Feb. 19, 1977: David Bromberg Band at Buffalo State College

 


Another one of my longtime favorites.

Feb. 19, 1977

This Band’s in it for the Music

The David Bromberg Band has probably played 500 shows like the one Friday night before 1,100 Buffalo State College students sitting packed on the floor of the Student Union Social Hall. But they still give it the old school try.

          That’s what they’re there for. The tall, curly-haired guitarist and his six-man group could be tearing down twice as much money for half the hassle as session musicians, but that’s not where their ambitions lie. They’re in it for the music.

          “The basis of everything we do with this band is enjoyment,” Bromberg said earlier.

          Like Ry Cooder and Leon Redbone, some of Bromberg’s most enjoyable moments are with old blues tunes, but unlike them, his versions are pretty free and loose.

* * *

HE’LL HINT at the old-style vocals, then unleash a hilarious torrent of native New York City whine. It happens last and best in his encore, “Kansas City.”

          “You don’t preserve traditional music in formaldehyde,” Bromberg had said. “I like traditional music and I just make it my own. I’m just foolin’ around and havin’ a good time. Listen to those old records and those guys are doin’ the same thing.”

          Meanwhile, he can apply tradition equally well to pop tunes, bluesifying the Beatles’ “You Can’t Do That.” In other places, full-blown Irish pipe and fiddle reels arose.

          Whatever the mode, it was likely to be punchy with the full band behind him. Solo after solo gathered applause for saxophonist John Firmin, trombonist Curt Linberg and fiddler Brantley Kearns. And especially for the newly-bearded Bromberg himself.

* * *

WHILE SINGING lessons have brought Bromberg’s furtive vocals out of the shadows (he even ventures the old Fleetwoods’ ballad, “Mr. Blue”), his guitar playing remained stunning – electric and acoustic, country and blues.

          Only in the quiet center section of the 1¾ hour set, when Bromberg soloed, did proceedings sag and the stuffy room grow restless.

          It took a full-band build-up in “Statesboro Blues” to restore momentum. From there, it rocked out.

          It was rock energy that ultimately earned an encore for the opening group too, the latest incarnation of the Flying Burrito Brothers.

* * *

THE BURRITOS, once a pioneer country-rock group, might better be called Sneaky Pete Kleinow’s Band, after the only original Burrito left – the pedal steel guitar player. Expect proprietor Kleinow is not the boss.

          Halfway through the set, the band mutinied, hit Kleinow with a couple taunts and steered the music away from him. Cajun fiddler Gib Gilbeaux and former Steppenwolf guitarist Bobby Cochran took over and boogied. Unhappily, you couldn’t hear Sneaky Pete at all.

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: David Bromberg on the cover of a bootleg album, “Live in Utica ’77,” recorded from an FM radio broadcast of his concert at the Stanley Theater in Utica.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: David Bromberg was flying high in 1977 on the college and small concert hall circuit and 45 years later he’s still out there (consider that this tour took him to the Ark in Ann Arbor, Mich., a venue he’s going to revisit this fall).

Once again, the lineup of songs on setlist.fm doesn’t quite jibe with my report, but here it is:

Get Up and Go

Sloppy Drunk

Yankee’s Revenge (Medley)

Dying Crapshooter’s Blues

Statesboro Blues

Church Bell Blues

If You’s a Viper

Idol With a Golden Head

K.C. Loving

Will Not Be Your Fool

Sharon

Bromberg shuffled his song list every night. Only four of these songs appear on the live recording of his concert two months later in the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, N.J. That show, by the way, can be relived on YouTube.

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