ON SONGWRITING
to the magnets in the middle pickup. So, on
my Strat I had the middle pickup moved to
the back; so it became kind of like a Gibson
humbucking pickup. I used that guitar for
quite a long time. I used it in The Last Waltz.
I used a Gibson harp guitar to play the song
that I wrote for the movie, ‘The Theme from
The Last Waltz.’ All the strings resonate on
it and if you ever listen to that record you
can hear that this guitar has a quality that’s
unlike anything else.”
Born in Canada, Robertson claimed his
earliest influences came from the radio
and later Shreveport-based TV show The
Louisiana Hayride. “That was the proving
ground for people like Elvis and Carl Perkins,”
he said. “When you’re a white boy and your
new headquarters is the Mississippi Delta,
this is the guitar style that happens to you,
like it or not. It was a complete marriage of
blues and country music just as rock and roll
was in the beginning. The guys who played
this style were Roy Buchanan, and James
Burton, Scotty Moore with Elvis.” Buchanan
ROB
BIE
ROB
ERTS
ON
A
Sou
nd
Appr
oach
played with Ronnie Hawkins’ cousin Dale,
who did ‘Suzie Q.’ The Band were the Hawks
when they honed their chops playing behind
Ronnie.”
“When I was 18 or 19 I saw Roy Buchanan
play as good as any guitar player in the world
has ever played,” Robertson recalled. “Over
the years a lot of great guitar players have
become friends of mine and I’ve told a lot of
them, ‘You know, we’ve all been in the zone
at some time or another, but I’ve seen Roy in
the zone that money can’t buy.’’
With his tinkering in the studio, his
soundtrack work, his recent memoir, and
retrospective album, Testimony, which
features Robbie rocking out on four Band
classics from an Academy of Music gig in
1971, every so often he’s able to reenter the
zone that all guitarists live for. “It doesn’t
happen to you all the time. But when it does
it’s worth a lifetime.” ■
“Straight Down the Line” by Robbie Robertson with Robert Randolph and the Roots
44
GUITAR TRICKS INSIDER
DIGITAL EDITION
MAY / JUNE