Joe del Tufo
Bromberg (pictured) developed an unusual guitar technique from his mentor, the Rev. Gary Davis.
It’s an unlikely pairing. The polymath multi-instrumentalist David Bromberg and former Lovin’ Spoonful frontman John Sebastian are doing back-to-back sets at the Barrymore Theatre on April 13.
In the 1960s and ’70s Bromberg built a career as sideman for the greats. He played with Willie Nelson, Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr and George Harrison — just to name a few. Then, from 1980-2002, he took a break from playing — on his website he calls it “a self-imposed exile from his passion” — to become a violin expert and open a violin store in Wilmington, Delaware. But he never stopped playing, and absorbing influences.
“I have always been an omnivorous listener,” says Bromberg in a phone interview with Isthmus, listing Doc Watson and Bill Monroe (bluegrass), Conway Twitty and George Jones (country), and Charlie Christian and Grant Green (jazz) as influences.
But most of all, Bromberg, credits the Rev. Gary Davis, the blind Baptist minister who mentored him early in his career. Davis developed a unique picking style, playing the chords on the neck of the instrument.
“He was one of the greatest guitar players to walk the Earth, and if he had any antecedents, they never recorded because I never heard anything like him,” Bromberg says.
Davis introduced Bromberg to gospel music, and the young guitarist started attending black churches for inspiration. He was moved by the cadences of the gospel preachers.
“In the middle of a sermon a good preacher pauses so that you pay attention to what he’s going to say next,” Bromberg says. “That’s the way B.B. [King] and Albert [King] played and that’s the way I play. I like to joke that the best notes I play are the rests.”
At the Barrymore Theatre show, Bromberg’s quintet will draw from his 2016 album, The Blues, the Whole Blues and Nothing But the Blues, which honors some of the great country blues artists.
He is also looking forward to sharing the stage with Sebastian, an accomplished guitar and harmonica virtuoso. Bromberg and Sebastian have known each other and played together for many years.
“There are only about 14 harmonica players on the planet who should continue to draw breath,” Bromberg quips. “First among them who should be allowed — and even encouraged — to live is John Sebastian.
“And I am sure we will find our way into each other’s acts,” he adds. “We usually do.”
The storied career of Sebastian began in a surprising way — with puppetry. At age 5, his father, a classical harmonica player, moved the family from Greenwich Village, New York, to his ancestral home in Italy. Young Sebastian developed a fondness for the Punch & Judy puppet shows, the hallmark of just about every Italian festival.
He also became a puppeteer, utilizing the half-door on the family’s villa to stage his own shows for family and visitors. He believes the experience helped him with his music.
“Synchronizing the hand and mouth for puppets is a lot like mashing down on an E chord to match a certain song phrase,” he says.
It also didn’t hurt Sebastian’s career that prior to leaving for Italy, the family hosted an itinerant Oklahoma musician in their Greenwich Village home: Woody Guthrie.
The family moved back to New York, where teenaged Sebastian knew blues icons Lightnin’ Hopkins, Sonny Terry and others, and jammed on harmonica with an equally young Bob Dylan in the basement of Gerde’s Folk City.
“I usually referred to [Dylan] as ‘that sloppy guy,’” Sebastian says.
Sebastian’s skill on harmonica, guitar and autoharp matured as he played in a host of bands, made an impromptu appearance at Woodstock and composed the theme to the 1970s ABC comedy Welcome Back, Kotter.
Along with the rest of the Spoonful, Sebastian was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000 and became a Songwriters Hall of Fame honoree in 2008.
One of the band’s most popular hits was “Do You Believe in Magic” (later covered by Shaun Cassidy). It’s impossible to resist the temptation to ask Sebastian if he does.
“To the extent that people are capable of creating and thinking magical things, yes,” Sebastian says. “I can do that only by ignoring a lot of the media and taking a lot of long dog walks. It gets me off of our American treadmill.”