Saw'em at the Aboriginal Achievement Awards awhile back. Gave one hell of a concert, Tho it's a shame when you look at his history. If you check around, online, Robertson isn't exactly the most popular guy in town. He apparently "stole" all the rights to The Band's songs and then quit entirely to focus on a solo career. As far as I know he and Levon Helm don't talk anymore. They both came out with biographies, "Across The Great Divide" from what I've read (haven't finished it yet) is quite heavily biased towards Robbie Robertson, tho I'd expect Levon Helm's "Story Of The Band" tells a different tale.

Regardless, remarkable man.

Robertson is a legend. Oddly, for one who has made such a huge contribution to American music he seems to be known by name to only a few, but everrybody knows his music. I mean just hum a few bars of "The Weight" or "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" or "Up on Cripple Creek" and all of a sudden people go "Oh... yeah I know that one". The guy is a monster guitar player and one of the best American songwriters of the 20th century. The contributions that he has made, along with the rest of The Band can't be overstated, and don't forget that when people talk about Dylan going electric- this was the guy who was his chief collaborator. *quality stuff.

He's probably also one of the worst singers in the world. The Band released 9 LPs with Robertson writing the majority of the material, but he only sang on 2 tracks in total. When the group performed live his microphone was usually turned off or was so low as to be inaudible. The Band played the Woodstock festival, but their set is nowhere to be seen in the movie- the rumour as to why is that Robbie's mic was live and the whole set was ruined.

This track is from his last album, released in 1998- an eternity in rock and roll years. I met Robbie at a book-signing in TO and asked him about any upcoming solo projects, he said he had something in the works- this was about 4 years ago. Takes him a long time to come up with new material I guess- he's only released 4 solo albums since The Band's last LP in 1977. Wikipedia says he's got a project in the works with Clapton. I'll be there in the store on release day.

For fans of Rock, Country, Soul, Folk, Funk, Blues, Roots (am I missing anything) you've got to check out "The Last Waltz" from Martin Scorsese- probably the best live concert ever captured on film.

not. It wouldnt be much of a magic trick if he did, would it? The trick is done, i believe with a clever piece of makeup or patch of some kind. Derren Brown did a similar trick on Robbie Williams: http://www.videosift.com/video/Derren-Brown-Amazing-Mind-Control-Trick-Robbie-Williams

Robbie Rotten was pretty funny, too.

I love this song and the video and i'm not ashamed to admit it! Robbie Williams wasn't always a 24 carat cocksucker... well he was but then he did that godawful swing album, meh

i eat haggis, neeps and tatties at least once a fortnight and i'm never disappointed. it's in my top 10 meals of all time.

and robbie burns is the man.

This is 10 times better then Robbie Knievel's fake jump over the Mirage volcano the same night. The jump was a legit jump and he should get credit for that....but the hype put out by him and fox jumping the volcano was complete bullshit.

say what you will about Robbie but if you didnt laugh at the Uncle Fester/McCain reference you have no sense of humor

Jack Nicholson 2012!!!

Good stuff!

Saw the film.

Cracked up when Robbie Robertson caught a fly after Scorsese did his New Yorker fast talk (not a dig on St. Martin).

Robbie put out an album of Native American songs - aces all around.

While some people might disagree with me, I still think that this was (a lot) better than the original. One of my Sift-aspirations is building a playlist by that name, only I haven't found enough great covers yet. If you see any cover/remix/remaster here that you believe is better than the original, gimme a shout, will you?

That's not meant to subtract any value from Frank, of course. Added my upvote.

So not to get into a conversation with myself here, but in case anyone else cares:

I asked mother Google and discovered that the piece in the video is "Asturias" by Isaac Albeniz. However, Robbie Krieger (The Doors' guitarist who wrote Spanish Caravan) was asked if parts of the song were lifted from that, and he said no, but parts were actually derived from "Granadinas". In fact, the owners of the rights to Granadinas sued The Doors but won only the publishing that was earned in France, where they resided. The strange part is that I don't hear a clear resemblance between the song and Granadinas, but the main theme of Asturias is almost exactly the main theme in Spanish Caravan. At any rate, there is your useless music fact of the day.

