Customer Reviews

The Guitar Artistry of David Bromberg: Demon in Disguise

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A man, his guitar, some songs, and a whole lotta technique, style and familiarity.
Bromberg plays his greatest songs on solo guitar, with explanations of their origins
and authors. These include Rev. Gary Davis, Bob Dylan, and a litany of titans that Bromberg either knew personally or studied under. It is a very personal, one-on-one relationship that he holds between us and his memory. Each piece he plays is flawlessly recorded and played for
you live. Audio quality is excellent at full bandwidth.

It is easy for a non-player to write this off, but, if you digest this, or play yourself, after a song or two you realize that you are being treated to a truly epic player in command performance. David's first hand experiences with the greatest folk, blues, gospel, musicians who ever lived are simply priceless.

This is a monumental reference work for any folk music lover, performed by an incredible talent, and a most humble man. The result is genuine, American, and enjoyable.

David is so talented and so down to earth. Amazing guitarist. I've played professionally for years and I am humbled.

Most of this DVD shows just David Bromberg talking and playing guitar. Finally on track 31, "This Month" he is doing a blues number with one more person playing guitar and a story that struck me so hard, I want to spoil all the suspense of that song by dropping the ending on you cold. I was only aware of a few of the lost chops that David Bromberg fondly talks about rediscovering after spending 22 years in Chicago trying to identify every old violin, but you should be able to picture the kind of progress that he is capable of making when the first verse of a song is about:

The first time my baby quit me, this month . . .

it is all about him, but by the third verse, she told him clearly enough, so

On The Fourth Time my Baby quit me this month,
I was on to her jive.
I packed my things and moved back to the country.
I'm not going to wait around for number five.

David Bromberg suffers the syndrome of the artist that is unable to compensate his technical deficiencies with a minimum of personality, with a bit of a spark, with something that may partially relieve him of his so many limitations. To call him a singer, when all he does is babble, is to give too much freedom to our own imagination. To call him a "guitar virtuoso", as some pious souls do, is to elevate to the status of delirium all the insufferable pretensions of political correctness, a "philosophy" that envisions a world of people and scenarios indistinguishable in their gray leveling.
It is really surprising the aplomb with which he perpetrates a "version" of "Chump Man Blues" and surely shocking when you consider the always splendid renditions by Ari Eisinger and Woody Mann, available in the same label. Bromberg exhibits a high amount of narcissism when he describes himself as a "Demon in Disguise" (a good song of his own), and a tender lack of common sense when minutes later, in an interview segment that precedes his "performance" of "Hey Bob Blues", he doesn't forget to mention the moral itching that in his teens (15 years old) prevented him from learning the lyrics of this song -so "inappropriate" for such a young age!-, forcing him to comply only with an instrumental version. It took him several years to finally dare... A real Demon, indeed!
In regards to some of the other material, all I can say is that he fails with Ray Charles, he fails with Rev. Gary Davis and he almost fails with Bob Dylan. His guitar tone (a quality that takes so many years to develop, even among gifted musicians) is hopelessly dry, opaque, resistant to beauty and emotion, and so viscous that its inexistence would be a better choice, as to sin by omission. On a curious note, it might be worth to mention that his lack of rhythm and his indifference to subtly instrumental details are so notorious as showy is one of the guitars that he plays in this video: a very expensive Martin "David Bromberg" model, with a price that is inversely proportional to his talent.
"Demon in disguise" by David Bromberg can be approached as the intrusion of a rather mediocre musician in a territory occupied by the likes of the great Geoff Muldaur, the great Pat Donahue and the great Ernie Hawkins; a sad anomaly in the exquisite catalog of the Guitar Artistry Series.

Nota bene: As a viewer, you may regret a mistake in the production of this DVD, related to the image of David Bromberg himself; I am talking about the great amount of saliva that comes out of the corners of his mouth every time he talks or "sings". It is really a disgusting experience, a detail that should not go overlooked in these times of digital correction and photoshop.The many warts around his eyes were removed from the photo that ilustrates the cover -enter photoshop- but they shine with full splendor in the DVD.