Bromberg’s back Renowed roots guitarist, violin maker to play in Camden

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Back in the late 1970s, David Bromberg and his band regularly filled college gyms, offering up a fun, somewhat irreverent mix of folk, old-timey, bluegrass, Chicago blues, Dixieland, rock ‘n’ roll and acoustic country blues.

But in the early ’80s, baffling fans, Bromberg dissolved the band, moved to Chicago and spent four years training as a violin maker. Once a sought-after session guitarist, recording with the likes of Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, John Prine, Tom

Paxton and Jerry Jeff Walker, Bromberg laid down his instrument and didn’t touch it for nine years.

“I was kind of burned out and I didn’t realize that all I needed was a rest,” Bromberg said in a recent telephone interview from his violin shop in Wilmington, Del.

In the 1990s, he picked up his guitar again, reunited with the musicians he’d played with for almost 30 years and “started playing jam sessions three times a week” at a nearby pub in Wilmington. Those sessions – focused purely on the joy of playing music – rekindled a desire to perform and tour again.

Bromberg, backed by three of those old musical friends, is scheduled to perform in a mostly acoustic setting on Friday at the Camden Opera House.

“We all realized it’s something to treasure, to be able to play this music,” the 58-year-old artist said.

Bromberg now lives in Wilmington, where he oversees Bromberg and Associates, a small business that crafts fine violins. The violin, not playing or recording the instrument, has been his passion for most of the last 20 years.

Bromberg’s agent, Steve Bailey, describes him as a “violin geek,” who will, if prompted, extol the unsung virtues of American-made violins to anyone who will listen.

Bailey said Bromberg fails to understand the fuss longtime fans make over his return to the stage, seeing himself as “just one of the players.”

Bromberg set out in the mid-1960s to become a musicologist, attending Columbia University in New York City. But once he was exposed to the burgeoning Greenwich Village folk scene, he dropped out and pursued playing, not studying, music.

In a sense, Bromberg has become a musicologist, with the stage as his lecture hall. He moves easily between genres, attacking each tune with gusto – sometimes bawdy, sometimes sincere and sweet and often reworking lyrics of old standards to find an unexpected humor in them.

In fact, if there’s one constant in Bromberg’s shows, it’s the big grin on his face and the irreverence with which he approaches almost all the songs.

“Most of the musicians that I learned from treated it that way,” he said.

The first song on his first album, “David Bromberg,” recorded live at a folk festival in 1970, opens with a soul bass vamp – a la James Brown – with Bromberg beginning an introduction worthy of Harlem’s Apollo Theater. “Wait a minute, that’s the wrong song,” he says, laughing. “But wouldn’t it be great if it wasn’t?” he asks, before starting a traditional-style ballad.

Since then, Bromberg has had no fear of playing the “wrong song.”

Not surprisingly, Bromberg walks on stage without a set list, letting the spirit move him on the tunes he selects from a substantial catalogue. Old favorites such as “The Holdup,” “Demon in Disguise,” and “Danger Man” might make the mix, as will covers including “Kansas City,” “Young Westley” and “Come on in My Kitchen.”

Bromberg will be joined at the Camden show by Jeff Wisor on violin and mandolin, Butch Amiot on bass and vocals and Mitch Corbin on guitar, mandolin and violin. Corbin replaced the late Dick Fegy, Bromberg said.

“That’s the only way out of this band,” he joked.

On stage, Bromberg enjoys “trying to think of a tune nobody in the band has heard,” which is quite a challenge for musicians he’s known for 30 years.

“They’re a lot of fun to play with,” he said.

Bromberg was a frequent solo performer in Maine in the mid- and late-1980s. And when the original band members got together for a few shows to celebrate his 50th birthday, Maine was graced with a visit.

One difference fans might notice this time around is Bromberg’s singing. A few years ago, he said, a fellow musician shared a secret that he believes has made his voice sweeter and makes hitting the high notes easier.

“I’m a very lucky man,” he said, “to be able to do this.”

Tickets to see the David Bromberg Quartet are available at Wild Rufus Records in Camden; Grasshopper shops in Rockland, Bangor and Ellsworth; Karma Rama Music in Rockland; The Blue Hill Co-op in Blue Hill; and Mr. Paperback in Belfast or online at www.villagesoup.com. Tom Groening can be reached at 236-3575 and groening@midcoast.com.

Where: Camden Opera House,

29 Elm St.

When: 8 p.m. Friday, May 28

Tickets: $31.50

More info: 236-7963 or

www.camdenoperahouse.com