Why Robbie Robertson Did Not Reunite With The Band Before Death Revealed

Robbie Robertson left his career with The Band for good after initially disbanding the group.

Amid the members' substance abuse problems at the height of The Band's career decades ago, Robertson disbanded the band through a Thanksgiving 1976 concert, "The Last Waltz." The all-star event was held at San Francisco's Winterland at that time.

The Band members reunited again in 1983, but Robertson did not rejoin the lineup.

Why Robbie Robertson Did Not Reunite With The Band

The Band marked its last official performance on March 1, 1978, at the Roxy in Los Angeles, with Robertson, Richard Manuel, Levon Helm, and Garth Hudson performing a three-song encore at Rick Danko's solo show.

Robertson revealed in an interview the simple reason why he chose not to reunite with The Band - he just did not want to.

"We called it The Last Waltz ... and to me that was it. The end. It was over," he said. "To come out a few years later and say, 'Hey, just kidding' or 'We've changed our mind,' that would be wrong, to me at least. It would be a cheat."

Robertson went on to establish a successful career outside the group, releasing five solo albums, a memoir, a documentary, and more than 20 film soundtracks, to name a few.

But despite his unwillingness to join his bandmates, one of The Band's members did not want him on board, as well.

In Helm's 1993 memoir, "This Wheel's on Fire," he admitted telling the bandmates not to invite Robertson. Still, Danko reportedly contacted their leader though Robertson still passed.

The late member reportedly feared people would think that The Band's The Last Waltz was one of the "phony showbiz retirements," something Robertson did not want.

Robbie Robertson Dead at 80

Robertson's manager, Jared Levine, issued a statement to confirm the musician's death on Aug. 9, citing long illness as the cause of death. He revealed that the singer's family surrounded him at the time of his passing.

He was still creating his follow-up memoir and finished making the scoring for Martin Scorsese's "Killers of The Flower Moon" when he died.

With Robertson's death, Hudson is now the only surviving member of The Band.