with the blah blah blah blah? And then they would play a little bit of something else, perhaps unfinished. And all of a sudden Jerry Lieber said, Wait, wait, wait wait, wait. Who are you again? Right. They're playing these songs. I'm a kid. And I'm asking them for more, right? And so anyway, they kind of busted me on the spot and you know and I

said, Oh, I'm just, you know, with Ronnie Hawkins and trying to and they were like, Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, okay. Then I went on to do other things and I'd be involved with Libra and Stoller on a project here or there. And then the band happened and Libra and Stoller felt like they were a part of that.

And so did Doc and Mort and and I was the one guy in the Hawks and in the band that because of my songwriting hunger and appreciation that I stayed friends with them and in touch with them, you know, all of their lives.

these sorts of southern standards that you wrote, you know, like the weight and the night they drove old Dixie down. If you could talk a little bit about how those songs actually came about, we'd love to know.

soul that it overwhelmed me. It washed over me and I felt my job was to absorb as much as I could, as fast as I could, first of all, to become part of this group. because I went down there with serious handicaps and limitations. First of all, I was sixteen years old and I was way too young to play in any of the places that Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks played. Next of all... I was inexperienced. I didn't have near the musicianship experience as these other guys in the hog.

had. And Ronnie Hawkins was always looking to put together the most amazing group he possibly could. And then lastly, I was from Canada. There's no Canadians and Rockabilly bands in the South.

So I had all of these things going, but because we were down in the south, we were playing the Chitlin circuit down there, I needed to wrap myself in this. as deeply as I possibly could.

Years later, when we get this house called Big Bink, and now I think, now I'm going to write the songs that I've been wanting to write all these years, but we've been on the road nonstop. and I wasn't really good at writing on the fly. I needed to be somewhere and have some kind of a a setting that I felt like I didn't need to pack and move on to the next place. And I started to think about songwriting up there near Woodstock, New York. We got this sanctuary.

now I can do what my dream has been because I've been writing songs all along. for the Hawks and everything, but it would be like, you know, we'd be going into the studio on Thursday and Wednesday night, I would have to think of something for us to record the next day. And so I felt a frustration of never being able to really settle in and do what I needed to do.

So when we get this place up there, like I said, it's like a dream for me. And then when I reach in and want to write the songs that I can imagine the band recording. I know these guys. I know what they can play better than anybody. I know what they can sing better than anybody. So I've got to write the script. I've got to write something that is tailor made for these different guys. And I could sit back and look at it and think

Ah, I know what to do here. Now if he comes in and sings the high part in the chorus, then Rick starts singing the melody there. That's gonna work. So I knew all of these things. and I could tailor make stuff for our little workshop. It was kind of a setting of a workshop. that we would go in and my job was to cast these songs amongst these guys in this group. And I loved that process and they loved this process.

for a Levon and he said, you know, son, I think you're getting somewhere with this. That's beautiful. And I said, I've decided I wanna write this from the southern side on the Civil War. And he was kinda like, Whoa, really? You know, thinking songs are usually, you know, have a lighter uh story to them or something than that. It was a very unusual thought at the time. So I said, but I need to know more.

So I said, I'm gonna go look up some things on the Civil War. I'm from Canada. You know, they don't teach the Civil War in school in Canada. So he said, Come on, I'll drive you over uh to the Woodstock Library. So I went over there and I got a couple of books, but it was hard to find something that was ready. from the southern point of view. It was written from the northern point of view. So I had to make it up. I had to make it up and I said to Levon, Is there anything

that I need to know, is there any clues or anything? And he said, just don't mention Abraham Lincoln in it. I was like, Whoa, really? Yeah, because he was against uh segregation and uh you know, and wanted to to unify the country. So uh from the southern point of view they didn't like Abraham like So I was like, Oh, okay. You know, we won't be uh bringing that up then. And so anyway, uh just with a little bit of research, I was trying to make a little movie.

and writing the night they drove old Dixie down. And I did that in quite a few songs that I wrote'cause I was a movie buff myself. as much as I could be, you know, being on the road and everything back then. And I was using this process, I found a place where I could buy movie script. of movies that I love. There was this bookstore on Forty Seventh Street in New York.

