Bob Brozman plays The Healer on Friday and the East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival in Byron Bay on March 31 and April 1. Head to www.bobbrozman.com for more.
Just perusing Bob Brozman’s list of current projects and his hectic tour schedule, you quickly realize that he is a man with extraordinary amounts of energy and a deep empathy for an eclectic diversity of musical styles. He is an ethnomusicologist of some repute, experiencing, recording and participating in the music's of many cultures. He is an accomplished musician who strives to entertain. A teacher who communicates his passion and knowledge. An acclaimed author, a film maker and a musical catalyst, he buzzes around the globe sparking magic wherever and whenever he touches down.
Born in New York, Bob discovered the allure of the guitar at age five. At 14 he was captivated by the unique sounds of National guitars, a fascination that would lead him to write The History and Artistry of National Resonator Instruments some 25 years later. He studied music and ethnomusicology at Washington University. There he plumbed the murky depths of the origins of Delta blues.
Bob further explains his musical fascinations: “I’ve been playing the guitar since I was five years old, and I’m 47 now. I’ve never had any other work besides music. I’ve always been motivated by it, attracted to it and when I was a pretty young fellow, I discovered that National resonator guitars, the music that was found on them, once I discovered old blues that was my first look at non-American music, because blues is not really American. It is very Western Africa music.”
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“The instruments kind of led me around by the ears into discovering other types of music such as Hawaiian, which was the second ethnic music I started listening to. I started listening to Caribbean music and African music and realizing, that around the world, the best music seems to have happened at the frontiers of European colonialism, because you’re getting European instruments placed in the hands of musicians who don’t have all those rules and regulations that European music has. As a result you get a very wild and passionate and creative music.”
With a prodigious back catalogue of recordings, including 12 CDs released in the last two years, Bob has just released his latest CD, Live Now, featuring 14 tracks.
Bob explains: “Basically for years and years and years people have been asking me for a live album, and I never thought I was ready. I’m very self-critical. So now I feel that after playing live for almost 30 years in front of people, I’m ready. This album is kind of the culmination of years of experience. Also there are two tracks with Australian guests on it. They are Jim Conway (harmonica, The Backsliders) and the other would be ‘Cazzbo’ (tuba, Carolyn Johns) from the National Junk Band and the Sydney Opera. It’s all no effects and editing, just all guts and muscle.”
Bob is returning to Australia for the second time this year. He was here in January to tour with local fretmeister and songster, Jeff Lang. This time he’s back to play the East Coast Blues and Roots Music Festival and to launch an album he recorded with Jeff when he was here earlier in the year.
“I am more of a music composer than a songwriter. I’m more interested in music than lyrics, generally. One of the reasons I’ve teamed up with Jeff, is that he’s a very good songwriter and yet the music is very creative and has some possibilities for some really interesting improv. There’s something special, when you go to a show and you know the two musicians are improvising and what you see are thousands of little decisions and agreements made between two musicians without a word being spoken. You also know, that what you saw that night, you’re never going to see again in exactly the same way.”
