August 9, 2023 • 54 mins
In honor of Robbie Robertson’s passing, we’re replaying an old episode of Broken Record featuring Robbie in conversation with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell and Bruce Headlam.
When Robbie Robertson turned a house perched above a Malibu beach into a home studio in the 1970's, he had no idea it'd remain a refuge for artists decades later. In this episode, Robbie returns to Shangri La—now the home of our own Rick Rubin—to discuss creating the studio, helping Bob Dylan go electric with The Band, writing "The Weight" and collaborating with Martin Scorsese on his films.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin, Pushkin. Hey everyone, this is a bit of a
special episode of Broken Record, not just because it features
(00:36):
Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, and Bruce Headlam all at once,
but because it happened at the spiritual home Shangri La.
Of today's guest, that's the band's Robbie Robertson, who reminisces
about converting a home in Malibu into the now legendary
recording studio run by Rick, before moving on to discussing
(00:56):
the band's early days as backup for a rockabilly singer
when they were known as the Hawks, and they also
discussed Robbie's longtime work with director Martin Scorsese, which earned
him an Oscar nomination at this year's Academy Awards. We
should also note that if you liked this episode, there's
a new documentary called Once We're Brothers, Robbie Robertson and
(01:18):
the Band that will be coming out in theaters on
February twenty first. This is Broken Record liner notes for
the digital Age.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I'm justin Mischmer.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Here's Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, and Bruce Headlam from Shangri
La speaking with the studios architect Robbie Robertson.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
We had a fantastic day the other day here, and
when I was telling the stories of Shangri Law, you know,
the stories.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
He envisioned this place and built it and it was unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
And it was mine. You know. The other guys in
the band thought this was a good idea. But from
Big Pink to Sammy Davis Junior's house to the Wars,
we made these wrecks in not in studios and other
(02:14):
places where there was an atmosphere and that could be
our atmosphere, fear and our sound, you know, and everything
was not on somebody else's way of doing somebody else's wavelength.
You know. You would go into the studio and there'd
be these used to be these Union guys, and they'd
(02:34):
be like, oh, it looks like it's lunchtime. We're like,
what are you talking about lunchtime? Where were you know?
We're about to do something, and and they'd be there
and I'd be like, I don't know, this should be louder.
Don't touch that, you know, So I don't want that.
I don't I don't want to do that. So I said,
what we're going to do is we're going to make
(02:56):
these clubhouse, these workshop, these studio things. That is our
world and our music, our sound. And whether it was
true or or not, I believed that it gave it
a character and a thing, which it did for better
or worse.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
What's interesting about that too, is that now it's become
more the norm. Yeah, that said, when you did it technologically,
it was much more difficult to do. Like, when you
did it you needed big studio equipment. Like today people
can do it on their laptop, so they could it's
easier to make that jump. But when you did it,
the infrastructure involved was not easy to pull off.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
It was unheard of except for Les Paul. Les Paul said,
I'm going to build a studio at my house, and
I'm gonna build an echo chamber into the side of
this hill, right and he was going to do all
of these things. I had an argument the other day
(04:02):
with Van Morrison about being able to do this kind
of thing, and because he was saying, I only like
to play live just with my band, and I go
in and we sing and they play this song and
we kept capture a moment. We've all done that. I
know it really well. I played ricks some music the
(04:22):
other day. That was all like first or second takes,
and it was you know.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Songs you've heard, Yeah, songs you've heard a lot.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
So anyway, Savannah saying, it's got to be live and
it's got to be bah and that's the way it
used to be and it's the way it Choob and
I said, well, what about Les Paul. He overdubbed, he
made things, he played on top of himself, he double
track things, He invented it. So so Van says, I know,
(04:51):
but he was magic.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Wait you made you did? You recorded at Sammy Davis
Junior's house.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yes, we made the band album, the Brown Album. Uh.
And we rented Sammy Davis Junior's house in the Hollywood
it's up Sunset Plaza up in the Hollywood Hills, and
we all stayed in the house with the family. And
we turned the pool house where he used to have
(05:21):
his parties with Frank Sinatra and the rat Back and
all these people. We turned that pool house into a studio.
And the record company thought this was the worst idea
they ever heard. They thought this was ridiculous. He said,
drive fifteen minutes. We have the best studio in the world.
(05:42):
Here Frank's upper records here right, all of this stuff,
and I was like, no, no, no, this is a
different thing. And finally they were like, okay, okay, I
guess I don't know what you're doing and it's probably
going to be bad. But didn't show up. Sammy Davis Junior,
(06:03):
he owned, he still owned the house. He didn't live there.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
I was imagining him like live there, stepping in on
one of your recordings halls.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
But everything in the house was built lower. You go
into the bathroom and the sink was down here, and
it was everything was built to his specifications, you know.
And and it seemed like this is great, this is
great Sammy's world, you know, amazing. And so we recorded
(06:36):
the album there and then we mix it, or we're
going to mix the record. And there's this guy in
New York, Tony May was his name, and he had
mixed the Isley Brothers. It's your thing, do what you
want to do. So it was such a great sounding record,
we said, wow, let's see if we can get Tony
(06:57):
May to mix this. And he worked with Phil Ramone
and all these people there. So anyway, he comes in
and he puts up the tapes and everything, and he says,
these tapes are awful. I'm gonna have to do a
lot of work on this. And I thought, hmm, I
don't know if I like that, you know. So anyway,
(07:19):
he did a mix that was not what I wanted
at all. It's not the way I heard it at all.
So anyway, we're like, thanks, Tony, so you you know.
And and we.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Saw on which songs are these?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
These were on the band album It was the night
they drove Old Dixie down up on Crippled Creek, you know,
Whispering Pines.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
One was wrong with his mixes.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
His mixes were trying to make this slick and bright,
and there was a woodiness to it. There was a
muddiness to it that suited the music. It was earthy
and I wanted that right. But he didn't get the jokes.
(08:04):
So that was okay. So I went and mixed the
album with a guy, another guy at the old Jerry
Ragovoice Hit Factory in New York. This guy mixed the album.
We mixed at the guys in the band. We were
all in there moving the faders and got it the
way that I wanted. So we get it and then
(08:27):
it's like Okay, the guy, the mastering guy, his name
is Bob Ludwig. You got to get him to master
your record. So we take the record to Bob Ludwig
and he puts it, you know, he puts on the
tape of the mixes and everything, and he says, oh boy,
(08:48):
He's like Tony May. He's like, I don't know. I'm
gonna try. I'll see if I can fix this or
save this. And I'm like, hmm, that's really depressing. So
I go and I tell the other guys. I said,
I don't know, we might have done this all wrong.
Everybody's saying it's it's terror carrible and that, you know.
(09:11):
So the next I don't know. A couple of days later,
Bob Ludwick caused me and he says, I am such
an idiot. I am such a fool. I didn't get it.
I so get it. This is maybe the most interesting
(09:32):
record I've ever heard. He said, I am so sorry.
And he told me, Bob Ludwick, he said, I made
the same mistake when sly Stone brought me there's a
riot going on. I thought that that was a big
mistake too, and he said, and then I've realized it
(09:55):
you know, I had to accept it the way that
I accepted your record. And so I was like, because
I thought he was right, you know, And if he
had a stayed with that, I don't know what would
have happened. So he you know, he mastered and it
hardly did anything to it in the mastering, and it
(10:17):
was just one of those things. It was a homemade thing.
It did have that character to it, and that was
part of its specialness.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
He came very close to ruining two of the great masterpieces.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, well, I do remember.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Actually the first songs he wrote, I goes for Ronnie Hawkins.
What were they like?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Well?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
What were they?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Well? One of the reasons he hired me. I wrote
a couple of songs for him when I was fifteen
years old because I heard him say that I need
some songs, and I was trying to figure out how
I could crash into this world of Southern rock and roll.
That's the real thing. These guys are from the holy
(11:05):
land in the South where this music grows out of
the ground. So I've got this whole fantasy in my
mind and everything, and these guys can do it. And
they were all from the South, and they sounded that
way and all of it. It's just okay. And I'm
up in Canada, so you know what I mean. It
(11:28):
feels like such a distance and I'm trying to figure
out a way. How can I become a part of this.
How can I get into this club and they'll accept me.
So I hear them say I need some So I
go off and I write a couple of songs.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
Where are you when you write these songs?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
In Toronto, in Cabbage Town?
Speaker 4 (11:48):
You're in high school?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah, I was fifteen.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
Did you know anything about writing songs?
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Well, yeah, I had written some songs already and this
was just something you just kind of boosted your game up.
You know. As we go along, certain things happen and
it makes you think, Okay, now I got to take
on this challenge and if I can, if I can
win that war, will I'll now be this will be
(12:15):
my starting place instead of your something.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
What did you hear Ronnie Hawkins say he needed some
new songs?
