I had the pleasure of seeing David Bromberg perform at Old Town School this past weekend. I’ve wanted to see him for many years, but he was on a 15+ year hiatus from performing (during which time he became a violin maker and dealer, not unlike our bassman Paul Wargaski, who was also at this show with his wife Lauren).

Bromberg is back in full vigor now, traveling and performing with his wife and The Angel Band. David sat in with Angel Band for an opening set (which featured excellent vocal work from the three female singers, including Bromberg’s wife Nancy Josephson), and then took the lead for the next set. The same three musicians from Angel Band stayed on stage w/ him throughout, providing excellent accompaniment and solo’s on bass, guitar, mandolin and fiddle, with Bromberg handling lead vocals and band leader duties.

He is a riveting presence on stage, seamlessly combining story-telling and songs, and covering alot of ground in the doing. He is able and willing to venture fully into blues, bluegrass, jazz and many sub-genres in the span of a single set.

My only disappointments were that he didn’t play any fiddle, despite having one onstage (though in his defense, he moved from guitar to dobro to mandolin and back throughout the show, AND he had a great fiddle player in his band), and he didn’t do “Danger Man” (a classic jokey Bromberg tune originally released and recorded in the 70’s with the Grateful Dead as his backing band. It would have been a great fit for the Angel Band vocalists). I’ve pondered getting this one into Tangleweed’s late-night repertoire someday, we’ll have to see about that.

Despite my minor complaints, the playing and singing were impeccable, combining good humor and raucousness with pure emotion and down-home charm. I especially enjoyed his recollections of time-spent with Reverend Gary Davis and the subsequent Davis chestnut he performed solo on guitar. The closing number DRIVING WHEEL was played and sung with great conviction and sent everyone home on an inspired note.

Learn more at http://www.davidbromberg.net/home.html and/or http://www.angelband.net/welcome.html

I recently purchased a nice DVD about the history of bluegrass called High Lonesome. You can see more about it here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107111/

The film is centered around excellent interview and performance footage of Bill Monroe. He’s a very humble and reverent gentleman, as you’d expect, and comes across very nicely to my eye. There are some particularly emotional shots of him looking through the shell of his former home in Kentucky, where it all started for him several decades ago.

Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Mac Wiseman (he narrates), Jimmy Martin, Ralph Stanley and many other bluegrass luminaries are also well represented. There is at least one mind-bogglingly good snippet of Scruggs playing his patented machine-gun fire banjo (and looking damn cool doing it). Another interesting moment is Monroe and his band playing late 60’s San Francisco with the oil-gel lightshow oozing around them.

In addition to tracing the roots of bluegrass music itself, the film also provides a very nice recent history of the United States as rural and urban cultures overlapped, industries and economies rose and fell, and musical tastes and technologies shifted along with it all.

It should be noted that Elvis Presley does not achieve hero-status in this film.

Highly recommended viewing.