So I could buy the script for an Ingmar Bergman movie or a Fellini movie or a Karasawa movie or John Ford or Howard Hawks or Orson Wells and I love this'cause to me it revealed a mystery you know, that when I was watching a movie I'd say, How in the hell did they think of that? How did they do that? What made them blah blah blah? And when I would read these scripts I would go, aha, I see. So it took me inside of a world that ended up becoming part of my songwriting process.

But in my own personal story, I got in the middle of these things, sometimes in over my head. You know, the world of gangsters and the mafia and carnivals and you know, all kinds of underbelly places that I was intrigued with, as you are in movies, as you are in books, as you are in imagining what these things would be. So my imagination was never on simmer. You know, I was always trying to write songs. about things outside of

the usual. And of course Bob Dylan, you know, he helped kick down those doors. for songwriters. The length of a song doesn't have to be what it always was. The subject matters don't have to be what they always were. He could get away with writing songs about how pissed off he was with somebody, you know. But he had written these story songs too in the early days.

about all kinds of things. And so that also raised the bar and everybody was able to feel like there was less Limitations on the whole idea of

You know, and we got through that alive so to speak. We were ready for anything after that. You know, we played all over the world and people booed us and sometimes threw stuff at us every night. and at the same time we came to the conclusion that what we were doing was good. And you're gonna have to deal with it. We ain't going nowhere, you know? And eventually the world came around. So it's one of those things where when you're in the middle of doing stuff you really don't

You don't understand how it's going to be looked back upon. But we did understand that we were in the middle of a musical revolution and we had to see it through.

And then being a place and saying, wait a minute, do you hear that? And we'd have to go check it out and there'd just be people singing in a church. And it would be this thing called sacred harp singing. They called it old harp singing. and shape note singing. And we would hear these things from Canada all the way to New Orleans. all of this stuff and mixing it together and in New York City, you know, music that was on the streets and things that you would hear in the back rooms

places, you know, that would inspire something like Rag Mama Rag. A big part of music at one time was ragtime. And it's beautiful and it's got a feel to it and it's got a certain celebration of life. We gotta get in on this. So you just keep absorbing and absorbing and in our minds it was like wood shedding. It was like learning your craft. being able to bring all these musicalities in, then you hear this mountain music.

And it was like, Oh my God, are these people what they're doing with their voices and the sound of that mandolin, wow. So all of these elements kept creeping into our gumbo of music that we picked up from along the side of the road. You gotta remember we were together for six or seven years. before we made music from big things. and in all of our experience of the Chitlin circuit and everything else that you could possibly throw into this pod and then

Bob Dylan and all of the musicalities. It was a lot of things in the basement tapes that he turned us onto. from his background that I couldn't tell on some of these songs whether he wrote it or whether it was a traditional song that I didn't know about.

And so that was really interesting too. And then when we made our music, all of these pieces started to creep into it naturally. And Garth Hudson is a musicologist and did have the ability to incorporate in his playing just about anything you could

singing it, sounds great playing it. We cut it and we get a track that we really like. And Garth has played some interesting stuff on it. So then something inside of me was saying There's much more in the flavor of this song that you don't know whether it's New Orleansy or what the hell this is. It's got a thing to it. So I said to Garth Why don't you see what comes to you in adding some horns to this? It's just the nature of the music seems to be crying out for some of that.

So Gar says, Okay, let me see what I can come up with. So on the track he's playing horns that he doesn't even play usually, but he's good at it. And he's doing this combination of horns and synthesizer, but this is early synthesizer kind of stuff. You don't know what the hell's going on here, except that it's really good, whatever it is. So anyway, Garth he starts this thing and he plays these horns and he's he's doing the whole thing.

you know, by himself. He'll add this, then he'll add that, and then he puts this with that, and he has this little combination of a kind of horn section from Mars. Right. But it's not weird. It's not trying to be anything unusual. It's just you know, something really true to what he hears. So I come back to the studio and I hear what he's doing and I thought, Oh my God.

