Son of a Jewish father and a Mohawk mother, Robertson first encountered live music at Six Nations Of The Grand River reservation, his mothers' girlhood home. His cousin taught him guitar at an early age and by fifteen he was performing in Toronto bands, including Little Caesar And The Consuls. He toured with Ronnie Hawkins and The Hawks from 1960 - 1963 and with Bob Dylan on his controversial Electric tours of 1965 and 1966. Dylan called Robertson : "The only mathematical guitar genius I've run into who doesn't offend my intestinal nervousness with his rearguard sound", (a quote never attributed to Allen Ginsberg). Robertson formed and played with The Band from 1967 'till 1976. Though he sang very little he was the groups principle song writer and guitar player and became the bands' de facto leader. On Thanksgiving Day, Novemer 25, 1976, The Band performed its' Last Waltz at Bill Graham's Winterland Ballroom in SanFrancisco, the site of their debut in 1967. Featuring appearances by Ronnie Hawkins, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Paul Butterfield, Joni Mitchell and a gloriously inebriated Neil Young (a glob of cocaine hanging from his nose had to be Rotoscoped out in editing the concert film), the bands' retirement was filmed by Martin Scorcese (and some of the finest cinematogrophers in Hollywood including Laslo Kovacs and Vilmos Zigmund). This was the beginning of a collaboration between Robertson and Scorcese that led to Robertson's composing the film score to Raging Bull and working on the scores of King Of Comedy, The Color Of Money, Casino and The Departed and acting as executive musical director on Gangs Of New York. In 1987 Robertson released a self-titled album featuring contributions from Peter Gabriel, U2 and BoDeans on several tracks. In 1991 he released Storyville, named after the famed Jazz section of New Orleans and contributed a song (Breakin' The Rules), to Wim Wenders' film, Until The End Of The World. Music For The Native Americans was recorded as a soundtrack to the Turner documentary The Native Americans, 1994. The song Mahk Jchi features the Native American women's a cappella group Ulali who have toured extensively, released a video, won several Juno awards, recorded with Indigo Girls and contributed to the soundtrack of the film Smoke Signals. Robertson has released one other album of Native American music: Contact From The Underworld Of Redboy. Ulali's web-site is currently under construction but their MySpace page offers several new songs, Amazon.com lists one album plus the soundtrack to Smoke Signals while iTunes carries a few of their songs on compilation CDs
Son of a Jewish father and a Mohawk mother, Robertson first encountered live music at Six Nations Of The Grand River reservation, his mothers' girlhood home. His cousin taught him guitar at an early age and by fifteen he was performing in Toronto bands, including Little Caesar And The Consuls. He toured with Ronnie Hawkins and The Hawks from 1960 - 1963 and with Bob Dylan on his controversial Electric tours of 1965 and 1966. Dylan called Robertson : "The only mathematical guitar genius I've run into who doesn't offend my intestinal nervousness with his rearguard sound", (a quote never attributed to Allen Ginsberg). Robertson formed and played with The Band from 1967 'till 1976. Though he sang very little he was the groups principle song writer and guitar player and became the bands' de facto leader. On Thanksgiving Day, Novemer 25, 1976, The Band performed its' Last Waltz at Bill Graham's Winterland Ballroom in SanFrancisco, the site of their debut in 1967. Featuring appearances by Ronnie Hawkins, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Paul Butterfield, Joni Mitchell and a gloriously inebriated Neil Young (a glob of cocaine hanging from his nose had to be Rotoscoped out in editing the concert film), the bands' retirement was filmed by Martin Scorcese (and some of the finest cinematogrophers in Hollywood including Laslo Kovacs and Vilmos Zigmund). This was the beginning of a collaboration between Robertson and Scorcese that led to Robertson's composing the film score to Raging Bull and working on the scores of King Of Comedy, The Color Of Money, Casino and The Departed and acting as executive musical director on Gangs Of New York. In 1987 Robertson released a self-titled album featuring contributions from Peter Gabriel, U2 and BoDeans on several tracks. In 1991 he released Storyville, named after the famed Jazz section of New Orleans and contributed a song (Breakin' The Rules), to Wim Wenders' film, Until The End Of The World. Music For The Native Americans was recorded as a soundtrack to the Turner documentary The Native Americans, 1994. The song Mahk Jchi features the Native American women's a cappella group Ulali who have toured extensively, released a video, won several Juno awards, recorded with Indigo Girls and contributed to the soundtrack of the film Smoke Signals. Robertson has released one other album of Native American music: Contact From The Underworld Of Redboy. Ulali's web-site is currently under construction but their MySpace page offers several new songs, Amazon.com lists one album plus the soundtrack to Smoke Signals while iTunes carries a few of their songs on compilation CDs
