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PREMESSA: LA SUPERIORITA’ DELLA MUSICA SU VINILE E’ ANCOR OGGI SANCITA, NOTORIA ED EVIDENTE. NON TANTO DA UN PUNTO DI VISTA DI RESA, QUALITA’ E PULIZIA DEL SUONO, TANTOMENO DA QUELLO DEL RIMPIANTO RETROSPETTIVO E NOSTALGICO , MA SOPRATTUTTO DA QUELLO PIU’ PALPABILE ED INOPPUGNABILE DELL’ ESSENZA, DELL’ ANIMA E DELLA SUBLIMAZIONE CREATIVA. IL DISCO IN VINILE HA PULSAZIONE ARTISTICA, PASSIONE ARMONICA E SPLENDORE GRAFICO , E’ PIACEVOLE DA OSSERVARE E DA TENERE IN MANO, RISPLENDE, PROFUMA E VIBRA DI VITA, DI EMOZIONE E  DI SENSIBILITA’. E’ TUTTO QUELLO CHE NON E’ E NON POTRA’ MAI ESSERE IL CD, CHE AL CONTRARIO E’ SOLO UN OGGETTO MERAMENTE COMMERCIALE, POVERO, ARIDO, CINICO, STERILE ED ORWELLIANO,  UNA DEGENERAZIONE INDUSTRIALE SCHIZOFRENICA E NECROFILA, LA DESOLANTE SOLUZIONE FINALE DELL’ AVIDITA’ DEL MERCATO E DELL’ ARROGANZA DEI DISCOGRAFICI .

DAVID BROMBERG
same / eponymous

Disco LP 33 giri , 1972, Columbia , C 31104, Usa, first pressing

David Bromberg (born September 19, 1945, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American guitarist, musician and singer-songwriter. Bromberg has an eclectic style, playing bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country and western, and rock & roll equally well. He is known for his quirky, humorous lyrics, and the ability to play rhythm and lead guitar at the same time.

David Bromberg  (1972) è il primo eccellente lavoro solista dell’ omonimo incommensurabile chitarrista, tra i musicisti vanta anche una incursione all’ armonica di Bob Dylan .

• Interprete: David Bromberg
• Etichetta: Columbia
• Catalogo: C 31104
• Data di pubblicazione: 1972
• Matrici: P  AL-31104-1B  IT  /  P BL-31104-1B  IT

• Supporto:vinile 33 giri
• Tipo audio: stereo
• Dimensioni: 30 cm.
• Facciate: 2
• Embossed back cover / retrocopertina in rilievo, red orange label, white paper inner sleeve

Musicians

• David Bromberg – guitar, vocals
• David Amram – horn
• Norman Blake – guitar
• Steve Burgh – bass, vocals
• Vassar Clements – violin
• Bob Dylan – harmonica (on Sammy’s Song)
• Richard Grando – saxophone
• Steve Mosley – drums, vocals
• David Nichtern – keyboards, vocals
• Willow Scarlett – harmonica
• Randy Scruggs – bass
• Jody Stecher – mandolin, vocals
• Tut Taylor – mandolin

Uno dei più bravi sessionman della storia del folk-rock d’ America,
oggi un emerito sconosciuto per chi non era ancora nato negli anni 60.
Perché l’ avventura musicale di Bromberg si può dividere in due, con
uno spartiacque ben definito, il 1980. Fino ad allora, diversissimi
grandi avevano fatto a gara nel richiedere i servigi acustici del
talentuoso chitarrista: Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, gli Eagles, i Grateful
Dead… Desiderosi di avere con sé questo simpatico signore di origini
ebraiche, barba da capretta e volto pacioso, nato a Filadelfia nel 45 e
cresciuto nell’ humus irripetibile del Greenwich Village alla fine dei
Sessanta. Il botto avviene con la sua partecipazione al leggendario
festival dell’ Isola di Wight, 1970. La Columbia lo scrittura subito:
l’ anno seguente, all’ eponimo disco d’ esordio, potente e
blueseggiante, partecipa nientemeno che un altro Beatle, George
Harrison, scrivendo a quattro mani con lui «The Holdup». Poi arrivano
tutti gli altri, i tour infiniti e le session a ripetizione. Ed ecco il
1980: «C’ è un punto in cui senti i musicisti dei grandi gruppi che
dicono “non so in quale città suoneremo o cosa registreremo nel
prossimo disco”, senti il rammarico nella loro voce. Penso che David si
sia fermato prima di arrivare a quel punto» spiega Steve Bailey, il
manager dei tempi d’ oro. Molla dunque tutto Bromberg e si mette a
studiare da «liutaio». Ovvero impara a costruire i violini e apre un
negozio allo scopo, in uno sperduto paesino del Delaware. Nel
frattempo, concerti poco più di zero e dischi pure (tenterà un
riavvicinamento, fallito, con Dylan, ai tempi di «Good As I Been With
You» nel ‘ 92). Fino a due anni fa: sospinto dai fan che non l’ hanno
mai dimenticato, Bromberg ritorna con l’ album «Try Me One More Time».
E ritorna a suonare: quando vuole lui però, senza tabelle preordinate,
senza stress da promozione. Atti unici quasi, mentre la sua chitarra,
per dirla alla George Harrison, «piange dolcemente».

