Bob Dylan breaks silence on death of 'lifelong friend' Robbie Robertson

Bob Dylan expressed his grief laden with shock at the news of the demise of his longtime friend Robbie Robertson.

Robertson passed away earlier this week following a long illness at the age of 80.

In a statement to Billboard, Dylan expressed: “This is shocking news. Robbie was a lifelong friend. His passing leaves a vacancy in the world.”

The late singer kicked off his career as a backup singer for Dylan in the mid-1960s. At the time, Robertson played with a band called Hawks, which he later renamed The Band.

The dynamic duo went on to collaborate for decades, learning new things from each other during each of their song-producing process.

In an interview with Mojo in 2017, Robertson shared, “The obvious thing we learned – that everybody learned – was there was a new way of songwriting. There was a much more colorful, descriptive, humorous, outrageous thrill ride of wordplay.”

“I remember saying to Bob one time, ‘Maybe there’s too many verses in this’ [Laughs], and he said, ‘There probably are, but that’s what I was thinking about when I wrote it.’ His spirit was on fire, and he was knocking down the boundaries that had been built up around music. It excited me to be part of this revolution,” he gushed at the time.