Tuesday, September 07, 2004

 

Randolf to steel JAS stage

From the Aspen Times
Robert Randolph is the young man who made good.

Raised in Irvington, N.J., a rough, urban suburb of Newark, Randolph, a child of divorced parents, leaned toward the lures of crime, drugs and truancy. But the church - the House of God in nearby Orange, where his father was a deacon and his mother a minister - was a balance against those influences. And within the church, music was the biggest shield from the street life. Randolph, the drummer for the youth choir as a kid, found a sense of joy and purpose in gospel music.

In his midteens, Randolph discovered the sound that would become his salvation. The House of God is home to the sacred steel style, a unique gospel form built around the pedal steel guitar. Within a handful of years, Randolph had taken the sacred steel sound, mixed it with other influences, and brought it first into small clubs in Manhattan, then into the jam-band world. This summer, Randolph and his Family Band took the music onto the biggest stage it has ever seen - an arena tour that had Randolph opening for Eric Clapton, and joining Clapton for a few songs each night.


Read the article
Aspen Times


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