PUBLISHED IN THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR ON OCTOBER 6, 1994
Where Robbie Robertson Learned To Play At The Feet Of His Mohawk Cousin
BY NICK KREWEN
TORONTO -- As a kid growing up in Toronto , JAMIE ROBBIE ROBERTSON had little interest and awareness in music.
That all changed at the age of 11, when Robertson, who would later co-found THE BAND, started spending his summer vacations visiting relatives at the Six Nations Reserve just outside Brantford, Ontario. He sent there with his mother Rosemary, a Mohawk Indian, to visit relatives.
During his adolescent years, the annual summer sojourn included guitar lessons from cousin HERB MYKE, who now lives in Hamilton.
"Herb was the most accomplished guitar player around at the time," recalled Robertson last week, reclining on a couch in his Toronto hotel suite. "It was the first time I'd seen anyone play up close. I'd be hearing these chords, watching his fingers on the strings, hearing him breathe as he sang, and I thought, `I've got to know what he was doing.'
"He and his brother FREDDY showed me some stuff, and their Dad WADDY -- he was also very musical. It seemed like everybody could sing or play something. It was just part of the lifestyle."
Herb Myke, 64, recalls Robertson as a keen observer.
"He was a very quiet kid who noticed a lot.," said Myke in a seperate phone interview. "He used to sit right in front of my knees and watch me. I'd show him something on guitar and he'd try it out."
Myke is good-naturedly modest about his guitar prowess.
"To be the best wasn't difficult, because there weren't too many guitarists around at the time," he says. "We had a big family and we played a lot because there was no television, and we didn't have a radio."
Robertson, who at 51 is still trim with a full head of thick, black hair, says he appreciated the differences between kids in the city and his cousins on the reserve.
"They had a special relationship with nature," he remembers. "I was so impressed with these kids, because they knew stuff and could do stuff that the city kids couldn't. They would find a root, pull it back, and it was the best tasting thing I'd ever had. They could take other things and make a form of tobacco. The boys were also very good at making weapons, and as a young boy, that impressed me."
Robertson spent his summers at Six Nations until 1958, when the 15-year-old then hustled his way into LITTLE CAESAR & THE CONSOLES as their guitarist. By the time he was 17, he was playing bass with RONNIE HAWKINS' back-up group THE HAWKS, which eventually became The Band.
He carried his Six Nations experiences with him throughout his career, and used it as inspiration for his new album, Music For The Native Americans, released this week.
Recorded with the RED ROAD ENSEMBLE -- an inter-tribal music collective -- Music For The Native Americans is the soundtrack for a six-hour documentary which will debut on pay television station TBS October 10. Negotiations for a Canadian broadcast are pending.
"I've been meaning to do an album like this throughout my life," revealed Robertson.
"The ideal opportunity was with this soundtrack. I never felt comfortable with an attitude of `What the heck -- let's just put an album out of this music' . It's too special, too dear to me."
While juggling the recording of the Jimmy Hollywood movie soundtrack and overseeing Across The Great Divide, a Band box set to be released in November, Robertson listened to hundreds of tapes and eventually assembled a multi-tribal ensemble.
Included in the roster are Cherokee natives COOLIDGE (RITA and PRISCILLA COOLIDGE and niece LAURA SATTERFIELD); Innu natives KASHTIN; DOUGLAS SPOTTED EAGLE and opera singer BONNIE JO HUNT representing the Lakota nation; ULALI, a female consortium of Saponi Tuscarora, Mayan, and Apache representatives ; and Choctaw singer and songwriters JIM WILSON and DAVE CARSON, among others.
Robertson says the challenge of Music For The Native Americans was to create a project that was universally appealing.
"I was trying to bring this music to a world market," explains Robertson. "I was trying to find a place in the mood of this music, where you could walk into a dimension and lose yourself. I was interested in transcending the language barriers as well. I didn't want it to matter than half the lyrics weren't in English. It's about the emotional content."
"The documentary is about people today. The record is about today. It incorporates all the traditional stories, rhythms and sounds, but this is what's going on now -- what's happening today. It's not lost in the past, and certainly it's not what we've been led to believe from the movies."
Except for appearances on The Tonight Show on October 3 and Good Morning America this Monday, October 10, Robertson doesn't plan to tour. But he does intend to visit Six Nations as soon as time allows.
"As soon as I get a little bit of a break, I'd like to go there, visit and just look around."
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DISCOGRAPHY
WITH THE BAND
1968 -- Music From The Big Pink -- Capitol
1969 -- The Band
1970 -- Stage Fright
1971 -- Cahoots
1972 -- Rock Of Ages
1973 -- Moondog Matinee
1974 -- Before The Flood (with Bob Dylan)
1975 -- Northern Lights, Southern Cross
1975 -- The Basement Tapes (with Bob Dylan)
1976 -- Best Of...