Dei tanti ritiri a vita privata
visti nel corso della storia del rock, quello di David Bromberg
è sicuramente uno dei più bizzarri, decisamente in linea con la poca convenzionalità
del personaggio. Dismessa nel 1980 una delle più spettacolari e divertenti
band degli anni ’70 (obbligatorio avere in casa per lo meno Wanted
Dead Or Alive e How Late’ll Ya Play’Till, ma qualsiasi album
peschiate non ne sarete delusi), Bromberg si è diplomato nel 1984 in “Arte
della costruzione dei violini” e da allora vive riparando strumenti musicali.
La sua carriera di musicista è continuata con sporadiche apparizioni,
qualche ingaggio da session man, qualche rara produzione, e un paio di
album tra il 1986 e il 1989, discreti anche se un po’ di routine. Il trionfale ritorno nel 2007: Try
Me One More Time in un certo senso non esce a sorpresa, già nel
2003 David aveva riunito la band per una serie di concerti e il fatto
che sia un disco completamente acustico e suonato dal solo Bromberg potrebbe
essere un po’ una delusione per chi si aspettava un come-back a tutti
gli effetti. Ma Bromberg è fatto così, fin dai suoi esordi non è mai apparso
interessato alle luci della ribalta; era uno studioso della tradizione
americana al pari di Ry Cooder, ma la sua vena ironica, quasi comica,
ha fatto sì che forse non sia stato mai preso troppo sul serio dal grande
pubblico, e di certo lui non si è mai dannato l’anima per seguirne i gusti.
Avrebbe potuto campare facendo colonne sonore come gli amici Ry e Randy
Newman, ma nella sua mente c’è sempre e solo questa
musica.

David Bromberg

Columbia 31104

Released: March 1972

Chart Peak: #194

Weeks Charted: 2

For
more than 10 years, David Bromberg has performed and recorded with
stars such as Chubby Checker, Jerry Jeff Walker, Bob Dylan and produced
albums for John Hartford. During all these years and sessions and
performances, he’s won the admiration of all those he’s played with.
Now he’s finally emerged withhis own first LP, with people like Randy
Scruggs, David Amram and John Hartford and his band providing the
back-up.

Listening to the album was my first contact with David
Bromberg, his unique style of talking-singing and his extraordinary
guitary playing. It evoked a soulful sadness which was not easily
shaken or forgotten. His twanging voice is sometimes a little
reminiscent of Dylan, or Buzzy Linhart, or even Josh White. Still, in
the final analysis, it is definitely just David Bromberg.

Original album advertising art. Click image for larger view.

A
blues guitar solo, “Mississippi Blues,” has only two lines of lyrics,
but they say it all… “I got the blues so bad, it hurts my feet to
walk, it settled on my brain, and hurts my tongue to talk.” That
probably sums it all up as succinctly as it has been summed up before.
But there are other blues songs, such as “Last Song For Shelby Jean,”
about a love affair that’s ended, even though “I’ll miss you at night,
I’m not made of stone… go home. I need some time alone.” Combined
with that Dylanesque style of singing, is Bromberg’s rich plaintive
acoustical guitar playing backed up by Steve Burgh on bass and David
Amram on French horn.

On the other end of the spectrum is a bluegrass spectacular,
“Arkansas Traveler” (not to be confused with the old traditional song),
which may feature a bluegrass first — a saxophone played by Richard
Grando. It’s enough to set all toes to tapping and hands to thigh
slapping.

