Thursday, November 04, 2004
Robert Randolph and The Family Band found salvation in Sacred Steel — the pedal-guitar blues they discovered in church
From Newsday (New York, NY)
The trip from Avenue B in the East Village to the Roseland Ballroom in midtown Manhattan, is fairly straightforward for the diligent commuter, but for guitarist Robert Randolph the journey has been a three-year, highlight-filled whirlwind.
Randolph who plays Roseland tomorrow night with his group, The Family Band, was playing Lakeside Lounge on Avenue B as recently as 2001, but things began happening quickly, and he and his band spent this summer touring arenas with Eric Clapton, guesting on such all-time classics as "Layla," "Sunshine of Your Love," "Everyday I Have the Blues" and "Got My Mojo Workin'." But the 23-year-old guitarist was unfazed by the experience.
Randolph is from Irvington, N.J., and his hardscrabble background includes lots of skipping high school, and narrowly missing being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
However, his parents and several relatives were involved in the House of God in his hometown. These churches, part of an African-American Pentecostal denomination, often used pedal steel guitar -- an instrument more common to country and Hawaiian music -- instead of an organ. Guitarists from these churches often play in a genre called Sacred Steel. When he was 16, Randolph took up the guitar and began staying off the streets so he could practice. He met masters of the Sacred Steel and within two years, was wowing crowds at church-related conventions.
Read the article
Newsday
The trip from Avenue B in the East Village to the Roseland Ballroom in midtown Manhattan, is fairly straightforward for the diligent commuter, but for guitarist Robert Randolph the journey has been a three-year, highlight-filled whirlwind.
Randolph who plays Roseland tomorrow night with his group, The Family Band, was playing Lakeside Lounge on Avenue B as recently as 2001, but things began happening quickly, and he and his band spent this summer touring arenas with Eric Clapton, guesting on such all-time classics as "Layla," "Sunshine of Your Love," "Everyday I Have the Blues" and "Got My Mojo Workin'." But the 23-year-old guitarist was unfazed by the experience.
Randolph is from Irvington, N.J., and his hardscrabble background includes lots of skipping high school, and narrowly missing being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
However, his parents and several relatives were involved in the House of God in his hometown. These churches, part of an African-American Pentecostal denomination, often used pedal steel guitar -- an instrument more common to country and Hawaiian music -- instead of an organ. Guitarists from these churches often play in a genre called Sacred Steel. When he was 16, Randolph took up the guitar and began staying off the streets so he could practice. He met masters of the Sacred Steel and within two years, was wowing crowds at church-related conventions.
Read the article
Newsday
# posted by Dave Sichak @ 8:50 PM 
