Is Robbie Robertson the biggest douchebag in rock history?

Don’t know.


...but your threads are definitely the worst in TD music board history.

My vote would go to Don Henley. At least Robertson has enough awareness of his douchiness to not write a song called Get Over It.

Well, Liam Gallagher is up there.

That would be a pretty big achievement.

Music business is, and always was, full of crappy people and good people. I think you are better off just to listen to music that you love, and not know too much, about the people who make it.

Robertson stated in the Last Waltz that he didn’t want to die on the road and I assume he didn’t want his band mates to meet that fate either. Also you have to take into account the deaths of Jimi and Janis whom he also references in the film. I think he saw the road as the financial source that would continue to feed his band mates out of control drinking and drugging lifestyle and so he decided that by breaking up the band and ceasing to tour would somehow save them.

What I don’t think he anticipated was that instead of cleaning themselves up, they turned on him once they had all blown through their money. They had habits to feed and there was Robbie with his money, but in their eyes he was too greedy and selfish to tour or record. The resentment just grew from there to he stole all of the publishing. If you watch the Levon documentary he’s very resentful because he felt that Robbie basically wrote a lot of those songs about him or about the stories Levon would tell. Levon felt he should get writing credits because they were his stories, but he never claims he sat down and wrote them. I think they even mentioned that Levon was not ignorant of how writing credits actually worked but he had this irrational resentment towards Robbie over this issue. Basically his attitude was without me and my stories you would have never written those hits and therefore you stole my publishing.

Mike Love should also be in the running

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Robertson stated in the Last Waltz that he didn’t want to die on the road and I assume he didn’t want his band mates to meet that fate either. Also you have to take into account the deaths of Jimi and Janis whom he also references in the film. I think he saw the road as the financial source that would continue to feed his band mates out of control drinking and drugging lifestyle and so he decided that by breaking up the band and ceasing to tour would somehow save them.

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TLW is hardly to be taken as holy scripture.

The film was made in the first place as a sort of glorified screen test for RR, who had H'wood matinee idol aspirations, being fed by his coke buddy Marty S.

The others wanted simply to go on hiatus, but RR insisted on a this-is-it grand finale to get as much publicity as possible. Levon only wanted Ronnie Hawkins and Dylan as guest stars, but RR demanded everybody and his brother, again for the publicity -- even Neil Diamond, whose only connection to The Band was RR was producing his new album.

I've heard from good sources that Ringo Starr and John Fogerty are pretty big a'holes.

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But what has Ringo done aside from refusing autographs?

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Peace and Love Peace and Love