A weak point was the contemporary rock sound of “The Holdup,”
co-authored by George Harrison. The arrangement is hodge-podge,
combined with sound effects and further weakened by lyrics which never
seem either to be truth or satire. One cut that comes off much better
is “Suffer to Sing the Blues,” one man’s realization that you “do a
happy song if you’re glad, a protest song if you’re mad, but you got to
lose to be able to sing the blues.”

Probably the most unusual cut on the whole album and the
highest point is “Sammy’s Song,” which is the story of 16-year-old
Sammy taken to a Spanish brothel by his uncle, left there to make his
own choice and find his own manhood, according to the older man’s
style. But Sammy, choosing the prettiest girl available, finds he’s
hiding a past which has physically, as well as emotionally, scarred
her, and Sammy reaches out, “brain is numb,”… “silent screaming in
his skull,”… “scars surround him”… “without grace of tears or
sickness, Sammy sucks it all inside and shakes, and shakes some more.”

This is an album which builds a picture of an artist which will come back to visit your mind and heart again and again.

– Beverly Magid, Words & Music, 5-72.

Bonus Reviews!

David Bromberg has long been known as one of the top session
musicians in the business, gaining particular fame as a result of his
work with Bob Dylan. On his debut LP, he showed a personality of his
own and this continues with his second effort. From “Sharon” to the
“Medley of Irish Fiddle Tunes” (played on guitar) to a fine rendition
of “Tennessee Waltz” to a moving talk version of “Mr. Bojangles,” this
is a top set.

– Billboard, 1972.

Bromberg is a session man supreme in the blues-folk-rock-country
field and gets his own chance upfront here. It’s a combination live and
studio album that shows Bromberg’s sincere and deep appreciation of the
blues (country) and country (ethnic) fields. “The Holdup” is a strange
ersatz Western badman ballad by Bromberg and George Harrison that
sounds like neither.

– Hit Parader, 7/73.

David Bromberg was already a well-known folk instrumentalist
before this album proved he was also a top-notch songwriter and an
appealing vocalist as well. The styles mix folk, blues, rock, and
jug-band music, and the songs alternate from the painfully sensitive
(“Sammy’s Song”) to the rib-tickling “The Holdup,” which was cowritten
by George Harrison.

– William Ruhlmann, The All-Music Guide to Rock, 1995.

Known as the consummate “musician’s musician,”
multi-instrumentalist David Bromberg is a virtual jukebox of American
roots music. Equally at home in folk, blues, rock, jazz, country,
bluegrass, Texas swing and Irish traditional, a Bromberg album is like
a musical stew. Drawn to the Greenwich Village folk scene of the
mid-’60s, Bromberg — who was studying to be a musicologist — dropped
out of Columbia University to work full time as a performer. His
proficiency as a guitarist combined with his eclectic range of styles
led to a substantial career as a session musican, appearing on close to
80 albums for the likes of Bob Dylan, Jerry Jeff Walker, Ringo Starr,
Phoebe Snow, and others. Following a stunning last-minute performance
at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, Bromberg was offered his own
recording contract with Columbia. His debut, David Bromberg,
showcases all of his influences with a mostly acoustic album of blues,
folk, rock and a tune co-written with George Harrison (“The Holdup”). * * * *

– Brian Escamilla, Musichound Rock: The Essential Album Guide, 1996.

“David Bromberg 101” for novices, this debut album that still
holds up well captures the profoundly underrated talents of this
storyteller-cum-musician’s musician who previously earned credits
assisting the likes of Bob Dylan and Jerry Jeff Walker. Deftly
combining folk, bluegrass, rock and blues, his guitar work is
exceptional, his performances energetic and his style, nothing
uncompromised. * * * * *

– Zagat Survey Music Guide – 1,000 Top Albums of All Time, 2003.

Bromberg attended Columbia University in the 1960s and studied guitar with Reverend Gary Davis during that period. He has played with many famous musicians, including Jerry Jeff Walker, Jorma Kaukonen, Jerry Garcia, and Bob Dylan, and co-wrote the song “The Holdup”, with former Beatle George Harrison.

He began releasing albums of his own in the early 1970s on Columbia Records. His seven-minute rendition of “Mr. Bojangles” from 1972’s Demon in Disguise, interspersed with tales about travelling with song author Jerry Jeff Walker, earned progressive rock radio airplay.