This might have been one of the greatest things that Garth Hudson has ever done and it blew me away and it made my guitar playing on it and everything really just it it just made me look good.

I'm playing with certain people and I do say to myself, We're doing something here. I have no idea whether the outside world is going to be able to understand and not that it's complicated or anything, it's just a musicality of me mixing stuff together again and coming up with something it's almost like an inside joke. that if you're not coming from a certain place or if your ear isn't open or if you've never heard this or if you've never heard that or something, you may not get it.

and I'm sorry, I can't help you with that right now. I've got to do this. So it's maybe a slight arrogance musically, but sometimes you just gotta go with what you

Sometimes with a drum beat of what I was thinking about, of what I was getting at. And Marty would take these things and started putting it into the movie. And I said, no, no, no, no. This is just I'm writing a sketch of the idea. Then I would want to do it, you know, with the musicians and everything. And Marty was saying, no, no, it's

It's really unusual and it's working well. Just having this man humming the melodies and playing along with it. I've never heard that before. So he said, Who would you want to work with? and I said, I want to have Gil Evans the brilliant, great Gil Evans orchestrate the background music that goes with these things that I'm humming. And I would like to have Willie Dixon on my team too, one of my favorite songwriters that's ever existed, right? So Marty's like, Wow

You mean Gil Evans that did all that stuff with Miles Davis? And I said, Yeah I said, He's from Canada too. He's from Toronto as well. So we we ended up doing this music together and then Marty was saying four songs in the movie. I said, Well I'm gonna I'll do one, you know, with Willie. But he said, Who else would you like to do one with? And I said, Eric Clapton. I think we should ask Eric to see what he could come up with.

So Marty loves Derek and the Dominoes and he said, Oh great. So anyway, Eric writes a song. for it and sends it to us and Marty says It sounds good and, you know, it could work, but he's doing rule number one of what you must never do. And I'm like, whoa, uh what is that? He says in the song he's telling what's going to happen next in the movie.

We came up with some things over the phone and Eric finished it up and it turned out to be r you know, a really cool trip.

We're fans of your self titled um solo album and we wondered if there was a story behind the writing of Somewhere Down the Crazy River.

in funny places and it would do something. And I think, oh, that's kind of interesting. Ah, that's got something. So I started writing this track And then we laid it down in the studio with the musicians that I was working with, um Manu Cachet, the drummer and and Tony Levin and so anyway we laid down this track And it had a real swampy, sexy vibe to it. So then we're in the studio and I don't know what I'm gonna do with this.

song melodically after this or lyrically. We just got like a really cool vibe going on it. and we were sitting in the studio and we were listening to the track because Daniel was saying, Well, what are you gonna sing to it? and he put a microphone in front of me and I didn't know what I was gonna sing to it. But while the track was playing, I started to tell him a story about an experience that I had down south.

going to this place called Nick's Cafe down there, and it's down in Helena, Arkansas, but it was reminding me of times that I had spent in New Orleans And there was this girl that I'd met in New Orleans who whenever she got frustrated with something She had this expression that she would say, Oh, hang the rich you know. And and it was like you could only get away with this in the South I thought, you know. And so I was telling him this story

and they were recording it, which I didn't know, at the same time. So then Daniel says, Let's play this back. That story's fantastic and so we heard that back. And that was like, Oh, okay, you know, I'll write a chorus that I can sing a m a melody thing and and I'll tell the story in the verse. Right. And I was having these guys in a group called the Bodines sing some background vocals for me.

and I had when I would sing this somewhere down the crazy river, I had Sammy Bodine just repeat that after me. And I don't know, the whole thing was just a vibe that came together. And we didn't know that it was gonna turn out to be what it was at all. We had nothing to compare it to. So we didn't know what we had, but we knew that we were grooving on.

We just said, I'm gonna go over here for a while and someone else said, Well, I'm gonna go over there for a while and then it was like we never came back. You know, when I talk about this is where I get off This is where I move on. I was absolutely reflecting on some experiences in life and a big one for me was, you know, leaving the band behind. Well, yeah.