Back in 1971, Columbia Records released the debut self-titled David Bromberg album and introduced the world to a true original. The singer/songwriter followed that with three more LPs for Columbia and five for Fantasy Records all the time garnering critical and fan praise, as well as support and friendship with such fellow artists as Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jerry Jeff Walker, the Grateful Dead and Bonnie Raitt. But in the early 80s, he dropped out of sight and only reemerged in 2006 with a Grammy-nominated solo album “Try Me One More Time” which led to a renewed career and several more albums.

Another aspect of Bromberg is that he cannot be pigeon-holed into a single genre as he’s at home in the blues, country and western, rock ‘n’ roll and folk music which makes for a heady and satisfying journey. The case in point is on full display with his latest album, “Big Road” which finds him with a band and now, in his 50th year, he’s out on tour and coming to Maine, Sidney to be exact, on March 26th at the Snow Pond Center for the Arts. On the 18th of this month I called Mr. Bromberg while he was on the road in Nashville and chatted for 20 minutes.

Q: So you’re coming back to my fair state again.
Bromberg: Yes, and I’m looking forward to it.

Q: It’s always neat to touch bases with someone who has enjoyed as long a career as you have, sir, it’s a real pleasure.
Bromberg: Well, I’m quite pleased and surprised at the way I’m able to do it, you know, that I still have fans and that I have big shows, it’s really marvelous. I never had any hit records but colleagues of mine who did are not able today to work in the same places that I am, that’s really hard to explain but there we are.

Q: Now, the album you are touring for is your latest, “Big Road,” correct?
Bromberg: Yeah, though I tour to tour, actually, I don’t know that it’s specifically for an album ever, we actually recorded it before the quarantine, but the quarantine made it impossible for us to tour. And another surprising thing is that it got more radio play than anything I’ve done in 30 years, so who knew?

Q: (Chuckle) Seeing you don’t really tour to support a release, is it hard to put together a set list considering all the material you have to draw from?
Bromberg: I’ve never had a set list in my life.

Q: Then you must have a lot of faith in your backing band, that’s for sure.
Bromberg: Oh, I do, I’m crazy about my band, they’re fantastic musicians and fantastic people, they’re pretty incredible.

Q: So you just get up there and do what you feel like doing and what the audience seems to imply that they would like to hear you do?
Bromberg: Well, I don’t know about audience implications, I don’t do requests, either, and I explain to them that it works much better if I do what I want to do when I want to do it, and they seem to get that.

Q: (Chuckle) It’s good to be able to have that kind of stance that you can take in those situations. Just out of curiosity, when you revisit some of the stuff you did earlier in your career, has it changed much over the years? Do you find that the songs morph a little bit when they’ve been played over and over?
Bromberg: Some do and some don’t. Do you have the CD, “Big Road”?

Q: No, I got a link sent to me so I could listen to it and prepare for this interview.
Bromberg: Well, there’s one of my very early tunes on it called “Diamond Lil,” but we do it so differently today. There are sections of it that are set aside for unwritten duets, there are two of them and we improvise those duets. If you have the hard copy of the album, in one pocket of the cardboard is the CD but in the another pocket is a DVD that has, along with some talking by me and others, five tunes videoed, and the videoed performances are the ones that are on the CD, they are my favorite five, one of them is “Diamond Lil,” and I’m pretty fond of that particular disc.

Q: I was looking at your bio that was sent to me and noticed that you had taken some time off between recordings in the 80s and 90s, was that to recharge you creative batteries?
Bromberg: Well, I kind of have to confess that I was kind of stupid, in the 70s I was pretty popular and well-known, compared to today, anyhow, and that was because I was working non-stop and it became too much. Instead of thinking, “Well, I burned out!” I didn’t think it was possible that I could burn out so I concluded that maybe all this time I thought I was a musician I was wrong and I’ve got to find another way to make a living, so I did that.

Q: Ow! Okay …
Bromberg: And it was stupid, I could’ve just taken six months off and been fine, but that’s not what I did.

Q: But you seem to have come back, dare I say, better than before; I mean…
Bromberg: There are certain things that are better than before: I sing a lot better than I used to, but the astounding part of it is that I came back, after all this time, and the audience was still there for me, that’s amazing.

Q: Since your return to music, have you come back to Maine? I don’t recall seeing ads for shows in the area.
Bromberg: Oh, yes but not in the last two years because there was the quarantine, but before that I’d come up once or twice a year.

Q: Back to “Big Road,” if I might, one of the things I enjoyed was the stylistic diversity of it. No pun intended but it was a great musical trip where you didn’t know what to expect from one song to the next.
Bromberg: Well, I’m glad to hear that and, truthfully, I think all my records have been kind of like that since the first one in 1971 (chuckle).

Q: Now, sir, seeing this will be a venue debut for you, is there anything that you’d like me to pass on to the folks reading this article?
Bromberg: Well, I consider myself very lucky to be able to do this and I hope people come and enjoy it, I mean, that’s about all I can say.

Lucky Clark, a 2018 “Keeping the Blues Alive” Award winner, has spent more than 50 years writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at luckyc@myfairpoint.net if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

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