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How Robbie Robertson, a lead member of one of the greatest bands of all time, learned he was Jewish — and the son of a gangster The songwriter and lead guitarist for the Band died at 80
By SETH ROGOVOY August 9, 2023 (The Forward) Forward Editor’s note: Robbie Robertson, the lead guitarist and songwriter for the Band died August 9, at the age of 80. To honor his memory, we’re republishing this piece from April 2020, about how Robertson learned of his Jewish roots.
In the new documentary film, “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band,” Robertson – The Band’s main songwriter and guitarist – tells the story of how he finally learned of his Jewish heritage and how his Jewish relatives in Toronto embraced him and opened a whole new world of “vision” to him.
Robertson had been raised in suburban Toronto as Jaime Royal Robertson without knowing that the man he called dad, James Patrick Robertson, was not his biological father. When his mother, Dolly Robertson – who was a Mohawk raised on the Six Nations Reserve southwest of Toronto – finally had had enough of James Robertson’s physical and emotional abuse, she sat her son down, explained that she was divorcing James, and revealed to him that his natural father, Alexander Klegerman, had died in a roadside accident before Robbie was born. She also told her bar-mitzvah age son that Klegerman was Jewish.
Or, as Ronnie Hawkins, the Arkansan rockabilly bandleader who, one by one, hired the five Toronto-area musicians who would become the Hawks and later on The Band, says with a modicum of glee in the documentary, “Robbie’s real dad was a Hebrew gangster.”
Robbie picks up the story. His mother introduced him to his father’s family, including his father’s brothers, Natie and Morrie Klegerman, who were prominent members of Toronto’s Jewish underworld. “They brought me into their world with tremendous love and affection,” recounts Robertson, who would occasionally do “errands” for his uncles.
Robertson describes how the typical dream of his schoolmates was to own their own bowling alley. Having already been bitten by the rock ‘n’ roll bug, including its ethos of rebellion against the conformity of suburban life, he could not relate.
“These relatives of mine … I’m understanding what’s been stirring inside of me all this time,” he says. “They understand vision. They understand ambition. When I told the Klegermans I had musical ambitions, they were like, ‘Rock ‘n’ roll? You don’t want to be in furs and diamonds?’ And then they were like, ‘Oh, you mean show business!” That they could understand, and they even helped young Robbie, who had his own rock combo, get gigs in Toronto nightclubs.
That vision and ambition would propel Robertson through good times and bad, and he became the main engine that would drive his fellow musicians in Ronnie Hawkins’s backup band – an incredibly talented assemblage of singers and musicians including Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson – to head out on their own, first as a white R&B group called Levon and the Hawks, then as Bob Dylan’s backup group on his controversial “going electric” world tour of 1965-1966, and later as the Woodstock-based outfit The Band, for whom Robertson wrote signature hits including “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “The Weight,” and “Stage Fright.”
The Band built a bridge from late-1960s hippie-rock to a more soulful and cerebral 1970s roots music – what we now call “Americana.” The likes of Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Peter Gabriel, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Taj Mahal pay tribute to the group in the film – which is now streaming on all the major rental platforms. Taj Mahal describes them as “the American Beatles”; Springsteen notes they boasted “three of the greatest white singers in rock history”; Clapton says he was “in great awe of their brotherhood.” Clapton recounts that upon hearing their debut album, “Music for Big Pink,” he broke up the English power trio Cream and traveled to Woodstock to try to get the group to hire him as a rhythm guitarist. (Needless to say, they declined, although Clapton did get all of them to play on his 1976 solo album, “No Reason to Cry,” which he recorded at The Band’s Shangri-la Studios in Malibu.)
For The Band’s penultimate studio album, 1975’s “Northern Light, Southern Cross,” Robertson wrote a song called “Rags and Bones,” which seems to pay tribute to one of the professions typically filled by Eastern European Jewish immigrants to North America – the ragman – and the sounds and music one would hear in those ghetto streets. The refrain goes:
Ragman, your song of the street/Keeps haunting my memory/Music in the air/I hear it ev’rywhere/Rags, bones and old city songs/Hear them, how they talk to me.
