Mr. Hawkins saw enough in Mr. Robertson to write two songs with him, which he recorded, and he later invited the teenage guitarist to join his band, the Hawks, initially on bass. The Hawks also included Levon Helm on drums; by 1961, the other future members of the Band were also in the fold. They toured with Mr. Hawkins for two more years and recorded for Roulette Records. By 1964, they had gone off on their own as Levon and the Hawks.
Enter Bob Dylan
That group recorded a few singles for Atco, all written by Mr. Robertson, and in 1965 he was contacted by Mr. Dylan’s management and invited to be part of his backing group. While he initially refused, he did perform with Mr. Dylan in New York and Los Angeles, bringing along Mr. Helm for those gigs. At Mr. Robertson’s insistence, Mr. Dylan wound up hiring most of the other future members of the Band for the full tour.
He also invited Mr. Robertson to perform on a session in 1966 for his album “Blonde on Blonde.” The next year, he asked the Hawks to move to his new base in Woodstock, where they rented a house later known as Big Pink. It was there that they recorded the music later released as “The Basement Tapes” as well as what became “Music from Big Pink.”
“It was like a clubhouse where we could shut out the outside world,” Mr. Robertson wrote in his memoir. “It was my belief something magical would happen. And some true magic did happen.”
When “Music From Big Pink” was released in the summer of 1968, it boasted seminal songs written by Mr. Robertson like “The Weight” and “Chest Fever,” along with strong pieces composed by other members of the Band and by Mr. Dylan. “This album was recorded in approximately two weeks,” another close Dylan associate, Al Kooper, wrote in a review in Rolling Stone. “There are people who will work their lives away in vain and not touch it.”
For the Band’s follow-up album, “The Band,” released in 1969, Mr. Robertson either wrote or co-wrote every song, including some of his most enduring creations, among them “Up On Cripple Creek,” “Rag Mama Rag,” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” which became a Top Five Billboard hit in a version recorded by Joan Baez. The album reached No. 9 on the magazine’s chart.