Bromberg currently lives in Wilmington, Delaware where he and his wife, artist Nancy Josephson, own an extensive violin sales and repair shop, with a partial subsidy from the City of Wilmington, Delaware. He occasionally performs at Wilmington’s Grand Opera House.

Bromberg is proficient on fiddle, many styles of acoustic and electric guitar (to each of which he lends a highly individual voice), pedal steel guitar and Dobro. David Lindley, Norman Blake, Mark O’Connor, Emily Robison and Ricky Skaggs are among the small number of other major musicians with equal proficiency on three or more string instruments.

Bromberg released his first new studio album since 1990 with Try Me One More Time on 27 February 2007, on Appleseed Recordings. The disc includes Dylan’s “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” and Elizabeth Cotten‘s “Shake Sugaree.” Bromberg’s previous disc was Sideman Serenade.

After several years of
inactivity on the touring front, David Bromberg is beginning to
reappear on the live concert scene. Bromberg has reunited the “big
band” several times over the last few years and 2003 will see the band
come together at least twice for two short runs early in the year.
David is also beginning to play more with Jay Ungar and Molly Mason in
their show titled “An Evening of American Acoustic Music”. This show
creates an eclectic musical journey through several uniquely American
music forms. The show features the early works of Stephen Foster, the
Texas swing of Bob Wills, Cajun fiddle tunes, Delta and Chicago Blues,
Bluegrass, Folk and much more.

Bromberg’s
live show remains as unique as ever. Concerts by David and his band are
extraordinary events, and performances follow no set pattern of
selection. Give and take between performer is complete, spontaneous,
and totally sincere. As the NY Times noted “He has such control of his
audience that he can, at one moment, hold it in his hand with a tender,
touching yet funny anecdotal song, and then set it romping and stomping
with a raucous bit of raunch. He is electrifying.”

Born
in Philadelphia on September 19, 1945. Bromberg grew up in Tarrytown,
New York. Inspired by the music of Pete Seeger and the Weavers, among
others, he began studying the guitar at age 13. After graduating from
Tarrytown High School, he enrolled at Columbia University intent on a
career as a musicologist.
Drawn to Greenwich Village’s flourishing
coffeehouse folk music scene in the mid-1960’s, Bromberg opted for
performance combined with his studies; he left school in the middle of
his second year, however, to devote full time to his music. Shortly
thereafter, his extraordinary guitar picking and exceptional stylistic
range brought him to the attention of many other musicians: Bob Dylan,
Ringo Starr, John Hurt, the Reverend Gary Davis, Tom Paxton, and Chubby
Checker are only a few of the notables who sought Bromberg out as a
back-up artist for recording. In all he has played as a sideman on over
100 albums.

A
singular performer/writer/arranger, Bromberg’s remarkable musical
versatility and innovative resourcefulness have earned vast critical
and popular acclaim. He is also impossible to classify: As one critic
perceptively wrote, “David Bromberg fits no pigeonholes. He is part of
everything contemporarily musical. He is a product of blues, country,
jazz, folk, and classical music. From his early success as a guitar
virtuoso, Mr. Bromberg has developed into a brilliant entertainer.”
In 1970 Bromberg decided to go it on his own and, following a
spectacular, unscheduled performance at England’s Isle of Wight
Festival that year, he was signed to his first recording contract,
which resulted in the release of four albums: David Bromberg, Demon in
Disguise, Wanted Dead or Alive, and Midnight on the Water with
Columbia, now Sony. Two compilation albums have subsequently been
released. In the spring of 1977 Bromberg moved to the San Francisco Bay
where he recorded several albums for Fantasy, including the double
album How Late’ll Ya Play ‘Til?.

In the fall of 1980 Bromberg dissolved his band and moved to Chicago
where four years later he was graduated from the Kenneth Warren School
of Violin Making. The late eighties and early nineties saw Bromberg
tour only occasionally and mostly as a solo artist. Bromberg now
considers these occasional reunions as a way to see old friends and
play great music again. Preferring to spend time with his family and to
buy and sell violins, the days on the road for extended periods simply
do not fit his primary interests as a father and businessman.

Bromberg has currently left Chicago and returned east. He and his
family have settled in Wilmington, Delaware. David has opened a retail
violin shop in that city’s downtown Market Street area. The shop
specializes in sales and repair as well as bow and violin making.

With his return to the east coast, Bromberg fans can expect to see and hear a lot more from him.

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