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Well, we I had a band called Robbie and the Robots,
and we were an opening, you know, act for Ronnie
Hawkins and the Hawks on a weekend and a dance
out in the West End of Toronto at an arena.
So we went on and played.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
You're fifteen Yeah for Ronnie Hawkins.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
And Ronnie and the other guys. They thought, Wow, these
kids are not bad, you know, they're not too bad,
and that was all I needed to hear. So I
was just trying to get some of it. So I
was hanging around, and then they went on and killed it.
I had never heard anything like that before, that far,
(13:05):
that up close. You know, I just heard other bands.
I'm from Toronto, right and or whatever. This was something
and you had to get into clubs to really hear
these people play. But they were doing a thing on
a weekend. So I see them play and I'm like,
this is unbelievable. A real rockabilly band, right like Carl
(13:30):
Perkins and you know Elvis and you know Roy Orbison,
like you're right out of that school. So I think,
and the energy and the excitement and the music, and
Ronnie was an amazing showm in it and he always
wanted to have killer musicians and they were great. So
after they played, I was just hanging around trying to
(13:53):
get some of it to rub off on me, you know,
some of that musicality. And so I was trying to
be helpful and hanging around, and then I, you know,
and and they ended up liking me, and they said,
all right, you know at the hotel, why don't you
come by? And I would just try to try to
(14:14):
make myself useful, you know, and somebody needed a new
string put on the guitar or whatever anything, you know.
So I I was hanging around, and I was hanging
around as much as I could without getting in the way.
And one day I hear Ronnie Hawk and say, I
(14:36):
got to make a new record, and I need some
new songs, you know. So I went home and I
wrote two songs and brought him back to him, said
I wrote a couple of songs. I don't know if
they're you know what you're looking for. So we played
him the played the new songs, and he said, damn son,
(14:58):
I'm going to record both of those.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
What was the best of them?
Speaker 3 (15:01):
They weren't any good, you know. I was just trying
to get in the door. So so I wrote this
song called someone like You. I think didn't Adele steal
that title from me on the so anyway, so he
records the songs, he records, the album comes back to Toronto.
(15:24):
They're playing at a club, the l Cock Door in Toronto.
Brings me the album with the songs on it, and
I'm like cutting my finger trying to get this album
opened to look and see it on the song credits
that everything. There's the two songs, and there's my name,
but it's my name and somebody else's name. And I said,
(15:49):
who's Levy? I didn't there was no Levy there when
I wrote these songs. Lev It was Morris Levy, who
owned the record company Roulette Records that Ronnie was on.
So I'm like, this, God, how can he just put
(16:11):
his name on there? So Ronnie's kind of saying, son,
in this business some you know. He was just giving
me the old shit happens kind of story, and I'm like,
this is just wrong though he wasn't. And I'm telling
Ronnie he wasn't even there when I wrote them. I'm
just I'm a kid, what do I know? And Ronnie's like, listen, Son,
(16:32):
these guys, these guys up there in New York, and
you don't want to mess around with them. They're the
kind of people you know that you know you're get
in their way, you know, and they find you in
the river. He's giving you this whole story. I'm like,
in the river, he wasn't even there. So anyway, sometime later,
Ronnie says to me, if you can write songs I
(16:55):
can write, maybe you'd be good at hearing what I
was good. So I'm gonna take you to New York
and I'm gonna take you to the Brill Building and
we're gonna meet all the songwriters and you're gonna listen
to their songs and see if they something that would
be good for me to record. So anyway, we go
and I meet Doc Palmis and Mark Schuman, I meet
(17:17):
Lidburn Stroller, I meet Otis Blackwell. It's in my book, Rick.
When you read that and you hear this whole story,
it's amazing. Otis Blackwell and Titus Turner, all of these guys,
and Otis Blackwell is trying to think of a song
that might be good for wrong. I'm in his little
room and he's playing a thing on the piano and
(17:39):
he's accompanying himself telling me how Colonel Tom Parker and
Elvis fucked him on the song he wrote, Don't Be Cruel.
While he's telling me the story and accompanying himself on
the piano, right, and it's like this is amazing, you know.
And then Lieber and Stoller are playing me songs and
(18:01):
I'm like, wow, that is a liber in Stoller and
I'm saying it's great. Do you haven't any more? Then?
And finally Jerry Lieber says to me, and who are
you again? And I said, oh, I'm just you know
what I was like, I was in heaven. And Doc
Palmis and Lieber and Stoller and Thomas and Schumann went
(18:26):
on to be friends of mine for the rest of
their life, as long as they live. We were still
in contact and friends of mine from that very early point.
So we are recording, I mean, I'm listening to songs.
Ronnie says, well, we have to go up to the
record company and we have to see Morris about some
(18:49):
things and everything. I think, great, we'll get this songwriting
thing straightened out once and for all. Right, So we
go up to this office and it's like a scene
right out of that Damien Runyon would have written. Is
(19:10):
there are blondes on the telephone with their hair perfectly
over one eye, right out of a movie, right, And
then there's these guys in mohair suits with pock marks
and a bulge in their you know, in their suit
Like on this one side, I'm thinking, Wow, these people
(19:32):
think it's real, you know, they're living in this thing
and it maybe it is real. Right. So then the
door opens and Marrie Levy says, Ronnie, Ronnie, I love
this guy, Ronnie, come on in. And I think what
happens to gangsters when they're young that their voice goes
(19:55):
like that. All these gangsters seem to talk this way.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
How old was mars Levy at this time? What do
you say?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
I don't know. I would say late thirties.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Wow, how old are you?
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I'm a fifty and a half. I'm by now, I'm
pushing sixteen, right. So anyway, so we go in and
Ronnie Hawkins is doing his thing. He's doing the camera
walk and stuff, and Morris just loves him. So he says, Morris,
(20:30):
this is this kid I was telling you about that
I think has a lot of potential. Right. So Morris
is there and he finally looks at me. He says, yeah.
He said, if you have to do any time, it'd
be good to have him with you. And I'm like,
what is it? He means if you have to go
(20:50):
to prison, he could be your boy. And I'm like,
I'm going to forego this songwriting problem completely. I can't
believe that's the joke that he's telling you. So anyway,
after this stuff and we and we did find some
(21:12):
songs that he recorded, and then a few months later
he calls me and tells me to come down to
Arkansas to try out because I'm getting better and better
as a guitar player. And he does think, I don't
know what it is, but this guy's got something or another.
(21:35):
And then I go on this mission to prove because
at sixteen years old, I don't have the experience. I'm
not a good enough musician yet. And I'm from Canada.
It's no Canadians and rockabilly bands, so it was unheard of.
So I had a big mountain to climb and that
(21:58):
and I went down there and I ended up winning
that battle.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
How much did you practice back then? Do you remember,
like to get in your mind to get the job.
What was it like.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I practiced till my fingers were bleeding, and I woke
up many mornings and the bed beside me was my guitar.
So I just thought I can't. I can't let this
go by because just to convince my mother too, at
(22:31):
sixteen years old, I'm leaving school and I'm going to
the Mississippi Delta to join up with a rock and
roll band. You know, She's like, what you know, she
doesn't even understand what this could possibly mean, except she
could see in my eyes this thing that was so
(22:54):
driven and that it was I And it was like,
if I don't try, if I don't do this, I'm
gonna be sorry the rest of my life. This is
the biggest opportunity it you know, it couldn't have been
in my mind a bigger, you know, bigger thing. So
(23:17):
and I went down there and Ronnie Hawkins was like, oh, Son,
you're too young, you're too good. I don't know if
this is going to work out. And I was like,
you'll see, and I play. I lied about my age,
you know, for you know, five years.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
Did you did you look older than fifteen at fifteen?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I was sixteen now sixteen? And Ronnie Hawkins actually said
to me, he would say, son, can you do something?
Can you shave? Can you I didn't even shave at
the time, and I didn't know what to do. And
I got an electric razor and I started shaving nothing,
and my face was raw from this electrics. All it
(24:02):
did was make me red. It didn't make me grow
any whiskers or nothing. And so for the first while
where we played, I would stand kind of back a
little bit in the dark, you know, and because there
would be lights and everything, and I knew just to
get out of the way of the lights. And then
between sets that we would play, I would just go
(24:25):
in the back room and stay there till it was
time to go on again, because there was club guys saying, hey,
I don't want you to get me shut down to Ronnie,
of course, and Ronnie was like, no, no, don't worry
about it all. Oh blah blah blah blah. And he
had to do all this double talking and things, and
he would say, no, no, no, it's like we call
(24:45):
him babyface. He just he just looks young, you know,
he's old enough, he just looks young. But Levon he
joined Ronnie when he was eighteen, after he graduated from
high school, and he looked very young, and they got
away with it. So he thought, well, if he could
(25:05):
get it away with it from him, you know, And
then a year after I was with Ronnie Hawkins. All
the guys from the South except Levon were leaving one
by one, and then one by one we were hiring Canadians.
