What Utahns Need to Know About This Artist

This artist has been very influential in the world of music, movie scores, and soundtracks and even performed at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002. 

Robbie Robertson was half Mohawk on his mother’s side and grew up with summer trips to the Six Nations Reservation. During these summer trips, he would learn how to play guitar from his relatives. 

In 1960 he joined Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, and they went on to join Bob Dylan as his backup band and would change their names to The Band. 

The Band would go on to release Music From Big Pink in 1968 and The Band would end up breaking up in 1976 and have their final concert the Last Waltz filmed by Martin Scorsese. 

Robbie and Martin Scorsese would go on to become frequent collaborators on several of Scorsese’s films including Scorsese’s latest and Robbie’s final project Killers of the Flower Moon. 

Robbie would go on to explore more of his Indigenous heritage after working on the soundtrack for Music for the Native Americans in 1994 and would release Contact from the Underworld of Redboy in 1998. 

In 2002 he performed in the Native American portion of the 2002 Salt Lake City Opening Ceremony. 

In 2015 Robbie and his son Sebastian collaborated with illustrator David Shannon to write Hiawatha and the Peacemaker.