Coming to theaters on February 21st is the documentary, Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson And The Band. Robbie Robertson has teamed up with Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, among others, to produce a definitive documentary on the Band, with Rolling Stone posting the film's trailer. Among the high-profile friend and fans appearing in the doc are Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Martin Scorsese, Taj Mahal, Peter Gabriel, David Geffen, and Ronnie Hawkins.
According to Magnolia's Pictures' press release, “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson And The Band is a confessional, cautionary, and occasionally humorous tale of Robertson’s young life and the creation of one of the most enduring groups in the history of popular music — the Band. The film is a moving story of Robertson’s personal journey, overcoming adversity and finding camaraderie alongside the four other men who would become his brothers in music, together making their mark on music history.”
Robbie Robertson, who along with the Band — then known as the Hawks — toured exclusively with Bob Dylan throughout 1965 and '66, set the scene as to how the watershed back-to-basics Basement Tapes came into existence: “We had this little tape recorder and we were going to start writing and making this music for our record. And then Bob Dylan comes out and he sees this and he says, ‘This is fantastic,’ and everything. He says, ‘Why don’t we do some stuff together?’ He’s like, 'I need to make up some songs for the publishing company for other people to record.’ In the meantime, Bob is taking care of all of us. We owe him to do something because the idea was, we were going to do another tour, but he broke his neck in a motorcycle thing and we couldn’t do that — but we’re still on the payroll, and it’s like going on and on and on. So it was a way to do something, a gesture back.”
