What was your first experience playing music?
I think when I was 7 or 8 I first took piano lessons, then piccolo lessons. I remember my piano teacher pacing back & forth behind me with his head in his hands; not encouraging. I taught myself guitar when I got the measles. I was very bored, so I borrowed my older brother’s guitar & Mel Bay books & learned a bit.I could read music, but I when I put down the book, I found it easy to play most of the songs on the radio with the chords I knew, & would take my guitar everywhere & was probably a real pain in the ass to the world. I was happy though.
What was your most significant musical experience?
My most significant musical experience was when I started being a conduit for music. I had acquired some skills, & started to find that when I focused very hard on what I was doing, something would happen and I would play with seemingly no focus or concentration at all. The music seemed to come from somewhere else into my hands. That’s the best feeling in the world. An earlier important thing that happened to me when I was 14 or 15 was that I was on my way to the train station to go to New York City, I’ve forgotten why, but sitting in the back seat of my mother’s car, I was hearing in my head the guitar intro to Working Man Blues by Sleepy John Estes. As I was thinking about it, I could visualize how to play it. It was 8 to twelve hours before I was near a guitar again, but as soon as I got back home, I tried it out and it was right. That was a big Eureka moment for me.
What was the best advice you received about pursuing a career in music?
I don’t know that I ever got any good advice about pursuing a career in music. My advice to talented individuals is to move to New York, L.A. or Nashville. It takes a certain amount of time to become known in any city, but the national press is in those 3 cities, so recognition in any of those cities goes nation-wide.
What is your favorite sound?
Right now my favorite sound is the sound coming out of my tiny 1938 Elektar amplifier with the volume all the way up. It’s not real loud, but it’s the sound all the pedals are designed to get & don’t.
Name some of your biggest non-musical influences.
My parents were, naturally big non-musical influences on me.
What is the most memorable concert you have ever attended?
I just saw a concert by Keb’ Mo’ that never let my attention wander. I also remember seeing Jimmy Hendrix & BB King play at a club called Salvation in Greenwich Village the night that Martin Luther King was assassinated. I also saw a concert in the 60s with BB King, Jimmy Reed, Two Tons of Fun (Martha Wash) at the Apollo. I’ll never forget it.
Put your iPod on shuffle and list the first 5 songs that come up.
Down in Bottom (Howling Wolf), Sensation Communication Together (Albert King), Norwegian Wood (The Beatles), Shtoi-Ta Zvon (The Pennywhistlers), Changes (Jimmy Hendrix).
Learn more about David Bromberg at www.davidbromberg.net
