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David Bromberg
- Wanted Dead or Alive [Columbia, 1973] B+
- The Blues, the Whole Blues, and Nothing but the Blues [Red House, 2016] A-
Consumer Guide Reviews:
Wanted Dead or Alive [Columbia, 1973]
Any Jewish boy with glasses who makes his living doing Blind Willie McTell imitations had better remember his place. Hence, this key line: "When I got up this morning I had Someone Else's Blues." He always could play, and now that he no longer takes his voice seriously the fact that it sounds funny is an extra added attraction. B+
The Blues, the Whole Blues, and Nothing but the Blues [Red House, 2016]
In the year the Rolling Stones capitalized their franchise on the cheap by mining the blues of their youth, who'd have guessed they'd get smoked by this equally ancient folk muso? Yet it's no contest. Where the one remake Mick and the boys shine up a little is Little Johnny Taylor's near-soul 1971 "Everybody Knows About My Good Thing," Bromberg leads a livelier band through a set that kills the same the-postman-told-me shtick. Prone as a young hippie to the fallacy that blues was a music of old men on porches, now he digs into these lyrics as the sexually insecure cuckold he can evoke as Sonny Boy Williamson and Bobby Bland could not, adding a nerdy comedy routine to Bessie Smith's "You've Been a Good Ole Wagon" and showcasing the belated debut of the pathetic "How Come My Bulldog Don't Bark When You Come 'Round," which he learned long ago from a lead sheet whose composer was too embarrassed to put his name on it. In real life, meanwhile, Bromberg has long been married to musician Nancy Josephson. They own a violin store in Wilmington, Delaware, where she's made a name for herself creating vodou-influenced beaded objects in a nearby studio. Ain't love grand? And let's hear it for art, too. A-
Further Notes:
Subjects for Further Research [1970s]: He's certainly overrated by his cult--what cult artist isn't?--but I think rock and rollers are too hard on him. You have to give some credit to a Jewish boy with glasses who makes his living doing Blind Willie McTell imitations and then begins a song: "When I got up this morning I had Someone Else's Blues." Everything Rocks and Nothing Ever Dies [1990s]
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