ON August 11, two days after Robbie Robertson handed away, Bob Dylan launched a uncommon public assertion. “That is stunning information,” he wrote. “Robbie was a lifelong pal. His passing leaves a emptiness on the earth.”

The Band’s music was a lodestone for many people at Uncut – and for lots of the musicians we write about – and the ‘emptiness’ left by Robertson can by no means be stuffed. It’s not simply his potential to conjure up a brand new type of American music together with the remainder of The Band – music that was concurrently historic and trendy, vibrant however sepia-toned – it’s the transcendent energy of the songs that got here with it. “The one factor I’m attempting to do is write songs that in the event you hearken to them in a few years, they’re not going to go down,” Robertson instructed Richard Williams, again in 1971. “Lots of people’s data that I actually favored a few years in the past, I hearken to them now and I can’t perceive how come I favored them a lot… Timelessness is what I’m attempting for, more often than not when it’s attainable.”

You may learn Richard’s definitive tribute to Robertson – which attracts on his 1971 encounter with Robertson and his bandmates after they have been in London to play the Royal Albert Corridor – within the new difficulty. Van Morrison can be available to share his recollections of Robertson, stretching again by way of many many years. “Robbie knew what was happening,” Van inform us. “I imply, he was in proper on the very starting of this music, when he was recording with the Hawks after they have been youngsters – he knew the rating. Robbie wasn’t flashy, he didn’t solo pointlessly. It was like an organized assault. He wrote some nice songs. It’s all there. Have been his songs completely different when he had The Band to play them? Yeah, nicely that they had a phrase for it – chemistry.”

For those who’ll forgive the segue, there may be loads of chemistry happening elsewhere within the difficulty. We journey to Spain, the place Jeff Tweedy reveals how Cate Le Bon helped Wilco realise their good new album Cousins, to Glasgow the place Teenage Fanclub mull over the lengthy tail of their enduring friendships, and – for our cowl story – to a Nationwide Belief property in Wiltshire the place Pete Townshend digs deep into The Who‘s masterpiece Who’s Subsequent and it’s misplaced predecessor, Life Home. There’s additionally Pharoah Sanders, The Mary Wallopers, Kristin Hersh, Sandy Denny, Crime & The Metropolis Resolution, The Motels (one for followers of The Bear), Will Sergeant and Lynyrd Skynyrd plus evaluations of recent launched by Fashionable Nature, Sufjan Stevens, Gaslight Anthem and reissues from The Replacements, Joni Mitchell, Hawkwind and extra.

As a part of our cowl story, you’ll have hopefully seen by now that each one copies of this difficulty include a free 10-track Who CD, taken from The Who’s upcoming Who’s Subsequent/Life Home deluxe version – a mod-tastic feast, in different phrases. “I believe the music on this Uncut CD, with demos and studio periods and stay tracks, is an fascinating collection of stuff,” explains Townshend. “It provides a form of cross-section of the mix-up that’s on the boxset. And also you’re getting fucking free music!”