We hired Rick Danko who was from Simcoe, Ontario, then
(25:26):
Richard Manuel who was from Stratford, Ontario, then Garths Hudson
who was from London, Ontario. And they all had their
own bands, so we were, you know, stealing the leaders
of all of these bands. I was one of those too,
and that Levon, and I said, we got to get
(25:47):
that kid. He's you know, he's got potential.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
We'll be back with more from Robbie Robertson after the break.
We're back with more from Robbie robertson.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
When and all this did you start writing the music
that became what we know as band music. Not the
actual songs, but when did you start hitting on those ideas.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
When the Hawks were the personnel the people that went
on to become the band. At one point, we outgrew
the music that we were doing with Ronnie Hawkins, and
we were experimenting with other kinds of songs and and
(26:35):
other kinds of music and reaching deeper and getting better
and better and finally it's you know, we couldn't stay
in that place, so we left Ronnie Hawkins. So when
we left Ronnie Hawkins, the idea was, Okay, we're going
to go out and we're going to play some gigs
and everything, and then we're going to get a record deal,
(26:56):
you know, and become who we are, you know. And
so I started messing around with writing some ideas because
I was the only one that thought about songwriting in
the group at that time, because I had written songs before.
It was kind of like, okay, I guess someone's got
(27:17):
to do it. I got to do it right, And
so I started writing some things then. And then just
as we were getting a record deal and starting to
do something, this this fellow named Bob Dylan came along
and asked if we would help take him electric and
(27:40):
be his band on a world tour. So that kind of,
you know, it just put everything on hold a little bit.
But it was like a phenomenal experience what this guy
was doing at the time. This is just when he
was going from being the you know, the the man
(28:04):
in folk songwriting to wanting to do something else and
wanting to play make music with other musicians and not
just him in a guitar and harmonica, and that was
really interesting to me. He was really interesting to me.
(28:25):
I loved this idea. Some of the other guys were like, hmm,
I'm not sure about this. You know, we were on
the from the other side of the tracks. We weren't
from the folk music world at all. So anyway, it
was like an interesting experiment in terror playing with Bob Dylan,
(28:49):
and we toured with him all over North America, all
over Australia, all over Europe, and people booed and threw
stuff at us every night, just about everywhere we played,
and you couldn't help but think, well, who else has
been through this? Who else knows how this feels. There
(29:13):
wasn't anybody on that list. I didn't know that this
had ever happened before, and I'm sure, but not with
somebody who's on the crest of changing music forever and
writing songs like nobody's ever written before, and all of
this stuff that every night we get booed and we
(29:36):
get through this whole thing alive. So after we got
through it alive, then it was really time for me
to start thinking about writing songs because it was like,
we've done the experiment with Bob Dylan. Now we got
to get back to doing our own thing. And that's
(29:57):
when we were doing the basement tapes at Big Pink,
and it's where, you know, when I started writing and
thinking about who are we, what do we sound like?
What are these stories?
Speaker 4 (30:09):
He's yeah, you said that Bob Dylan was interesting to you.
Why were you interesting to Bob Dylan?
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Probably because we were a real band, a real band
that played. We weren't some studio musicians that you could hire.
We were a band that knew how to play with
one another and had a language already that we spoke
with one another. And so this unit coming in that
(30:43):
had a sound, that had a thing amongst them, you know,
it was like something ready made. In the beginning, when
I first met with him, he was trying to hire
me away from the group to play guitar with him
and some other musicians, and so I had to say, no, no,
(31:05):
I'm with a group. We're a brotherhood.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
So he was fine with did he.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Know he wasn't fine in the beginning, And he was like, no, no,
I got some other guys and you know that are
really good and everything, and I was like, then, I
can't do it, you know. And so so he came around.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Was there a tryout or he just said, let's do.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
This, you know what the tryout was? So I played
two jobs with him and I said, I can only
do it if Levon is there too, and and so yeah,
he said to me, he's a drummer. He said, is
(31:52):
he as good? There was this big studio drummer at
the time, Bobby Greg was his name, and he said,
is he as good as Bobby Greg? I said, oh no,
he's better than Bobby Greg, you know, and he said,
oh okay. So anyway, we Levon and I played with
him and some other musicians for just two jobs we
(32:13):
said we would do. And it was at Forest Hills
in New York and the Hollywood Bowl and they and
they booed, you know, it was like whoa, what's that about?
And charge the stage and I hated it.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
What was your reaction to that?
Speaker 3 (32:32):
We just played louder and they hated it more. And
I thought, if Bob can handle us, we can handle this.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
You know.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
And so we just kept going and going and it
was hurtful. And then there was a point in this
tour because sometimes they would tape the shows, you know,
on reel to reel. They would tape it and see
how that soundman would see how it was sounding, because
(33:06):
it was like, maybe it's a soundman a fault. So
there was a point in the tour where we have
one of these tapes and after the show, we're sitting
in the hotel room listening to this tape and I
said to the other guys and Bob, they're wrong, they're wrong.
(33:33):
This is good, this is really good, and the world
is wrong and we're right. And it wasn't because I
was sure of that. It was because if you didn't
say that, it would be like this is We're in
a terrible situation. And it just gave you the feistiess,
(33:56):
or the strength to say we're doing something here and
if you don't get it, it's your fault. You had
to take that attitude. And we played all over the
world and ended up with people booing as loud as ever.
And we're playing at Albert Hall in London and the
(34:19):
Beatles are there, and the Stones are there, and the
Who were there, and everybody's there and the audience is
booing us and they're all watching this and that is
that's really awkward. When there's people musicians that you want
to impress and everybody's booing you, You think, how do
(34:43):
you possibly think we're any good when everybody's booing us.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
Those guys like it, though, the Stone the Beatles.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
The Beatles said, don't pay any attention to that. They're wrong.
This was really good, so I was kind of like, see.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
But Levon didn't like it though.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
He didn't like that. Nobody likes being booed and people
throwing stuff at you. You know, I'm I'm quite convinced
of that. But Levon didn't like the music. He didn't
like Bob Dylan's music. He didn't like any of this
and didn't want to be playing with him at all.
(35:29):
Levon left. Then when we all moved to Woodstock and
we had Big Pink, we called Levon and said, okay,
you got to it's time to come back. And he
came back, and Bob was like a different guy. He
looked completely different, and he was writing songs and he
was you know, it was just great. And Levon came
(35:50):
back and loved it all, loved being you know, back
with his brothers, and loved Bob and came around on
the music, he understood something, he had time to understand it.
Plus the songs that I was starting to write, he
was like, Oh, that's who we are, you know. So
(36:14):
the pieces were coming together and he came back into
the fold bigger and stronger than ever.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
When did you know you had or was there a
particular song that, when you finished you said, okay, this
is our sound. I think I'm getting it. Was there
one moment or one song that kind of gave you
the idea for what the band could be.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
No, I didn't know. We were just experimenting and in
a discovery process. I didn't know it until we were
recording it. And I was playing something for Rick the
other day that we recorded something and it was breaking
(37:03):
all kinds of rules and the way you record and
what you do and what you're not supposed to do
and everything. And we were trying this and it was
discouraging what they were telling us going into it, but
we were doing what we knew how to do, and
we recorded it, and then we went in and heard
(37:26):
it and I said, that's it. That's who we are,
that's what we sound like. And it was unlike anybody
else or anything. And still at the time you think,
and that's either a good thing or a bad thing.
That song was what Well, there was two songs that
(37:47):
I played for him. One song was called Tears of Rage,
which was the first song that we recorded on the album,
and it's the first song on the album. And then
we recorded a song called The Weight. And then when
we recorded these songs, it was like, Okay.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
Can you tell me a little bit about writing the
Weight because it's just such an unusual song, like how
it came to you?
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Or well, I was saying, this was a song, This
was a spare song. This was a song that I
had that if something else didn't work out, we could
use it. So we had to put it together mostly
right there in the studio. I had played it for
(38:36):
the guys before and everybody thought, yeah, cool, you know,
but nobody was like, whoa, that's it, that's a you know,
none of us knew. And then when I was writing
this song, I was drawing on these influences from when
(38:58):
I was sixteen years old and went from Canada down
to the Mississippi Delta. Some of those characters, some of
those images, you know, I had now pulled them out
of my trunk of imagination, and I was incorporating them
into a musicality and in the stories. And I was
(39:22):
also very much which you know, I've said this before
that I was very much into Lewis Boonewell's films. And
there was there was something, there was something in his
the a thematic thread in some of his movies that
(39:44):
I couldn't get over. And it was really about people
trying to be good, really trying to do the right thing,
and then something comes along and something turns it upside
down on its head, right. And so this was a
story about a guy who comes into this town. It's
(40:07):
called Nazareth, and it's because that's where the guitar company
is from. So I look in my guitar and it
says Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Right. So I look in there and
I say, I pulled into Nazareth, right. And I start
writing this story and it's about a guy who goes
(40:29):
somewhere and everybody that he runs into it's like he's
just trying to be of goodwill. He's just trying to
do the right thing, and it turns into it's like
the old saying, it depends on who you run into.
