Insomnia

Robertson, the late guitarist and primary songwriter for the Band, follows up Testimony with a rollicking account of the pedal-to-the-metal years that followed the group’s dissolution. Opening the account in 1978 New Orleans—where he’d been invited by Robert DeNiro—Robertson describes in vivid detail frequenting voodoo shops, hanging with retired boxer Jake LaMotta, and watching the Muhammad Ali vs. Jake Spinks prize fight ringside, then cuts back to Los Angeles in 1977, where he was staying in Martin Scorsese’s house, separated from his wife and children, and binging on movies, drugs, and women. The book’s loose narrative arc tracks Scorsese’s and Robertson’s marathon efforts to wrangle into shape The Last Waltz, the epochal film of the Band’s final concert. Robertson’s speedy narrative eschews the maudlin self-analysis common in books of this stripe, delivering a magpie assemblage of impressions and anecdotes—late-night sound mixing sessions with Scorsese, cocaine-fueled gallivanting, and hobnobbing with famous faces (including Francis Ford Coppola, George Harrison, Liza Minnelli, and Jack Nicholson). At the same time, Robertson’s sensitive portrait of his friendship with Scorsese—particularly during his addiction-induced hospitalization—provides a potent emotional ballast to the otherwise careening narrative. For rock fans, this is a must. (Nov.)