Why hasn't Robbie Robertson had a more impressive solo career?

I will offer up one of many reasons.

The Band came across as a total unit, a band of brothers. No was was referred to as Springsteen is as "The Boss". They seemed to be ego less as they had three giys who could be the lead singer.

Eric Clapton whose band was virtually three lead instruments battling each other as who gets to lead in the final stages of his band, was blown away by their unity.

To the public at large The Beatles where one unit, band of brothers, but Eric through his friendship with George knew different.

For a time The Band seemed to be the real different.

 

Yeah, it's a great album.

 

Then Rod Stewart did all right with the cover of "Broken Arrow."

 

I think the biggest problem is not so much losing your mates but losing your songwriting ideas.

When that happens, it doesn't matter if you're solo or if you're the Rolling Stones - there won't be any good new material coming.

 

I think it's telling that the "song" you recommend from that album features Robertson's spoken words and crickets.

Robertson was a great songwriter and a fine, distinctive guitarist, and I love The Band. But let's face it, vocally, he can't carry a tune in a wheelbarrow. I don't believe that's the only reason or even the main reason he hasn't been more successful on his own, but there's a reason his mic. was turned off at The Last Waltz.

 

The crock is your reply (and the fact that it received a couple of thanks). Exactly one person used the word, lazy, but one of the resident board know-it-alls has to seize the opportunity to blast virtually all participants in the thread. By normal board standards, the discussion level has been rather civil.

The thread topic is about his solo career...not about what he did before age 30. So maybe so maybe somebody with greater mental faculties, such as yourself, could have considered the constraints of the subject matter and actually attempted to offer potential explanations or theories.

 

I know you're just trolling and you don't actually care what the answer is but, for me, together with The Stones, my favorite rock and roll band and for me and my friends coming up in the middle '70s as musicians they were THE model for how to play the music.

Why? Because The Band mixed gospel, R&B, country, old time music and first generation rock and into an immortal American stew that reflected -- and in large measure still reflects -- everything I'm most interested in rock music, the same things that made the music of Elvis and all the first gen rocker so great (and to this day I listen to more of Chuck Berry, Elvis, Little Richard etc than I do, I dunno, Led Zeppelin or Queen or something).

To me, and obviously many others, there's nothing more exciting in rock than a sort of rock that immediately and on its surface connects to these predecessor styles from which rock and roll was Frankensteined together in the '50s. Also, together with The Stones, The Band had the greatest group feel in it's playing of any band ever in rock -- not a regimented, drilled, rehearsed sound but a kind of front-porch, informal, ragged but right (though it truth if you go an listen to it there's nothing ragged about it at all, which isn't always the case with The Stones), loose but tight feel. That's incredible. It's hard to get in fact, you kind of either have it or you don't. And The Band's rhythm feel was amazing, when you listen to them playing Motown covers like "Don't Do It" or "Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever," it's a rhythm feel few other bands ever had.

Then there's the material, especially the cinematic storytelling songs that you can see like a movie in your minds eye ("The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down") or the ones that were connected to the past the way the music was ("Rocking Chair," "King Harvest"), these weren't like other people's songs. Sure they could be poetic, "King Harvest" was basically a series of rural life haikus alternating with a story out of the New Deal, or elliptical ("The Weight," "Chest Fever"), but they were beginning-middle-end songs sometimes with surprising emotional and harmonic or rhythmic twists (like the two-part structure of "Jawbone"). The were, like some of Richard Thompson's songs for Fairport, songs that were born timeless.

Finally, in an era of tastelessness and tackiness and bloat -- not that there wasn't great music in these styles but psychedelia and then glam and prog and even metal, it was all dress-up and theatrics and scale sometimes it seems like for scale's sake. Compared to that these guys were the paragons of taste and restraint (at least musical restraint).

Anyway those are a few reasons we revered them and model our drumming and piano playing and group feel and songwriting after what those guys did.

 

it's possible that without the rest of the band he didnot have a sound of his own.i listened briefly to a song on his first thing i said was oh he is trying to sound like peter gabriel.that never happened with the band.the band always sounded exactly like the band and now one else.
it could be that he just didn't find his own sound.

 

After what came before, some of us are a bit disappointed, that's all.

 

My take on why Robbie Robertson has not had a successful solo career is first and foremost, Robbie is not a strong singer. He used to sing into a mic with The Band but they never had it turned on because the other guys in The Band were the voices. I don't mind some of his solo stuff but his voice limits its appeal. Among the better known radio songs are collaborations with other singers (BoDeans, Peter Gabriel).

 

I think really most of all he didn't try to have a major solo career for whatever reason. Could he have had one? Maybe, though I don't hold any of his solo records in the esteem that some folks on this thread do and I do think his voice would always have held him back (of course if he cared to he could have put together a band and hired a singer)... but to have a big career and sell lots of albums and get on the radio and fill rooms, you know, you gotta release new material, hit the road, stop by radio stations and TV shows and do all the relevant promotional work, then do it all again a year or two or at most three later. Obviously that wasn't where his interests took him -- I mean, 5 albums in the 40 years since he left The Band, and not a lot of gigs; it clearly wasn't what he was looking to do. He did do the late night shows promotion rounds for How to Become Clairvoyant, he seemed to be more interested in really selling that one than maybe some of the earlier records. And he's doing promotions for his book. But he probably took it off the road in '76 for a reason and didn't really want to get back on that horse.