And storytelling you're going along, you think you've got an idea,
(40:53):
but it depends on who you run into, right, And
so I'm thinking of all of these characters, and some
of them are based on characters that I imagined or I
met when I went down to the mississip Be Delta,
and I'm thinking, what would be really cool for Levon.
(41:14):
I knew his instrument really well, of his voice and everything,
and I thought I thought I was doing a Lewis
Boone Weell thing. I wasn't, but I thought I was right,
and I thought I was, and I when I wrote
(41:36):
the song, I thought, well, there's a song. I never
heard that song before. Maybe that's good, you know, but
it was unfamiliar, and so with that you think, geez,
I don't know is that good or bad? Is that
different or just obscure, you know, like record producers have
(41:58):
to consider when they're making music. And so when I
taught the song to the guys, and everybody was kind
of enjoying. They knew where I was coming from and
some of these things. The other guys didn't care about
Lewis boonwell or anything, but I did. And so anyway,
(42:21):
they took the ride on it and as we were
getting into it, we were kind of smiling to one another,
like that verse that Carmen and the Devil verse, you know,
that's pretty cool. And then all this thing and ah,
and then it has like a conclusion that ties it
together or something like a movie would all of these things.
(42:43):
I've just been a movie bug, you know, so long.
So anyway, I was making a little movie. And then
we record the song and I have no idea except
we got through the whole song, didn't make a mistake,
felt pretty good. We went in and listened to it
(43:05):
and I thought, holy moly, that's a thing. That's a
thing right there. That's a sound that's I haven't heard
that before, you know, And all of those things then
add up for you inside.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
You know, can you put your finger on what was
so unique about that sound? Or is it just a
kind of gestal thing.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
That No, that's part of the great holy mystery that
you really don't know. And if you think you do,
then you're not ready for a good surprise, you know.
Going in and I say, Garths, why don't you play
piano on this? And Richard you play Oregon. And then
when we get to this part in the song, why
(43:52):
don't we do this and wait and then you come in,
and then you come in, and then you come in together,
and then you know, and then that folds over on
top of itself. And all of these ideas I had
no idea whether if they were good ideas. I thought that,
you know, it's enough to make you want to do something.
(44:13):
Then we got the song and I say, you know what,
on this second last verse, Rick, why don't you take
over the lead vocal on that? It just seemed like
a good idea at the time, And once again, it
wasn't until we went in that control room heard it
(44:34):
over those speakers that Garth playing the piano on that
really made sense. That Levon's drums with these big tune
down toms that I had asked him if he'd be
okay doing, and his vocal. I wasn't even sure this
is the key I wrote it in. I don't know
(44:56):
if it's a good key for you to sing it in.
And he's like, yeah, no, I think it's okay. So
all of these things are way up in the air
and no idea really, and then when you hear it
all come together and those pieces of the puzzle actually
fit that's when you say, yeah, I knew all along.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
We'll be back with more from Robbie Robertson after the break,
We're back with more of a conversation with Robbie Robertson.
The band eventually broke up with one final concert in
nineteen seventy six. It was filmed by Martin Scorsese and
released as The Last Waltz. It's become legendary and kicked
(45:45):
off a decades long working relationship between Robbie and Scorsese,
starting with Raging Bull. Robbie's done the music for most
of Scorsese's films, including his most recent The Irishman. Not
too long ago, Rick discovered a piece of music that
he loved, and when he found out it was from
a Scorsese movie, he had to ask Robbie about his involvement.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
So I heard this on the radio on some obscure
streaming thing, had no idea what it was, and started
researching trying to find out because I hadn't heard anything
like this before. It was fascinating to me, And it
was fascinating because I was familiar with the music, but
(46:33):
not familiar enough to know what it was. But I
feel like I'd heard the music before, and then I'm
listening to the vocals and I'm thinking this, the singer
is unbelievable. But it sounds like the singer's not listening
to the music she's singing to even though it fits
like it clearly works, but there's a strange, alien connection
(46:54):
to it. And it just sounds like magic to me.
That sounds like a brand new kind of music. So
when I saw Robbie the other day, I asked him
about it because I didn't know who made it, but
I knew that it was in a soundtrack that he
was involved in, and I asked him how it came
to pack us and tell us how it came to pass.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
I was working on the music from Martin Scorsese's movie
Shutter Island, and and I was I was on a
roll of a certain kind of music that him and
(47:33):
I hadn't really experimented with much before, with Christoph Pendereeski,
who is somebody that I've admired for years. And I
told I've said to Marty over some days, sometime we've
got to find a way to use some Pendereski and
(47:56):
some John Cage and some you know, modern classical music
in a movie. So when he decided he was going
to direct this film, and he sent me the script
and uh, and he said, yea, is it give you
(48:16):
any ideas? And I said, this is it. This is
the time, this is when we can. I think we can.
He said, whoa really modern classical music and that he said,
interesting because it's a it's a movie about insanity and
(48:37):
and modern classical music is fearless and expressing some of
that part of of of the mind. So anyway, we
did a lot of things that in the movie and
it was great fun and so we you know, all
this stuff. And then at the end it was like
(48:58):
he said, I said, I don't have anything figured out
yet for the end of the movie and the end credits.
So I had heard this piece of music by this composer,
Max Richter. I think it's called Daylight something or but anyway,
(49:22):
i'd heard this piece of music and there was almost
the dodgy oh wish you know, there was something that
really pulled on your heartstrings in it, and it fit
in to the other world that we were experimenting. And
there was a song that I knew about for years
(49:45):
just that stayed with me. By Dinah Washington, who has
always been a favorite of mine, her sound, her interpretation,
I've you know, she's just one of my faves over
the years. So I'm thinking about this song, this Bitter
(50:06):
Earth that she sang, I'm thinking about this Max Richter
classical piece and I and there was a connection there
for me. So then I have them. I check it.
They're both in the same key hmm. So I then
(50:28):
took the Dinah Washington piece and I cut out each
of her lines in the song like you would a
sample and hip hop and it so I had her
whole performance. Now I've got the Max Richter piece. So
I take her line by line and lay her in
(50:53):
the way I would have sung it on top of
the Max Richter thing. I just put her there and
I do this thing. And it's I don't even know
if you're allowed to do that. It's like, can you
can you do that with Dinah Washington and this great composer,
Max Richter. I don't know, but I can't help but
(51:18):
do this. So I lay this stuff in. I send
it to Scarcese and say, I've tried something here, but
I've got to warn you. I don't know that this
is okay, but there's something about it and see what
So he said, what do you mean not okay? And
(51:40):
I said, I've taken a liberty on this thing, and
I'm taking somebody's music and I'm putting it with somebody
else's music. And this is not like a little sample
in a hip hop too and where we're playing a
little riff of James Brown here for a moment and
then we're onto something else. This is the whole piece
(52:03):
of these two artists. So anyway I it. He says,
oh my god, this is beautiful fault and it's perfect
at the end of this movie, and what did this thing?
And to have this bitter earth come on after this thing?
And so anyway, so then I say, well, I'm not
(52:28):
going to call them and ask him if it's okay.
Somebody has to call Max Richter and Dinah Washington's family
or kids or whoever and see if it's okay that
I've done this right. And they called and they give
the coming back and they said they heard it and
they love it. I thought, wow, that's a really good sign,
(52:52):
you know, because a lot of people are like, you
cannot mess with this, you know, you you know, you
can't cross that line. That's that's a sin, right, and
that they said they liked it. So anyway, it ended
up at the end of this movie. And I was
telling Rick the other day some months ago, I'm watching
(53:17):
a French movie that I was curious about. I'm watching
this movie and throughout the movie they used this piece
of music, and so I'd say to Martin Scerceesi I said, wow,
I was watching this movie and they were using this
throughout the movie, not just once. They're using it, you know,
(53:40):
a few times. And he says, they can't do that.
I said, they did. It might be too late for
us to object.
Speaker 5 (53:51):
And then they look at the soundtrack and they said,
who's Morris Levy. Yeah, it makes your voice sounds Guy's
like I know that voice.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (54:00):
I never would have guessed.
Speaker 2 (54:01):
I never would have made the connection.
Speaker 5 (54:03):
It sounds a Morts exactly.
Speaker 2 (54:05):
It's like it's so modern. It felt just completely about Goard,
but beautiful and unlike anything I heard before.
