In a career that has spanned more than 45 years and has included numerous solo recordings and prolific studio work, David Bromberg has made an indelible mark on American music.
David Bromberg
Bromberg calls himself a “musician’s musician” because so much of his work has been in collaboration with other artists.
“I’ve been all over the map,” he said during a recent interview. “I wrote a song with George Harrison. I’ve played with people like Bob Dylan, Phoebe Snow, Tom Paxton and Carly Simon. I’ve also recorded with Blood, Sweat and Tears, Rick Derringer, Dr. John and John Prine.”
“All in all,” he said, “I’m on over 150 recordings of other people’s.”
Those that have followed the trajectory of Bromberg’s career know that he established his own band back in the 1970s to give attention to the roots music that he loved, as well as his growing repertoire of originals.
By the mid-’70s, the David Bromberg Big Band included horn players, a violinist, several multi-instrumentalists and such notable members as mandolinist Andy Statman and fiddler Jay Ungar. For 10 years, the David Bromberg Big Band crisscrossed the states delighting audiences with high-energy music and slyly humorous songs such as “Sharon,” “Suffer to Sing the Blues,” “The Hold-Up” and “I Will Not Be Your Fool.”
At the height of the band’s popularity, Bromberg surprised his fans by suddenly dissolving it. The rigors of the road and the countless days of being away from home had begun to wear on him, and he had decided to take his life in a different direction.
“My career was doing really well at the time, but I just didn’t feel that I was a musician anymore,” he said. “I didn’t want to be one of these guys who drags himself on the stage and does a bitter imitation of something that he used to love.”
For the next 22 years, Bromberg was rarely seen on the concert stage, but instead moved to Chicago with his wife to pursue an interest in instrument building at the Kenneth Warren School of Violin Making.
“I found it really fascinating that a person could look at an instrument, and, by looking at it, it tell when and where it was built and by whom,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to do, so I felt I had to learn how they were made, or make them myself, to really know how to look at them.”
After studying awhile, Bromberg opened David Bromberg Fine Violins, a retail store and repair shop for high-quality instruments in Wilmington, Del. Workers in the shop build and repair the violins while Bromberg does the appraisals.
Frequent participation in Wilmington’s weekly jam sessions helped rekindle Bromberg’s desire to make music again. So now he’s back on the road with his big band, as well as in smaller configurations. Seeing him live in concert, it’s clear that his two-decade hiatus has done him good. He has returned to the stage with renewed enthusiasm—joyfully sharing his masterful playing, stirring vocals and eclectic repertoire with audiences.
Since returning to the spotlight, Bromberg has made a few recordings, including the solo CD, “Try Me One More Time,” which was named a finalist in the “Best Traditional Folk Recording” category of the Grammy Awards. He says his latest CD, “Only Slightly Mad,” which came out just last month, is the best recording that he has ever done.
“We recorded it at Levon Helm’s famous barn in Woodstock, N.Y.,” he said. “It’s mostly my band, but I did bring in a few ringers like my old friend John Sebastian, who came in and played harmonica on one track, and John McEuen from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, who had wandered into the studio, and I made him get out his banjo and play on one track.”
You can catch David Bromberg in a solo performance at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 17, at the Abbey Bar at Appalachian Brewing Co., 50 N. Cameron St., Harrisburg. Information and tickets are available at www.sfmsfolk.org, by calling 800-838-3006 and at the door if not sold out in advance.
Jess Hayden is executive director of the Susquehanna Folk Music Society.
