Robbie Robertson on his favourite Bob Dylan songs
Few people knew Bob Dylan as intimately and personally as Robbie Robertson did during the latter half of the 1960s. First coming on board with the rest of The Hawks (later known as The Band) when Dylan went electric in 1965, Robertson saw the highs and lows of Dylan’s transformation from the beloved voice of his generation folk icon to controversial rock star, heathen, and martyr all wrapped into one package.
The weight of Dylan’s shift wasn’t lost on Robertson. As the main guitar player that helped Dylan pick out his instrument of choice (a Fender Telecaster, normally associated with country music), his amps, and his specific tone, Robertson was as instrumental in Dylan’s electric sound as anyone in his orbit. In fact, Robertson was able to witness Dylan’s most profound embrace of rock and roll first-hand when he saw the recording sessions for ‘Like a Rolling Stone’.
“When Bob recorded the studio version of the song, I accidentally went with [musician] John Hammond Jr. to the studio,” Robertson recalled to the Los Angeles Times in 2019. “He said, ‘Oh God, I forgot, I promised my friend I would stop in, he’s recording,’ and I was like, ‘OK, whatever.’ We went in and they were recording ‘Like a Rolling Stone,’ and I thought, ‘Whoa, this guy’s pulling a rabbit out of the hat — I haven’t heard anything like this before’.”
The friend that Dylan had promised a spot on the record was Mike Bloomfield, the lead guitarist for the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Bloomfield would be Dylan’s first electric guitarist before Robertson and the rest of The Hawks stepped in. By the time they did, Robertson observed just how combative audiences could be toward Dylan’s new sound.
“When I started playing with Bob, I didn’t know how so much vocal power could come out of this frail man,” Robertson recalled about Dylan’s performances. “He was so thin. He was singing louder and stronger than James Brown [laughs]. We were in a battlefield on that tour, and you had to fight back.”
From accusations of Dylan being a ‘Judas’ figure to vicious insults thrown his way to even small physical attacks, Dylan was subjected to a torrent of abuse and ridicule while touring with The Hawks. It was so intense that Dylan’s 1966 motorcycle accident allowed him to step away from the madness to recover both physically and mentally. While Dylan recuperated, the rest of The Band began recording at ‘Big Pink’, their shared house in Woodstock, New York, creating songs that would eventually appear on their debut, Music From Big Pink.
“It was so much fun to see the look on Bob’s face when we played him Music From Big Pink, and this is the first song on it,” Robertson said about the album’s opener ‘Tears of Rage’, which Dylan co-wrote with keyboardist Richard Manuel. “Starting your album with a long slow song was so against the rules, but when he heard what we did with this song, the look on his face — it was just priceless. He didn’t see this coming, and neither did anybody else.”
Check out ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ down below.
Robbie Robertson’s favourite Bob Dylan songs:
- ‘Like A Roling Stone’
- ‘Tears of Rage’
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