The Band would bow out in 1976 with the all-star concert, “The Last Waltz,” which became a live album and concert film directed by Martin Scorsese, who also appears in “Once Were Brothers.” That farewell project would cement a decades-long relationship between Scorsese and Robertson, in which Robertson would often serve as music supervisor for Scorsese’s films, as he did for last year’s “The Irishman.” Robertson would also enjoy a successful career as a critically lauded solo artist; his sixth solo album, “Sinematic,” came out last fall and included “I Hear You Paint Houses,” which served as the title track to “The Irishman,” as well as the song “Once Were Brothers,” his poignant tribute to his former Band-mates, all of whom have passed away with the exception of organist Garth Hudson.
In its loving remembrances of and tributes to his former, fallen Band-mates, “Once Were Brothers” serves as Robertson’s mourner’s kaddish for the group.
Seth Rogovoy is a contributing editor at the Forward. He is the author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet (Scribner, 2009) and the forthcoming Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison (Oxford University Press).
Reprinted with permission from The Forward.
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Volatility, Hit Frequency, and RTP: Why the Number Casinos Advertise Is the Least Useful One
The return to player percentage looks clean as a casino data point. It gives players a neat number, usually around 94% to 97% for many online slots, and that number feels easy to compare. A 96.5% game appears better than a 95.2% game. The problem starts when players treat RTP as a forecast for their next 50 spins or one evening.
You may find the RTP listed on slot pages on a leading online casino in Ontario, but the number only tells part of the story. Two games can share the same RTP and create different sessions: one may return small wins often, while the other may drain a balance before one bonus round changes everything.
The RTP Trap
Return to player (RTP) measures the theoretical share of total wagers a game returns across a very large number of rounds. In plain terms, a 96% RTP slot returns about $96 for every $100 wagered in the long run. That does not mean one player who deposits $100 should expect $96 back.
The trap sits in the word “theoretical.” RTP comes from the game’s math model. It works across huge samples, not personal sessions. A player can finish far above that percentage, far below it, or with nothing left after a short run of poor results.
Is it useless then? No, RTP can still help. It gives a baseline cost of play. Lower-RTP games cost more on average than higher-RTP games. Still, once a game passes a reasonable threshold, the next question matters more: how does it distribute that return?
Hit Frequency: The Number That Shapes Session Feel
Hit frequency tells you how often a game produces a winning outcome. This often misleads players because any win can count. A spin that returns $0.10 on a $1 bet may still count as a hit, even though the player lost $0.90 in real terms.
A game can feel active because symbols connect often, sounds play, and the screen keeps celebrating small returns. The balance may still fall. In many modern slots, “win” does not always mean profit on the spin.
Hit frequency answers one practical question: how much silence can you tolerate? Some players dislike long dry spells. Others accept quieter sessions because they chase bonus rounds or larger payouts.
The educational site Get Gambling Facts gives a useful distinction: RTP concerns the percentage of money returned over time, while hit frequency concerns how often a machine stops on a winning combination.
Volatility: The Risk Label Players Need More Often
Volatility, also called variance, describes how unevenly a game pays. Low-volatility games tend to return smaller amounts more often. High-volatility games hold more value in rare events: bonus rounds, premium symbols, multipliers, or jackpots.
Here is where RTP becomes less useful on its own:
- A 96% low-volatility slot may give modest returns and longer play from the same balance.
- A 96% high-volatility slot may burn through funds quickly unless the player hits a strong feature.
- A progressive jackpot game may look exciting, but it often places more value on rare top prizes.
The same RTP can hide very different risk profiles. Players who ignore volatility often blame the casino or the game when the session follows its math design.
Why the Same RTP Can Feel So Different
Picture two slots with 96% RTP. Slot A pays small wins on many spins, has a modest top prize, and rarely creates dramatic balance swings. Slot B pays less often but offers a large max win and volatile bonus rounds. The advertised return matches, but the experience does not.
