Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band

This guitar was the beginning of it all for me.

Robbie robertson: I don't have much of a process of, like,

"I'm thinking about this,

and now I'm gonna write a song, and it's gonna be about that."

A lot of times,

the creative process is trying to catch yourself off guard.

J j

and you sit down, and you've got a blank canvas,

and you don't know what you're gonna do,

and you just see what happens.

How you doin', man?

When you talk about songs that are

reflective of your past,

it becomes a Jigsaw puzzle,

because... you write about what you know.

You write about where you've been.

You write about who you know.

J j

when I stumbled onto this song, "once were brothers"...

It really did, for me,

zero in on the band.

J once were brothers j

j brothers no more j

j we lost our connection j

j after the war... j

I don't know of any other group of musicians

with a story equivalent

to the story of the band.

And it was a beautiful thing.

It was so beautiful, it went up in flames.

J brothers no more j

J j

j when I get off of this mountain j

j you know where I want to go j

j straight down the Mississippi river j

j to the Gulf of Mexico j

j to lake George, Louisiana... j

Bruce Springsteen: There is no band that emphasizes

coming together and becoming

greater than the sum of their parts than the band.

Simply their name, the band, that was it.

J up on cripple creek she sends me

j if I sprang a leak she'd mend me j

j 1 don't have to speak she defends me j

j a drunkard's dream if I ever did see one j

j good luck had just stung me j

j and to the racetrack I did go j

j I bet on one horse to win j

j and she bet on another to show j

Eric Clapton: I've never been in a band that long.

I ran away, usually, and would move on

to the next thing that was attractive to me,

or that was missing in the band I was in. So I didn't

have a sense of brotherhood,

so I was in great awe of their brotherhood.

It was the soul of the band.

J she mends me I don't have to speak ;

j she defends me a drunkard's dream j

j if I ever did see one j

Springsteen: Not only did they have the incredible writing,

you know, Robbie's writing, but they had three

of the greatest white singers in rock history.

For a great band. To have three of them in one group,

that was... Just loaded for bear.

J that's when that little love of mine j

j dips her doughnut in my tea ;

j up on cripple creek... &

Martin scorsese: This music drew upon country music,

english, scotch, Irish, the choral sounds

of the welsh. At the same time,

Mississippi delta, the blues. And there was so much imagery.

This... just didn't seem like anything else.

Taj Mahal: No one sounded like those guys. You know,

they came in, and they played. And I just loved

that about them, you know, they were about the music.

J she defends me a drunkard's dream j

j if I ever did see one j

Robbie: I think about levon,

Richard, Rick, and garth

all the time. We went through things together you could

never replace. You can never give enough credit

to something that special. I was an only child,

so this brotherhood was so powerful.

J oh, I could get you with my yodel, I go &

J no, no, no, no, no j

Levon helm: I think we're warmed up.

J j

Robbie: Since I was a kid, I see stories

in a different way. I don't see them like fairy tales.

These stories are powerful,

and some of them are dangerous and big.

Maybe that's because my upbringing was

a little bit scattered and not normal in some ways.

My mother was born and raised

in the six nation Indian reserve.

Her name was Dolly.

When she was around 16 years old,

she was sent to live with an aunt in Toronto.

When we would go back to visit

the relatives in the Indian reserve,

I thought this was a magical place.

It seemed like every day,

when the sun started to go down,

the instruments would come out.

And I could sit in the middle of this,

and hear the fingers on the strings,

and the hands rubbing on the skins of the drum.

My parents got me a little guitar

with a cowboy painted on it.

I already know

a couple of chords on the guitar

that my relatives at six nations have taught me.

I would practice

and practice.

This is where I belong.

This is calling me.

I don't know for sure

whether I would ever have found my way to music

without this experience,

and that's why I have

such a deep appreciation

for that place.

J j

And then we crossed into a time zone

when I was 13 years old.

J j

Overnight, out of nowhere,

this new music came pouring out.

J deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans j

j way back up in the woods among the evergreens j

j there stood a log cabin made of earth and wood j

j where lived a country boy named Johnny b. Goode j

j who never ever learned to read or write so well j

j but he could play a guitar just like a-ringin' a bell &

for guys my age, it was a life-altering moment.

Like, it just cut against the grain

of the mundaneness of entertainment at that time.

Jann wenner: You know, it's raw, it's loud,

it's raucous, it's tough.

You know, the guitar sound is loud and thrilling.

Springsteen: It immediately

imparted to you this entire new way

of living, of looking,

of walking, of talking, of being,

of the possibility of what you might be able to do

with your life. It was a revolutionary moment, you know.

Robbie: I thought of it

as my own personal big bang.

Little Richard: J Lucille j

j you won't do your sister's will j

j Lucille

j you won't do your sister's will j

I thought, "that's it. I don't know

what all you people are gonna do,

but I know what I'm gonna do."

Within weeks,

I was in my first band.

We were off and running.

Fats domino: J I'm walkin', yes indeed j

j and I'm talkin' about you and me, I'm hopin';

j that you come back to me... j

Robbie: My schoolmates, they're like,

"one of these days, I wanna have my own bowling alley.”

I'd be like, "oh, my god, your own bowling...

You could bowl for free all you wanted, right?"

I don't have that vision.

I saw something else, and the lights

were really bright.

Within a couple years, we were getting somewhere,

booking different shows around Toronto.

A local dj booked us to open

for Ronnie Hawkins and the hawks.

J j

j well, I had a little woman j

j and her name was baby Jean &

Robbie: Ronnie Hawkins and the hawks had

a reputation to be the best

rockabilly band around.

- J baby Jean, baby Jean j - J baby Jean j

j baby Jean j = don't be mean j

these guys were up there

with Jerry Lee Lewis, Conway twitty,

Carl Perkins, they were in that league.

J my baby j

j well, I learned to lose my mind j

Ronnie Hawkins: We didn't know anything about Canada.

We figured, Canada is the wilderness, they've still got

mountain men, you know, eating each other,

stuff like that.

We didn't know nothing about Canada. Boy, and Canada is

the promised land compared to where we came from.

Robbie: We played our hearts out.

Then Ronnie Hawkins and the hawks take

the stage. Oh, my god. They took flight.

J ...Back home j

j I'm gonna call up a gypsy woman j

j on the telephone &

j I'm gonna send out a worldwide hoo-doo j

j that'd be the very thing that'd suit you j

j I'm gonna see to it she will be back home j