David Bromberg Quintet

If ‘Americana’ has come to mean music that resides in the interstices between country, folk, blues, and other genres without belonging to any of them, then Bromberg was Americana eons before the term came into vogue, and no more so than when he was playing with his quintet.

You can tell a lot about a person from the company he keeps. When that company included everyone from Bob Dylan & Emmylou Harris to Doc Watson & Jerry Garcia, you realize you’re dealing with a very special case.

‘As a kid I listened to rock ‘n’ roll and whatever else was on the radio,’ says Bromberg. ‘I discovered Pete Seeger and The Weavers and, through them, Reverend Gary Davis. I then discovered Big Bill Broonzy, who led me to Muddy Waters and the Chicago blues. This was more or less the same time I discovered Flatt and Scruggs, which led to Bill Monroe and Doc Watson.’

If you listened to bluegrass, folk, country or rock music during the 1970s, it was hard to miss the songs or musicianship of singer-songwriter David Bromberg. Across his career, Bromberg has played guitar, dobro, fiddle, and mandolin with a who’s who of iconic artists. His eponymous 1971 debut included ‘The Holdup,’ a songwriting collaboration with former Beatle George Harrison, who also played slide guitar on the track. David also met the Grateful Dead and wound up with four of their members playing on his next two albums. And that was just the start of his musical legacy.

Bromberg is one of the most engaging, indeed mesmerizing, of performers. It’ll be a treat to hear him and his quintet perform their mix of bluegrass, country, R&B, and blues that’s united by Bromberg’s soulful picking and gravelly vocals.

Tickets: $39, $49, $59