Speaker 1 (54:14):
Thanks to Robbie Robertson for coming on the show and
of course for creating Changri La. You can hear some
of Robbie's music, including Song's Office twenty nineteen release Cinematic
by listening to our playlist for this episode at broken
record podcast dot com, and while you there, sign up
for our behinder scene in this newsletter. Broken Record is
(54:36):
produced help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrell, Mia Lobel and
is a production of Pushkin Industries. Our The music's by
Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.
Pushkin, Pushkin. Hey everyone, this is a bit of a
special episode of Broken Record, not just because it features
(00:36):
Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, and Bruce Headlam all at once,
but because it happened at the spiritual home Shangri La.
Of today's guest, that's the band's Robbie Robertson, who reminisces
about converting a home in Malibu into the now legendary
recording studio run by Rick, before moving on to discussing
(00:56):
the band's early days as backup for a rockabilly singer
when they were known as the Hawks, and they also
discussed Robbie's longtime work with director Martin Scorsese, which earned
him an Oscar nomination at this year's Academy Awards. We
should also note that if you liked this episode, there's
a new documentary called Once We're Brothers, Robbie Robertson and
(01:18):
the Band that will be coming out in theaters on
February twenty first. This is Broken Record liner notes for
the digital Age.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I'm justin Mischmer.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Here's Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, and Bruce Headlam from Shangri
La speaking with the studios architect Robbie Robertson.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
We had a fantastic day the other day here, and
when I was telling the stories of Shangri Law, you know,
the stories.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
He envisioned this place and built it and it was unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
And it was mine. You know. The other guys in
the band thought this was a good idea. But from
Big Pink to Sammy Davis Junior's house to the Wars,
we made these wrecks in not in studios and other
(02:14):
places where there was an atmosphere and that could be
our atmosphere, fear and our sound, you know, and everything
was not on somebody else's way of doing somebody else's wavelength.
You know. You would go into the studio and there'd
be these used to be these Union guys, and they'd
(02:34):
be like, oh, it looks like it's lunchtime. We're like,
what are you talking about lunchtime? Where were you know?
We're about to do something, and and they'd be there
and I'd be like, I don't know, this should be louder.
Don't touch that, you know, So I don't want that.
I don't I don't want to do that. So I said,
what we're going to do is we're going to make
(02:56):
these clubhouse, these workshop, these studio things. That is our
world and our music, our sound. And whether it was
true or or not, I believed that it gave it
a character and a thing, which it did for better
or worse.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
What's interesting about that too, is that now it's become
more the norm. Yeah, that said, when you did it technologically,
it was much more difficult to do. Like, when you
did it you needed big studio equipment. Like today people
can do it on their laptop, so they could it's
easier to make that jump. But when you did it,
the infrastructure involved was not easy to pull off.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
It was unheard of except for Les Paul. Les Paul said,
I'm going to build a studio at my house, and
I'm gonna build an echo chamber into the side of
this hill, right and he was going to do all
of these things. I had an argument the other day
(04:02):
with Van Morrison about being able to do this kind
of thing, and because he was saying, I only like
to play live just with my band, and I go
in and we sing and they play this song and
we kept capture a moment. We've all done that. I
know it really well. I played ricks some music the
(04:22):
other day. That was all like first or second takes,
and it was you know.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Songs you've heard, Yeah, songs you've heard a lot.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
So anyway, Savannah saying, it's got to be live and
it's got to be bah and that's the way it
used to be and it's the way it Choob and
I said, well, what about Les Paul. He overdubbed, he
made things, he played on top of himself, he double
track things, He invented it. So so Van says, I know,
(04:51):
but he was magic.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Wait you made you did? You recorded at Sammy Davis
Junior's house.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yes, we made the band album, the Brown Album. Uh.
And we rented Sammy Davis Junior's house in the Hollywood
it's up Sunset Plaza up in the Hollywood Hills, and
we all stayed in the house with the family. And
we turned the pool house where he used to have
(05:21):
his parties with Frank Sinatra and the rat Back and
all these people. We turned that pool house into a studio.
And the record company thought this was the worst idea
they ever heard. They thought this was ridiculous. He said,
drive fifteen minutes. We have the best studio in the world.
(05:42):
Here Frank's upper records here right, all of this stuff,
and I was like, no, no, no, this is a
different thing. And finally they were like, okay, okay, I
guess I don't know what you're doing and it's probably
going to be bad. But didn't show up. Sammy Davis Junior,
(06:03):
he owned, he still owned the house. He didn't live there.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
I was imagining him like live there, stepping in on
one of your recordings halls.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
But everything in the house was built lower. You go
into the bathroom and the sink was down here, and
it was everything was built to his specifications, you know.
And and it seemed like this is great, this is
great Sammy's world, you know, amazing. And so we recorded
(06:36):
the album there and then we mix it, or we're
going to mix the record. And there's this guy in
New York, Tony May was his name, and he had
mixed the Isley Brothers. It's your thing, do what you
want to do. So it was such a great sounding record,
we said, wow, let's see if we can get Tony
(06:57):
May to mix this. And he worked with Phil Ramone
and all these people there. So anyway, he comes in
and he puts up the tapes and everything, and he says,
these tapes are awful. I'm gonna have to do a
lot of work on this. And I thought, hmm, I
don't know if I like that, you know. So anyway,
(07:19):
he did a mix that was not what I wanted
at all. It's not the way I heard it at all.
So anyway, we're like, thanks, Tony, so you you know.
And and we.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Saw on which songs are these?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
These were on the band album It was the night
they drove Old Dixie down up on Crippled Creek, you know,
Whispering Pines.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
One was wrong with his mixes.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
His mixes were trying to make this slick and bright,
and there was a woodiness to it. There was a
muddiness to it that suited the music. It was earthy
and I wanted that right. But he didn't get the jokes.
(08:04):
So that was okay. So I went and mixed the
album with a guy, another guy at the old Jerry
Ragovoice Hit Factory in New York. This guy mixed the album.
We mixed at the guys in the band. We were
all in there moving the faders and got it the
way that I wanted. So we get it and then
(08:27):
it's like Okay, the guy, the mastering guy, his name
is Bob Ludwig. You got to get him to master
your record. So we take the record to Bob Ludwig
and he puts it, you know, he puts on the
tape of the mixes and everything, and he says, oh boy,
(08:48):
He's like Tony May. He's like, I don't know. I'm
gonna try. I'll see if I can fix this or
save this. And I'm like, hmm, that's really depressing. So
I go and I tell the other guys. I said,
I don't know, we might have done this all wrong.
Everybody's saying it's it's terror carrible and that, you know.
(09:11):
So the next I don't know. A couple of days later,
Bob Ludwick caused me and he says, I am such
an idiot. I am such a fool. I didn't get it.
I so get it. This is maybe the most interesting
(09:32):
record I've ever heard. He said, I am so sorry.
And he told me, Bob Ludwick, he said, I made
the same mistake when sly Stone brought me there's a
riot going on. I thought that that was a big
mistake too, and he said, and then I've realized it
(09:55):
you know, I had to accept it the way that
I accepted your record. And so I was like, because
I thought he was right, you know, And if he
had a stayed with that, I don't know what would
have happened. So he you know, he mastered and it
hardly did anything to it in the mastering, and it
(10:17):
was just one of those things. It was a homemade thing.
It did have that character to it, and that was
part of its specialness.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
He came very close to ruining two of the great masterpieces.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, well, I do remember.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Actually the first songs he wrote, I goes for Ronnie Hawkins.
What were they like?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Well?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
What were they?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Well? One of the reasons he hired me. I wrote
a couple of songs for him when I was fifteen
years old because I heard him say that I need
some songs, and I was trying to figure out how
I could crash into this world of Southern rock and roll.
That's the real thing. These guys are from the holy
(11:05):
land in the South where this music grows out of
the ground. So I've got this whole fantasy in my
mind and everything, and these guys can do it. And
they were all from the South, and they sounded that
way and all of it. It's just okay. And I'm
up in Canada, so you know what I mean. It
(11:28):
feels like such a distance and I'm trying to figure
out a way. How can I become a part of this.
How can I get into this club and they'll accept me.
So I hear them say I need some So I
go off and I write a couple of songs.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
Where are you when you write these songs?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
In Toronto, in Cabbage Town?
Speaker 4 (11:48):
You're in high school?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah, I was fifteen.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
Did you know anything about writing songs?
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Well, yeah, I had written some songs already and this
was just something you just kind of boosted your game up.
You know. As we go along, certain things happen and
it makes you think, Okay, now I got to take
on this challenge and if I can, if I can
win that war, will I'll now be this will be
(12:15):
my starting place instead of your something.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
What did you hear Ronnie Hawkins say he needed some
new songs?
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Well, we I had a band called Robbie and the Robots,
and we were an opening, you know, act for Ronnie
Hawkins and the Hawks on a weekend and a dance
out in the West End of Toronto at an arena.
