THERE IS a central tension inherent to being a fan of the epochal classic rock group the Band. As any devotee can attest, as dense as their discography may be with all-time classics, the Band’s guitarist and principal songwriter, Robbie Robertson, is a preening egotist and unreliable narrator. Yet he has — for all intents and purposes — written the history of this extraordinary rock group since the late 1970s when, as the group’s front man, he made the controversial choice to disband the Band and position himself as lead historian, moving on toward greener pastures and leaving his former bandmates in dire financial and creative straits.
In a legendary bit of swindling, Robertson even secured the lion’s share of the Band’s royalties, hustling the others into signing papers they didn’t fully understand. “Robbie called with some cockamamie story” about bookkeeping, drummer/vocalist Levon Helm wrote in his 1993 memoir This Wheel’s on Fire. “A lot of people got conned.” He may be rich and famous thanks to his time with the Band, but in exchange, as Steven Hyden put it succinctly in his 2018 Twilight of the Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock, “Robbie Robertson is now commonly perceived to be one of the biggest jerks in rock history.”
