Last week I received a copy of David Bromberg‘s new solo acoustic CD Try Me One More Time (Appleseed Recordings APR CD 1099), which contains several songs of interest to the GD audience. I’ll be featuring “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” in GD Hour #971, and I may get to “When First Unto This Country” before long. (The CD also has “Buckdancer’s Choice,” whose title alone makes it interesting!)
Hearing this fine CD prompted me to dig out my other Bromberg discs. GDH971 will also include “The Holdup,” the opening cut from Bromberg’s 1974 album Wanted Dead or Alive. This album features most of the Grateful Dead on four songs: “The Holdup,” “Someone Else’s Blues,” “Danger Man,” and “The Main Street Moan.” Further inspection of the liner notes yielded a fact I either had never noticed or had forgotten: “The Holdup” was written by Bromberg and George Harrison!
Also in my stash:
Midnight on the Water, originally issued in 1976, featuring pedal steel guitarist Buddy Cage on several tracks, including “Dark Hollow.”
A twofer CD, My Own House/You Should See the Rest of the Band, originally released in 1978 and 1979, respectively. You Should See… had a cover by Gahan Wilson, reproduced in the CD package but much too small. (Bromberg also had a B. Kliban cover, on Reckless Abandon.)
Bromberg is of the same generation as the Grateful Dead, David Grisman, John Sebastian, and all those other middle-class kids who tapped into the American musical tradition and built songbooks for themselves that combined well-chosen covers and fine original songs. I just love his cover of Ian Tyson’s “Summer Wages,” on How Late’ll You Play Till?