Itโs not often that singer-songwriter David Bromberg bails on a show.
But in January, he did just that when he was set to play a gig at the Rialto Theatre.
โI was supposed to be there some months ago and for the second time in I donโt know how many years โ approaching 50 โ I cancelled the show because I was too sick to play,โ said the 71-year-old artist.
Heโs fine now โ it was just a flu-ish thing that laid him out โ and heโs ready to get back to Tucson, where heโs been fairly regularly since he returned to touring and recording in the early 2000s after a 20-year hiatus. He will perform his make-up date on Wednesday, Sept. 6, at the Rialto.
Bromberg said he doesnโt really get to decide where he plays โ thatโs a discussion between the venue and his agent โ so he has little say about his regular Tucson stops.
โBut I will tell you I do like playing in Tucson,โ he said during a phone call in mid-August from his home in Wilmington, Delaware, where he and his wife run a violin and instrument shop. โI like the warm weather and the desert. Itโs nice.โ
He is coming here with his late 2016 CD, โThe Blues, the Whole Blues and Nothing But the Blues,โ which just won the Downbeat magazine editorโs award as the best blues album of 2017. The album includes two Bromberg originals and covers of 11 songs including Ray Charlesโs โA Fool for You.โ
โItโs entirely blues, but that actually gives you maybe more license than you might imagine,โ he said of the album. โNearly every species of music has something they call blues. You can do a lot of stuff even when youโre calling it only blues.โ
So expect to hear some country and rock influences in there, soul and straight-up blues brought to full life when he and his band hit the stage.
โI love being part of this band,โ he said. โPlaying stuff live is the most fun any of us have.โ
Heโs bringing a quintet with him; sometimes he expands it to 11 musicians and dubs them The Big Band, which is the name of the band he performed with before leaving music in 1980.
โThe quintet is like a sports car, the big band is like a Caddy, a luxury car,โ he said. โIโm at the point where I like them both.โ
He wonโt need a lot of instruments to make his point and to prove that his career has a lot of life left.
โYou know the thing about music is thereโs no bottom to it,โ he explained. โYou canโt complete the cycle. Thereโs always more.โ
And for Bromberg, more is best illustrated in the vast range of his repertoire. The mulit-instrumentalist has recorded roots albums including 1974โs โWanted Dead or Alive,โ the 1978 country blues album โMy Own Houseโ and his critically acclaimed 2011 album โUse Me,โ a compilation of tracks written by other artists. Many of them, including Tucsonโs own Linda Ronstadt, recorded their songs with Bromberg on the album.
Bromberg said heโs seen Ronstadt a couple times since that recording. Whenever heโs in San Francisco he will drop by; the last time was a few months ago, and he said she was doing as well as could be expected given her illness. Ronstadt was diagnosed with Parkinsonโs disease in 2012 and at the time she reported that she believed she had had the disease for at least a dozen years.
โShe has Parkinsonโs and that only goes in one direction, and itโs not the direction you would like it to go,โ he said.
