Q&A: The Band's Robbie Robertson talks The Last Waltz 40 years later

It's been more than 40 years since The Band called it acareer with afinal concert for the ages.

In MartinScorsese'sfilm The Last Waltz, The Band performed their own beloved songs and sang with many of the most recognizable acts in music history performerslikeBob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Muddy Waters.

The group's lead guitarist and primary songwriter,RobbieRobertson, recently published hismemoir, Testimony, in which he charts The Band's history from the beginning when they were known asThe Hawks.

In town to speak at the Vancouver Writers' Festival,Roberstonstopped by our CBC studios to chat with On the Coast host Stephen Quinn about the book, The Band, and theirstoriedcareer.

Quinn:How vivid is your recollection of that final concert?

Robertson: It's quite vivid and in the process of writing this book, Isharpened that blade. I had to go deep on this and I had to remember stuff that I had swept under the rug a long time ago, and I had to pull it back out.

Ifound that Icould write this book not from this point of view [today], but from then,when Iwas at that age.

Being able to go there and tell it in this kind ofway,it was so much more exciting to me because Icouldsee it through those innocent eyes.

The Last Waltz hasbeen regardedby manyas the best rock and roll movie of all time. How did it feel to walk away from The Band with that as a sort of historicaldocument?

It feels good because the way that it came about was with tremendous modesty.

We were trying to do something sohonourableinthename of the music that had brought us to thatpoint, and then once we had anideaof who we wanted to involve inthiscelebration, Bill Graham, who wasproducingthe concert in San Francisco,said, "you have to document this properly."

So Ihad the audacityto askMartinScorseseto direct it. And at first he said, "oh my god, I'm in the middle ofshootinga movie, you can't goandmake anothermoviewhileyou're in the middle of making a movie, they don't allow that."

We're talkingabout the people who were involved in it and finally he stood up, and he threw his arms in the air, and he said, "I don't care.They can sue me, they can kill me,they can fire me, I have to do this." Then he said, "But don't tell anybody."

Tell me about the decision to put people like JoniMitchell,MuddyWaters, Bob Dylan front and centre in that final performance.

Well it turned out that some of these artists represented a spoke in the wheel that made up the music that we were a part of, that we loved. So we said 'okay, for New Orleans, we've got tohave Doctor John come in for this. For the BritishBlues, we'vegot to haveEricClapton, no doubt about that. And are we going todo this without the Canadians? I don't think so. We've got toget NeilYoung and JoniMitchellto join us or it's not worth having this party.'

And so the extraordinary thing on top of this, it's easy to take for granted, butThe Band backed everybody on this, and therewasn'ta bad note the whole night.That'sGuinessBook ofRecords stuff, I'm telling you,as a musician, because we don't read music, we had no cheatsheets, we had nothing, except memory and focus.

Whenyou look back, does that seem like the culmination of everything in your career?It's continued since but was that the defining moment?

It was like a really respectful thing to doin music, and to have our fearless leadersthere with us,RonnieHawkins and Bob Dylan, it felt like we had gone full circle.

With files from CBC Radio One's On The Coast

This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity. To hear the full story, click the audio labelled:40 years after The Last Waltz, The Band's songwriter reflects on storied career