Sorry, robbie. *discard

Seriously? Jimi has no soul? are you retarded?

I think Bill Hicks said it best

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCbVkX7jdAM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRkA6zugNMQ

Oh and considered by who exactly? Well lets take a look at the top 100 guitarists as voted for by the readers of rolling stone

The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time and the number one spot goes to...??? Jimi? oh no that can't be right. Now who is this eric johnson noob? Is he even on the list? oh yea that's right...he's not.

1Jimi Hendrix
2 Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band
3 B.B. King
4 Eric Clapton
5 Robert Johnson
6 Chuck Berry
7 Stevie Ray Vaughan
8 Ry Cooder
9 Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin
10 Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones
11Kirk Hammett of Metallica
12 Kurt Cobain of Nirvana
13 Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead
14 Jeff Beck
15 Carlos Santana
16 Johnny Ramone of the Ramones
17 Jack White of the White Stripes
18 John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers
19 Richard Thompson
20 James Burton
21 George Harrison
22 Mike Bloomfield
23 Warren Haynes
24 The Edge of U2
25 Freddy King
26 Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave
27 Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits
28 Stephen Stills
29 Ron Asheton of the Stooges
30 Buddy Guy
31 Dick Dale
32 John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service
33 & 34 Lee Ranaldo, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth
35 John Fahey
36 Steve Cropper of Booker T. and the MG's
37 Bo Diddley
38 Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac
39 Brian May of Queen
40 John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival
41 Clarence White of the Byrds
42 Robert Fripp of King Crimson
43 Eddie Hazel of Funkadelic
44 Scotty Moore
45 Frank Zappa
46 Les Paul
47 T-Bone Walker
48 Joe Perry of Aerosmith
49 John McLaughlin
50 Pete Townshend
51 Paul Kossoff of Free
52 Lou Reed
53 Mickey Baker
54 Jorma Kaukonen of Jefferson Airplane
55 Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple
56 Tom Verlaine of Television
57 Roy Buchanan
58 Dickey Betts
59 & 60 Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien of Radiohead
61 Ike Turner
62 Zoot Horn Rollo of the Magic Band
63 Danny Gatton
64 Mick Ronson
65 Hubert Sumlin
66 Vernon Reid of Living Colour
67 Link Wray
68 Jerry Miller of Moby Grape
69 Steve Howe of Yes
70 Eddie Van Halen
71 Lightnin' Hopkins
72 Joni Mitchell
73 Trey Anastasio of Phish
74 Johnny Winter
75 Adam Jones of Tool
76 Ali Farka Toure
77 Henry Vestine of Canned Heat
78 Robbie Robertson of the Band
79 Cliff Gallup of the Blue Caps (1997)
80 Robert Quine of the Voidoids
81 Derek Trucks
82 David Gilmour of Pink Floyd
83 Neil Young
84 Eddie Cochran
85 Randy Rhoads
86 Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath
87 Joan Jett
88 Dave Davies of the Kinks
89 D. Boon of the Minutemen
90 Glen Buxton of Alice Cooper
91 Robby Krieger of the Doors
92 & 93 Fred "Sonic" Smith, Wayne Kramer of the MC5
94 Bert Jansch
95 Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine
96 Angus Young of AC/DC
97 Robert Randolph
98 Leigh Stephens of Blue Cheer
99 Greg Ginn of Black Flag
100 Kim Thayil of Soundgarden

Robbie's only cool fan. Period.

Yes, debuts generally are the best: these document the vision of the artist. Afterwards this vision is further developed (or copy-pasted too intensively, resulting in a suffocating status quo), sometimes leading to similar but better productions.

Talking about Robbie Williams:
Robbie Williams has gathered a whole team around him: Guy Chambers (wrote "Angel"), William Orbit (produced Madonna's Ray of Light), Andy Rourke (The Smiths), Peter Hook (New Order)..
A strategy to absorb more contemporary "alternative" influences in "his" music, to keep in touch with the current pop stream?
We'll hear what comes out of this collaboration.

Wonderwall is permamently etched in my memory..
..same counts for Blvd of Broken Dreams..
Both songs have a similar catchiness in the melody that is (too?) easily absorbed.