1977 -- Islands
1978 -- The Last Waltz
1989 -- To Kingdom Come
1995 -- Live At Watkins Glen
SOLO
1989 -- Robbie Robertson - Geffen
1990 -- Storyville
1994 -- Music For Native Americans (with the Red Road Ensemble)
1997 -- Contact With The Underworld Of Red Boy
COLLABORATOR
1990 -- Various Artists, Decade I -- A Musical History
1996 -- Various Artists, Oh...What A Feeling! (also with The Band)
1998 -- Various Artists, Patch Adams (with The Band)
CONTRIBUTOR
1960 -- Ronnie Hawkins, Mr. Dynamo
1960 -- Ronnie Hawkins, The Folk Ballads Of Ronnie Hawkins
1964 -- Ronnie Hawkins, The Best Of Ronnie Hawkins
1964 -- Ronnie Hawkins, Mojo Man
1965 -- John Hammond, So Many Roads
1965 -- The Charles Lloyd Quartet, Of Course, Of Course
1966 -- The Barbarians, Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl?
1966 -- Bob Dylan, Blonde On Blonde
1967 -- John Hammond, I Can Tell
1967 -- John Hammond, Mirrors
1968 -- The Bengali Bauls, The Bengali Bauls At Big Pink
1970 -- Bob Dylan, Self Portrait
1970 -- Various Artists, You Are What You Eat
1970 -- Jesse Winchester, Jesse Winchester
1971 -- Various Artists, The Music People
1971 -- Various Artists, Nuggets
1973 -- Ringo Starr, Ringo
1973 -- Peter Yarrow, That's Enough For Me
1974 -- Bob Dylan, Planet Waves
1974 -- John Hammond, The Best Of John Hammond
1974 -- Joni Mitchell, Court And Spark
1974 -- Carly Simon, Hotcakes
1974 -- Ringo Starr, Goodnight Vienna
1975 -- Hirth Martinez, Hirth From Earth
1975 -- Carly Simon, The Best Of Carly Simon
1976 -- Eric Clapton, No Reason To Cry
1976 -- Neil Diamond, Beautiful Noise
1977 -- Rick Danko, Rick Danko
1977 -- Neil Diamond, Love At The Greek
1977 -- Levon Helm & The RCO All-Stars, Levon Helm & The RCO All-Stars
1977 -- Libby Titus, Libby Titus
1984 -- Various Artists, Firstborn
1985 -- Bob Dylan, Biograph
1985 -- Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Southern Accents
1986 -- The Call, Reconciled
1988 -- Eric Clapton, Crossroads
1988 -- Various Artists, Scrooged
1989 -- Various Artists, New York Stories
1990 -- Emmylou Harris, Duets
1990 -- Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks, Best Of Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks
1990 -- Van Morrison, The Best Of Van Morrison
1990 -- Ryuichi Sakamoto, Beauty
1990 -- Various Artists, Nobody's Child
1991 -- Bob Dylan, Bootleg (Vol. 1-3)
1991 -- Various Artists, The Big Chill
1992 -- Neil Diamond, Greatest Hits 1966 - 1992
1992 -- Roy Orbison, King Of Hearts
1992 -- Various Artists, Best Tour Of Duty
1992 -- Various Artists, Weird Nightmare -- Meditations On Mingus
1993 -- John Hammond, You Can't Judge A Book By Ihe Cover
1994 -- Various Artists, The War
1995 -- Bob Dylan, Greatest Hits Vol. 3
1995 -- Ronnie Hawkins, The Roulette Years
1995 -- Various Artists, Winter, Fire & Snow
1996 -- Neil Diamond, In My Lifetime
1996 -- Emmylou Harris, Portraits
1996 -- Martin Page, In The House Of Stone And Light
1996 -- Kashtin, Akua Tuta
1996 -- Joni Mitchell, Hits
1996 -- Various Artists, For Our Children Too
1996 -- Various Artists, Larger Than Life
1996 -- Various Artists, Oh What A Feeling!
1997 -- Howie B., Turn The Dark Off
1997 -- Little Wolf, Wolf Moon
1997 -- Various Artists, Prefontaine
1998 -- Bob Dylan, Bootleg. Vol. 4 "Live At Royal Albert Hall"
1998 -- Various Artists, Patch Adams
1999 -- Levon Helm, The Ties That Bind 1975-96
1999 -- Willie Nelson, Teatro (Longform Video)
1999 -- The Wild Magnolias, Life Is A Carnival
PRODUCER
1971 -- Jesse Winchester, Jesse Winchester
1976 -- Neil Diamond, Beautiful Noise
1984 -- Various Artists, Carny
1992 -- Various Artists, The Color Of Money
1995 -- Various Artists, Casino
1996 -- Various Artists, Phenomenon
FILMS
1978 -- The Last Waltz
1980 -- Carny
1980 -- Raging Bull (score)
1982 -- Visiting Hours
1983 -- The King Of Comedy (score)
1986 -- The Color Of Money (score)
1994 -- Jimmy Hollywood (score)
1995 -- The Crossing Guard
AWARDS
1989 -- Induction, Hall Of Fame (with The Band)
1989 -- Juno, Album Of The Year -- Robbie Robertson
1989 -- Juno, Male Vocalist Of The Year
1989 -- Juno, Producer Of The Year (with Daniel Lanois)
1994 -- Induction, Rock 'N Roll Hall Of Fame (with The Band)
© 1994, 1999 Nick Krewen, Octopus Media Ink