I really hope that this is a more current picture of Robbie Robertson on this new album he put out called "Testimony". Well, new in the sense that it just got issued. It is actually a personal choice of track spanning his decades on the music scene, actually, "just around sixty". It is supposed to be a companion to his memoirs that just got issued recently too.
Well, maybe a picture is of a bit earlier date, but then it reflects perfectly who Robbie Robertson is musically - somebody who's music never dates, or it was dated the moment it got put out, take your pick. The point is very simple, Robertson's music, whether it is the one he played in the beginning when he started out with Ronnie Hawkins, the one he played with Bob Dylan (contributing quite a lot in shaping the sound of the Nobel prize winner in his key musical years), or the soul, funk oriented stuff he recorded recently. Of course, that is most true of the music he produced with The Band. Listening to it then, a few years later, decades later, today, you simply cannot put your finger and say, this was recorded in.... since it reflects that time... Every music that Robertson was involved in has that sense of timelesness, that is, well... timeless.
He got inspiration from everywhere around him, and the age he lived in, but also the ones that went on before him, and in many ways anticipating what is to come later. Actually, with the music he made with The Band, you can freely say that he was the key in creating what we know as Americana today: you really had to be courageous to go against the musical trends of the day and put out albums like "The Music From Big Pink" and "The Band" in the second part of the Sixties. Obviously, he and his cohorts inspired thousands: look, for example, how faithfully The Felice Brothers paid their compliments with the cover of one of their albums recreating that iconic picture of The Band from their eponymous album.
Nothing much else to be said about the music itself presented here, except that it also includes some rarer or unpublished versions of the already known tracks. Those who know, will have to have them. Those who don't know, definitely should, its a must.