So we went on and played.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
You're fifteen Yeah for Ronnie Hawkins.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
And Ronnie and the other guys. They thought, Wow, these
kids are not bad, you know, they're not too bad,
and that was all I needed to hear. So I
was just trying to get some of it. So I
was hanging around, and then they went on and killed it.
I had never heard anything like that before, that far,
(13:05):
that up close. You know, I just heard other bands.
I'm from Toronto, right and or whatever. This was something
and you had to get into clubs to really hear
these people play. But they were doing a thing on
a weekend. So I see them play and I'm like,
this is unbelievable. A real rockabilly band, right like Carl
(13:30):
Perkins and you know Elvis and you know Roy Orbison,
like you're right out of that school. So I think,
and the energy and the excitement and the music, and
Ronnie was an amazing showm in it and he always
wanted to have killer musicians and they were great. So
after they played, I was just hanging around trying to
(13:53):
get some of it to rub off on me, you know,
some of that musicality. And so I was trying to
be helpful and hanging around, and then I, you know,
and and they ended up liking me, and they said,
all right, you know at the hotel, why don't you
come by? And I would just try to try to
(14:14):
make myself useful, you know, and somebody needed a new
string put on the guitar or whatever anything, you know.
So I I was hanging around, and I was hanging
around as much as I could without getting in the way.
And one day I hear Ronnie Hawk and say, I
(14:36):
got to make a new record, and I need some
new songs, you know. So I went home and I
wrote two songs and brought him back to him, said
I wrote a couple of songs. I don't know if
they're you know what you're looking for. So we played
him the played the new songs, and he said, damn son,
(14:58):
I'm going to record both of those.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
What was the best of them?
Speaker 3 (15:01):
They weren't any good, you know. I was just trying
to get in the door. So so I wrote this
song called someone like You. I think didn't Adele steal
that title from me on the so anyway, so he
records the songs, he records, the album comes back to Toronto.
(15:24):
They're playing at a club, the l Cock Door in Toronto.
Brings me the album with the songs on it, and
I'm like cutting my finger trying to get this album
opened to look and see it on the song credits
that everything. There's the two songs, and there's my name,
but it's my name and somebody else's name. And I said,
(15:49):
who's Levy? I didn't there was no Levy there when
I wrote these songs. Lev It was Morris Levy, who
owned the record company Roulette Records that Ronnie was on.
So I'm like, this, God, how can he just put
(16:11):
his name on there? So Ronnie's kind of saying, son,
in this business some you know. He was just giving
me the old shit happens kind of story, and I'm like,
this is just wrong though he wasn't. And I'm telling
Ronnie he wasn't even there when I wrote them. I'm
just I'm a kid, what do I know? And Ronnie's like, listen, Son,
(16:32):
these guys, these guys up there in New York, and
you don't want to mess around with them. They're the
kind of people you know that you know you're get
in their way, you know, and they find you in
the river. He's giving you this whole story. I'm like,
in the river, he wasn't even there. So anyway, sometime later,
Ronnie says to me, if you can write songs I
(16:55):
can write, maybe you'd be good at hearing what I
was good. So I'm gonna take you to New York
and I'm gonna take you to the Brill Building and
we're gonna meet all the songwriters and you're gonna listen
to their songs and see if they something that would
be good for me to record. So anyway, we go
and I meet Doc Palmis and Mark Schuman, I meet
(17:17):
Lidburn Stroller, I meet Otis Blackwell. It's in my book, Rick.
When you read that and you hear this whole story,
it's amazing. Otis Blackwell and Titus Turner, all of these guys,
and Otis Blackwell is trying to think of a song
that might be good for wrong. I'm in his little
room and he's playing a thing on the piano and
(17:39):
he's accompanying himself telling me how Colonel Tom Parker and
Elvis fucked him on the song he wrote, Don't Be Cruel.
While he's telling me the story and accompanying himself on
the piano, right, and it's like this is amazing, you know.
And then Lieber and Stoller are playing me songs and
(18:01):
I'm like, wow, that is a liber in Stoller and
I'm saying it's great. Do you haven't any more? Then?
And finally Jerry Lieber says to me, and who are
you again? And I said, oh, I'm just you know
what I was like, I was in heaven. And Doc
Palmis and Lieber and Stoller and Thomas and Schumann went
(18:26):
on to be friends of mine for the rest of
their life, as long as they live. We were still
in contact and friends of mine from that very early point.
So we are recording, I mean, I'm listening to songs.
Ronnie says, well, we have to go up to the
record company and we have to see Morris about some
(18:49):
things and everything. I think, great, we'll get this songwriting
thing straightened out once and for all. Right, So we
go up to this office and it's like a scene
right out of that Damien Runyon would have written. Is
(19:10):
there are blondes on the telephone with their hair perfectly
over one eye, right out of a movie, right, And
then there's these guys in mohair suits with pock marks
and a bulge in their you know, in their suit
Like on this one side, I'm thinking, Wow, these people
(19:32):
think it's real, you know, they're living in this thing
and it maybe it is real. Right. So then the
door opens and Marrie Levy says, Ronnie, Ronnie, I love
this guy, Ronnie, come on in. And I think what
happens to gangsters when they're young that their voice goes
(19:55):
like that. All these gangsters seem to talk this way.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
How old was mars Levy at this time? What do
you say?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
I don't know. I would say late thirties.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Wow, how old are you?
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I'm a fifty and a half. I'm by now, I'm
pushing sixteen, right. So anyway, so we go in and
Ronnie Hawkins is doing his thing. He's doing the camera
walk and stuff, and Morris just loves him. So he says, Morris,
(20:30):
this is this kid I was telling you about that
I think has a lot of potential. Right. So Morris
is there and he finally looks at me. He says, yeah.
He said, if you have to do any time, it'd
be good to have him with you. And I'm like,
what is it? He means if you have to go
(20:50):
to prison, he could be your boy. And I'm like,
I'm going to forego this songwriting problem completely. I can't
believe that's the joke that he's telling you. So anyway,
after this stuff and we and we did find some
(21:12):
songs that he recorded, and then a few months later
he calls me and tells me to come down to
Arkansas to try out because I'm getting better and better
as a guitar player. And he does think, I don't
know what it is, but this guy's got something or another.
(21:35):
And then I go on this mission to prove because
at sixteen years old, I don't have the experience. I'm
not a good enough musician yet. And I'm from Canada.
It's no Canadians and rockabilly bands, so it was unheard of.
So I had a big mountain to climb and that
(21:58):
and I went down there and I ended up winning
that battle.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
How much did you practice back then? Do you remember,
like to get in your mind to get the job.
What was it like.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I practiced till my fingers were bleeding, and I woke
up many mornings and the bed beside me was my guitar.
So I just thought I can't. I can't let this
go by because just to convince my mother too, at
(22:31):
sixteen years old, I'm leaving school and I'm going to
the Mississippi Delta to join up with a rock and
roll band. You know, She's like, what you know, she
doesn't even understand what this could possibly mean, except she
could see in my eyes this thing that was so
(22:54):
driven and that it was I And it was like,
if I don't try, if I don't do this, I'm
gonna be sorry the rest of my life. This is
the biggest opportunity it you know, it couldn't have been
in my mind a bigger, you know, bigger thing. So
(23:17):
and I went down there and Ronnie Hawkins was like, oh, Son,
you're too young, you're too good. I don't know if
this is going to work out. And I was like,
you'll see, and I play. I lied about my age,
you know, for you know, five years.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
Did you did you look older than fifteen at fifteen?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I was sixteen now sixteen? And Ronnie Hawkins actually said
to me, he would say, son, can you do something?
Can you shave? Can you I didn't even shave at
the time, and I didn't know what to do. And
I got an electric razor and I started shaving nothing,
and my face was raw from this electrics. All it
(24:02):
did was make me red. It didn't make me grow
any whiskers or nothing. And so for the first while
where we played, I would stand kind of back a
little bit in the dark, you know, and because there
would be lights and everything, and I knew just to
get out of the way of the lights. And then
between sets that we would play, I would just go
(24:25):
in the back room and stay there till it was
time to go on again, because there was club guys saying, hey,
I don't want you to get me shut down to Ronnie,
of course, and Ronnie was like, no, no, don't worry
about it all. Oh blah blah blah blah. And he
had to do all this double talking and things, and
he would say, no, no, no, it's like we call
(24:45):
him babyface. He just he just looks young, you know,
he's old enough, he just looks young. But Levon he
joined Ronnie when he was eighteen, after he graduated from
high school, and he looked very young, and they got
away with it. So he thought, well, if he could
(25:05):
get it away with it from him, you know, And
then a year after I was with Ronnie Hawkins. All
the guys from the South except Levon were leaving one
by one, and then one by one we were hiring Canadians.