 

Do you really know his financial worth and work habits and motivations? Really?

 

Well Morrissey had a pretty substantial solo career. I mean all his solo albums were top 10 in the UK, and even in the US, where The Smiths were never exactly a household name, early on in his solo career during the heyday of commercial alt-rock radio here, Morrissey was a major figure and like on the Kill Uncle tour he was playing MSG and the LA Forum, venues bigger than The Smiths ever played in the US. (I think he sold out the Forum in like half an hour.)

Fogerty, well, Centerfield was a #1 album and quite a few of its song were top ten on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart -- "Old Man Down the Road," "Centerfield" and "Rock and Roll Girls"

These guys had some pretty substantial success on their own. But in contrast to Robertson, they work at it a lot. They're constantly cranking out new material, hitting the road, and in something like that last Fogerty duets album, doing the kind of built-to-sell stuff that veteran acts often do (pairing with younger acts on duets of their old material). You know, if Robertson wanted to do a record of his songs in a series of duets with all the Americana acts out there, he could probably get a bunch of attention and outselll his other projects too...but who could blame him for not wanting to do that?

 

I don't think that's relevant. There are plenty of vocalists, from Jimmy Durante, to Bob Dylan, to Leonard Cohen, who weren't blessed with great singing voices, half-spoke their songs, and had great albums. Robertson still sang lead on his albums, and the are some tremendously effective vocals on them, in spite of the lack of great singing voice. "Fallen Angel", "American Roulette", "Showdown At Big Sky", "Shake This Town" - They're all examples of impassioned delivery of the lyric. I have listened to his self-titled album over and over again and I have never tired of it. At least when he speaks the lyric, it varies it up and perhaps acknowledges his limitations.

Again, no one has accused Dylan of having a great singing voice. Some even object to Neil Young. It doesn't stop them from putting out great albums. So I'm not sure what has kept Robertson from putting out more albums. As exhibited by his limited output of solo albums, he certainly is more than capable.

 

I'm thinking he was burnt out when he folded The Band. He then got into music in the film industry which I undersatnd is not the worst paying gig.
I imagine that once you're off the touring treadmill jumping back on is not a decision you make without some thought.

I've got his book maybe that will reveal more when I get a chance to read it.

 

I always enjoyed his solo stuff. Most likely his solo career was not as high as the band is his vocal quality, while I enjoy it many may not. By the way, he sings a hell of a lot better than I can.

 

Robbie Robertson's first two albums are amongst my favorites and have been played often since their release. Later efforts not so much, but so what? I think in general we fans of any kind of art expect too much from our heroes. Artists who can continue to put out top quality, relevant material year after year are few. Clearly we can see that in the explosion of youth the highest forms of creativity burns brightest, but it's ususlly not sustainable. Be grateful for what artists like Robbie Robertson have given us and enjoy that work. Sometimes it isn't a lifetimes worth of output that matters, but just a single album or song. If it has greatness it will be remembered and rediscovered by future generations.

 

Three possible reasons:

1) he became independently wealthy through his songwriting (or 'ripping off his brothers' if you prefer) in the seventies - so he didn't 'need' to have a solo career to keep up the cashflow;
2) he has never been a consistent songwriter, most of his major works having been composed in a short period of time (this is something he has in common with a quite a few other songwriters, including the late Alan Hull and the late Tim Hardin);
3) he is not a singer or a front person, so the progress of a 'proper' solo career would have depended on collaboration with people who were up to those tasks; after his latter experience with the Band, he might not have felt inclined to pursue this option.

 

IIRC, the KOC soundtrack also contained the first official release of Van Morrison's "Wonderful Remark," which was at least as much of a selling point to me at the time.

 

robbie robertson has never made a bad record.

his entire catalog is just wonderful, good songs, good playing, good production. he just is not very prolific.

quality over quantity, a lesson quite a few other artists should try.

his latest, 'clairvoyant" is excellent

 

'wonderful remark' was on a morrison best of.

 

...which came out at least 5 years after the original release of KOC in 1983.

 

robbie has always said he makes music when he feels he has something to say. thats the reason why. he has 5 great albums and a 6th album if you round up the soundtrack only tunes

 

i thought that you meant on CD.

you are correct.

 

Well, I would say that while Neil Young and Dylan have each had pop hits (I'm not counting Jimmy Durante, he was a comedian really who did novelty songs like "Inka Dinka Doo," you could do that with a comic voice), not having a particular kind of voice or a particular way with a lyric IS an impediment to large scale popular success. It can be done -- you can be great with a lyric like an actor and develop a highly stylized approach and make it work -- Billie Holiday did, even Louis Armstrong, etc. But they're exceptions more than rules, even though they are some of the greatest of the great and most influential of all singers. Of course if you're not going for the top of the pops, you can do anything -- you can be Lou Reed or Tom Waits or whatever and find an audience, or if you're an actor in musical comedy you can be Rex Harrison and be a star, but even those guys I think developed more of an individualize, highly stylized, immediately recognizable vocal thing than Robertson ever did (he's an immediately recognizable guitarist). I don't know that it kept him from putting out more records, I suspect just only made records when he had a particular desire to make that particular record at that particular time. But I do think it was a something of an impediment to those records having a chance at being big.