Slot A may suit a player who wants a slower bankroll drop and more regular feedback. Slot B suits someone who accepts sharper losses in exchange for a shot at a heavier payout.
A Better Way to Read a Slot Page
Most slot pages give players more clues than they notice. The trick is to read the details together rather than chase the highest percentage.
Start with RTP. If two games look similar, the higher number has better long-term value. Then check volatility. If the game uses terms such as high, very high, or extreme variance, lower your bet size or expect shorter sessions. Next, look at the paytable. A huge max win usually means the game saves a lot of its value for rare outcomes.
A sensible pre-play check looks like this:
- RTP: What is the average long-term return?
- Volatility: How rough can the session become?
- Hit frequency: How often will the game show any wins?
- Paytable: Where does most value sit?
To Conclude
Casinos advertise RTP because it looks objective, tidy, and easy to rank. Players should read it, but they should not give it more authority than it deserves. For long sessions, volatility may matter more than a small RTP difference. For comfort, hit frequency may explain the feel better than the payback rate.
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The Popularity of Simpler Slot Games in 2026: Review From Casino Online CrazyTower Experts
Online casinos now fill their libraries with numerous video slots that have dozens of functions, long bonus rounds, complex mechanics, and so on. Interestingly, despite this huge range of modern options, many Canadian visitors at sites like Casino Online CrazyTower here https://crazytower.com/ca/ no longer want complicated gameplay that requires constant attention and long explanations.
Simpler slots now attract a wider audience because they save time and create faster sessions. So, let’s figure out why this change happened and reasons for the popularity of simpler machines.
Why Many Players Are Returning to Basic Gameplay
Modern websites like Casino Online CrazyTower pushed complex video slots for years, but many people now prefer classic formats again. Simple gameplay has fewer interruptions and is simpler in terms of budgeting, which is important when you gamble for fun.
These are a few potential reasons explain why simpler slots became popular again in 2026:
- Faster rounds. Symbols appear quickly, and rounds continue without long animations or extended bonus sequences.
- Easier controls. Most classic slots have simple menus and familiar layouts that don’t confuse new visitors.
- Smaller feature lists. Simple slots usually have standard wilds, scatters, and multipliers instead of dozens of random mechanics.
- Better session flow. People spend more time on gameplay instead of reading explanations about symbols and special functions.
- Lower visual pressure. Simpler slots use calmer designs and shorter effects that don’t overload attention.
Classic gameplay also suits mobile devices better because shorter rounds work well on smaller screens. Plus, many visitors now prefer games that start instantly and explain their mechanics within seconds.
Features That Make Simpler Slots Appealing
Simple machines at Casino Online CrazyTower and similar websites continue to attract attention because they have a high gameplay speed. Many classic titles also replicate older casino machines that people already know from physical casinos.
However, these aren’t the only factors that attract gamblers. So, check out this list:
- Short bonus rounds. Free spins and multipliers finish quickly instead of interrupting gameplay for several minutes.
- Common and standard paylines. Traditional layouts help people understand payouts without long explanations.
- Faster loading times. Simpler graphics reduce waiting time on phones, tablets, and older computers.
- Stable gameplay pace. Long cutscenes and constant pop-up notifications don’t interrupt the session.
- Traditional themes. Fruit symbols, bars, sevens, and classic casino designs still attract large audiences.
- Smaller menus. Important information appears immediately without complicated tabs or hidden sections.
Modern video slots often contain too many mechanics in a single game. Developers now combine expanding reels, random modifiers, mission systems, tournaments, and multiple bonus levels in one title. Many visitors lose interest because gameplay turns repetitive and overloaded with constant interruptions.
Compare this to a session when you get results immediately and aren’t interrupted. These still have free spins and even mini risk games, but not as loaded as innovative titles.
Conclusion
Simple slots usually create better replay value because people understand the mechanics immediately. Common and standard gameplay doesn’t cause frustration and allows faster decisions during casino sessions.
Many classic slots also function better during short breaks because rounds finish quickly without long bonus interruptions. That’s why simpler slots became popular again at many casinos, including Casino Online CrazyTower and such.