We hired Rick Danko who was from Simcoe, Ontario, then
(25:26):
Richard Manuel who was from Stratford, Ontario, then Garths Hudson
who was from London, Ontario. And they all had their
own bands, so we were, you know, stealing the leaders
of all of these bands. I was one of those too,
and that Levon, and I said, we got to get
(25:47):
that kid. He's you know, he's got potential.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
We'll be back with more from Robbie Robertson after the break.
We're back with more from Robbie robertson.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
When and all this did you start writing the music
that became what we know as band music. Not the
actual songs, but when did you start hitting on those ideas.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
When the Hawks were the personnel the people that went
on to become the band. At one point, we outgrew
the music that we were doing with Ronnie Hawkins, and
we were experimenting with other kinds of songs and and
(26:35):
other kinds of music and reaching deeper and getting better
and better and finally it's you know, we couldn't stay
in that place, so we left Ronnie Hawkins. So when
we left Ronnie Hawkins, the idea was, Okay, we're going
to go out and we're going to play some gigs
and everything, and then we're going to get a record deal,
(26:56):
you know, and become who we are, you know. And
so I started messing around with writing some ideas because
I was the only one that thought about songwriting in
the group at that time, because I had written songs before.
It was kind of like, okay, I guess someone's got
(27:17):
to do it. I got to do it right, And
so I started writing some things then. And then just
as we were getting a record deal and starting to
do something, this this fellow named Bob Dylan came along
and asked if we would help take him electric and
(27:40):
be his band on a world tour. So that kind of,
you know, it just put everything on hold a little bit.
But it was like a phenomenal experience what this guy
was doing at the time. This is just when he
was going from being the you know, the the man
(28:04):
in folk songwriting to wanting to do something else and
wanting to play make music with other musicians and not
just him in a guitar and harmonica, and that was
really interesting to me. He was really interesting to me.
(28:25):
I loved this idea. Some of the other guys were like, hmm,
I'm not sure about this. You know, we were on
the from the other side of the tracks. We weren't
from the folk music world at all. So anyway, it
was like an interesting experiment in terror playing with Bob Dylan,
(28:49):
and we toured with him all over North America, all
over Australia, all over Europe, and people booed and threw
stuff at us every night, just about everywhere we played,
and you couldn't help but think, well, who else has
been through this? Who else knows how this feels. There
(29:13):
wasn't anybody on that list. I didn't know that this
had ever happened before, and I'm sure, but not with
somebody who's on the crest of changing music forever and
writing songs like nobody's ever written before, and all of
this stuff that every night we get booed and we
(29:36):
get through this whole thing alive. So after we got
through it alive, then it was really time for me
to start thinking about writing songs because it was like,
we've done the experiment with Bob Dylan. Now we got
to get back to doing our own thing. And that's
(29:57):
when we were doing the basement tapes at Big Pink,
and it's where, you know, when I started writing and
thinking about who are we, what do we sound like?
What are these stories?
Speaker 4 (30:09):
He's yeah, you said that Bob Dylan was interesting to you.
Why were you interesting to Bob Dylan?
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Probably because we were a real band, a real band
that played. We weren't some studio musicians that you could hire.
We were a band that knew how to play with
one another and had a language already that we spoke
with one another. And so this unit coming in that
(30:43):
had a sound, that had a thing amongst them, you know,
it was like something ready made. In the beginning, when
I first met with him, he was trying to hire
me away from the group to play guitar with him
and some other musicians, and so I had to say, no, no,
(31:05):
I'm with a group. We're a brotherhood.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
So he was fine with did he.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Know he wasn't fine in the beginning, And he was like, no, no,
I got some other guys and you know that are
really good and everything, and I was like, then, I
can't do it, you know. And so so he came around.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Was there a tryout or he just said, let's do.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
This, you know what the tryout was? So I played
two jobs with him and I said, I can only
do it if Levon is there too, and and so yeah,
he said to me, he's a drummer. He said, is
(31:52):
he as good? There was this big studio drummer at
the time, Bobby Greg was his name, and he said,
is he as good as Bobby Greg? I said, oh no,
he's better than Bobby Greg, you know, and he said,
oh okay. So anyway, we Levon and I played with
him and some other musicians for just two jobs we
(32:13):
said we would do. And it was at Forest Hills
in New York and the Hollywood Bowl and they and
they booed, you know, it was like whoa, what's that about?
And charge the stage and I hated it.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
What was your reaction to that?
Speaker 3 (32:32):
We just played louder and they hated it more. And
I thought, if Bob can handle us, we can handle this.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
You know.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
And so we just kept going and going and it
was hurtful. And then there was a point in this
tour because sometimes they would tape the shows, you know,
on reel to reel. They would tape it and see
how that soundman would see how it was sounding, because
(33:06):
it was like, maybe it's a soundman a fault. So
there was a point in the tour where we have
one of these tapes and after the show, we're sitting
in the hotel room listening to this tape and I
said to the other guys and Bob, they're wrong, they're wrong.
(33:33):
This is good, this is really good, and the world
is wrong and we're right. And it wasn't because I
was sure of that. It was because if you didn't
say that, it would be like this is We're in
a terrible situation. And it just gave you the feistiess,
(33:56):
or the strength to say we're doing something here and
if you don't get it, it's your fault. You had
to take that attitude. And we played all over the
world and ended up with people booing as loud as ever.
And we're playing at Albert Hall in London and the
(34:19):
Beatles are there, and the Stones are there, and the
Who were there, and everybody's there and the audience is
booing us and they're all watching this and that is
that's really awkward. When there's people musicians that you want
to impress and everybody's booing you, You think, how do
(34:43):
you possibly think we're any good when everybody's booing us.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
Those guys like it, though, the Stone the Beatles.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
The Beatles said, don't pay any attention to that. They're wrong.
This was really good, so I was kind of like, see.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
But Levon didn't like it though.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
He didn't like that. Nobody likes being booed and people
throwing stuff at you. You know, I'm I'm quite convinced
of that. But Levon didn't like the music. He didn't
like Bob Dylan's music. He didn't like any of this
and didn't want to be playing with him at all.
(35:29):
Levon left. Then when we all moved to Woodstock and
we had Big Pink, we called Levon and said, okay,
you got to it's time to come back. And he
came back, and Bob was like a different guy. He
looked completely different, and he was writing songs and he
was you know, it was just great. And Levon came
(35:50):
back and loved it all, loved being you know, back
with his brothers, and loved Bob and came around on
the music, he understood something, he had time to understand it.
Plus the songs that I was starting to write, he
was like, Oh, that's who we are, you know. So
(36:14):
the pieces were coming together and he came back into
the fold bigger and stronger than ever.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
When did you know you had or was there a
particular song that, when you finished you said, okay, this
is our sound. I think I'm getting it. Was there
one moment or one song that kind of gave you
the idea for what the band could be.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
No, I didn't know. We were just experimenting and in
a discovery process. I didn't know it until we were
recording it. And I was playing something for Rick the
other day that we recorded something and it was breaking
(37:03):
all kinds of rules and the way you record and
what you do and what you're not supposed to do
and everything. And we were trying this and it was
discouraging what they were telling us going into it, but
we were doing what we knew how to do, and
we recorded it, and then we went in and heard
(37:26):
it and I said, that's it. That's who we are,
that's what we sound like. And it was unlike anybody
else or anything. And still at the time you think,
and that's either a good thing or a bad thing.
That song was what Well, there was two songs that
(37:47):
I played for him. One song was called Tears of Rage,
which was the first song that we recorded on the album,
and it's the first song on the album. And then
we recorded a song called The Weight. And then when
we recorded these songs, it was like, Okay.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
Can you tell me a little bit about writing the
Weight because it's just such an unusual song, like how
it came to you?
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Or well, I was saying, this was a song, This
was a spare song. This was a song that I
had that if something else didn't work out, we could
use it. So we had to put it together mostly
right there in the studio. I had played it for
(38:36):
the guys before and everybody thought, yeah, cool, you know,
but nobody was like, whoa, that's it, that's a you know,
none of us knew. And then when I was writing
this song, I was drawing on these influences from when
(38:58):
I was sixteen years old and went from Canada down
to the Mississippi Delta. Some of those characters, some of
those images, you know, I had now pulled them out
of my trunk of imagination, and I was incorporating them
into a musicality and in the stories. And I was
(39:22):
also very much which you know, I've said this before
that I was very much into Lewis Boonewell's films. And
there was there was something, there was something in his
the a thematic thread in some of his movies that
(39:44):
I couldn't get over. And it was really about people
trying to be good, really trying to do the right thing,
and then something comes along and something turns it upside
down on its head, right. And so this was a
story about a guy who comes into this town. It's
(40:07):
called Nazareth, and it's because that's where the guitar company
is from. So I look in my guitar and it
says Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Right. So I look in there and
I say, I pulled into Nazareth, right. And I start
writing this story and it's about a guy who goes
(40:29):
somewhere and everybody that he runs into it's like he's
just trying to be of goodwill. He's just trying to
do the right thing, and it turns into it's like
the old saying, it depends on who you run into.
And storytelling you're going along, you think you've got an idea,
(40:53):
but it depends on who you run into, right, And
so I'm thinking of all of these characters, and some
of them are based on characters that I imagined or I
met when I went down to the mississip Be Delta,
and I'm thinking, what would be really cool for Levon.
(41:14):
I knew his instrument really well, of his voice and everything,
and I thought I thought I was doing a Lewis
Boone Weell thing. I wasn't, but I thought I was right,
and I thought I was, and I when I wrote
(41:36):
the song, I thought, well, there's a song. I never
heard that song before. Maybe that's good, you know, but
it was unfamiliar, and so with that you think, geez,
I don't know is that good or bad? Is that
different or just obscure, you know, like record producers have
(41:58):
to consider when they're making music. And so when I
taught the song to the guys, and everybody was kind
of enjoying. They knew where I was coming from and
some of these things. The other guys didn't care about
Lewis boonwell or anything, but I did. And so anyway,
(42:21):
they took the ride on it and as we were
getting into it, we were kind of smiling to one another,
like that verse that Carmen and the Devil verse, you know,
that's pretty cool. And then all this thing and ah,
and then it has like a conclusion that ties it
together or something like a movie would all of these things.
(42:43):
I've just been a movie bug, you know, so long.
So anyway, I was making a little movie. And then
we record the song and I have no idea except
we got through the whole song, didn't make a mistake,
felt pretty good. We went in and listened to it
(43:05):
and I thought, holy moly, that's a thing. That's a
thing right there. That's a sound that's I haven't heard
that before, you know, And all of those things then
add up for you inside.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
You know, can you put your finger on what was
so unique about that sound? Or is it just a
kind of gestal thing.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
That No, that's part of the great holy mystery that
you really don't know. And if you think you do,
then you're not ready for a good surprise, you know.
Going in and I say, Garths, why don't you play
piano on this? And Richard you play Oregon. And then
when we get to this part in the song, why
(43:52):
don't we do this and wait and then you come in,
and then you come in, and then you come in together,
and then you know, and then that folds over on
top of itself. And all of these ideas I had
no idea whether if they were good ideas. I thought that,
you know, it's enough to make you want to do something.
(44:13):
Then we got the song and I say, you know what,
on this second last verse, Rick, why don't you take
over the lead vocal on that? It just seemed like
a good idea at the time, And once again, it
wasn't until we went in that control room heard it
(44:34):
over those speakers that Garth playing the piano on that
really made sense. That Levon's drums with these big tune
down toms that I had asked him if he'd be
okay doing, and his vocal. I wasn't even sure this
is the key I wrote it in. I don't know
(44:56):
if it's a good key for you to sing it in.
And he's like, yeah, no, I think it's okay. So
all of these things are way up in the air
and no idea really, and then when you hear it
all come together and those pieces of the puzzle actually
fit that's when you say, yeah, I knew all along.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
We'll be back with more from Robbie Robertson after the break,
We're back with more of a conversation with Robbie Robertson.
The band eventually broke up with one final concert in
nineteen seventy six. It was filmed by Martin Scorsese and
released as The Last Waltz. It's become legendary and kicked
(45:45):
off a decades long working relationship between Robbie and Scorsese,
starting with Raging Bull. Robbie's done the music for most
of Scorsese's films, including his most recent The Irishman. Not
too long ago, Rick discovered a piece of music that
he loved, and when he found out it was from
a Scorsese movie, he had to ask Robbie about his involvement.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
So I heard this on the radio on some obscure
streaming thing, had no idea what it was, and started
researching trying to find out because I hadn't heard anything
like this before. It was fascinating to me, And it
was fascinating because I was familiar with the music, but
(46:33):
not familiar enough to know what it was. But I
feel like I'd heard the music before, and then I'm
listening to the vocals and I'm thinking this, the singer
is unbelievable. But it sounds like the singer's not listening
to the music she's singing to even though it fits
like it clearly works, but there's a strange, alien connection
(46:54):
to it. And it just sounds like magic to me.
That sounds like a brand new kind of music. So
when I saw Robbie the other day, I asked him
about it because I didn't know who made it, but
I knew that it was in a soundtrack that he
was involved in, and I asked him how it came
to pack us and tell us how it came to pass.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
I was working on the music from Martin Scorsese's movie
Shutter Island, and and I was I was on a
roll of a certain kind of music that him and
(47:33):
I hadn't really experimented with much before, with Christoph Pendereeski,
who is somebody that I've admired for years. And I
told I've said to Marty over some days, sometime we've
got to find a way to use some Pendereski and
(47:56):
some John Cage and some you know, modern classical music
in a movie. So when he decided he was going
to direct this film, and he sent me the script
and uh, and he said, yea, is it give you
(48:16):
any ideas? And I said, this is it. This is
the time, this is when we can. I think we can.
He said, whoa really modern classical music and that he said,
interesting because it's a it's a movie about insanity and
(48:37):
and modern classical music is fearless and expressing some of
that part of of of the mind. So anyway, we
did a lot of things that in the movie and
it was great fun and so we you know, all
this stuff. And then at the end it was like
(48:58):
he said, I said, I don't have anything figured out
yet for the end of the movie and the end credits.
So I had heard this piece of music by this composer,
Max Richter. I think it's called Daylight something or but anyway,
(49:22):
i'd heard this piece of music and there was almost
the dodgy oh wish you know, there was something that
really pulled on your heartstrings in it, and it fit
in to the other world that we were experimenting. And
there was a song that I knew about for years
(49:45):
just that stayed with me. By Dinah Washington, who has
always been a favorite of mine, her sound, her interpretation,
I've you know, she's just one of my faves over
the years. So I'm thinking about this song, this Bitter
(50:06):
Earth that she sang, I'm thinking about this Max Richter
classical piece and I and there was a connection there
for me. So then I have them. I check it.
They're both in the same key hmm. So I then
(50:28):
took the Dinah Washington piece and I cut out each
of her lines in the song like you would a
sample and hip hop and it so I had her
whole performance. Now I've got the Max Richter piece. So
I take her line by line and lay her in
(50:53):
the way I would have sung it on top of
the Max Richter thing. I just put her there and
I do this thing. And it's I don't even know
if you're allowed to do that. It's like, can you
can you do that with Dinah Washington and this great composer,
Max Richter. I don't know, but I can't help but
(51:18):
do this. So I lay this stuff in. I send
it to Scarcese and say, I've tried something here, but
I've got to warn you. I don't know that this
is okay, but there's something about it and see what
So he said, what do you mean not okay? And
(51:40):
I said, I've taken a liberty on this thing, and
I'm taking somebody's music and I'm putting it with somebody
else's music. And this is not like a little sample
in a hip hop too and where we're playing a
little riff of James Brown here for a moment and
then we're onto something else. This is the whole piece
(52:03):
of these two artists. So anyway I it. He says,
oh my god, this is beautiful fault and it's perfect
at the end of this movie, and what did this thing?
And to have this bitter earth come on after this thing?
And so anyway, so then I say, well, I'm not
(52:28):
going to call them and ask him if it's okay.
Somebody has to call Max Richter and Dinah Washington's family
or kids or whoever and see if it's okay that
I've done this right. And they called and they give
the coming back and they said they heard it and
they love it. I thought, wow, that's a really good sign,
(52:52):
you know, because a lot of people are like, you
cannot mess with this, you know, you you know, you
can't cross that line. That's that's a sin, right, and
that they said they liked it. So anyway, it ended
up at the end of this movie. And I was
telling Rick the other day some months ago, I'm watching
(53:17):
a French movie that I was curious about. I'm watching
this movie and throughout the movie they used this piece
of music, and so I'd say to Martin Scerceesi I said, wow,
I was watching this movie and they were using this
throughout the movie, not just once. They're using it, you know,
(53:40):
a few times. And he says, they can't do that.
I said, they did. It might be too late for
us to object.
Speaker 5 (53:51):
And then they look at the soundtrack and they said,
who's Morris Levy. Yeah, it makes your voice sounds Guy's
like I know that voice.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (54:00):
I never would have guessed.
Speaker 2 (54:01):
I never would have made the connection.
Speaker 5 (54:03):
It sounds a Morts exactly.
Speaker 2 (54:05):
It's like it's so modern. It felt just completely about Goard,
but beautiful and unlike anything I heard before.
Speaker 1 (54:14):
Thanks to Robbie Robertson for coming on the show and
of course for creating Changri La. You can hear some
of Robbie's music, including Song's Office twenty nineteen release Cinematic
by listening to our playlist for this episode at broken
record podcast dot com, and while you there, sign up
for our behinder scene in this newsletter. Broken Record is
(54:36):
produced help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrell, Mia Lobel and
is a production of Pushkin Industries. Our The music's by
Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.