Product Description:
Personnel: David Bromberg (vocals, acoustic & electric guitar); Jerry Garcia (guitar); Neil Rossi, Jay Ungar (fiddle); Winniw Winston (banjo); Andy Statman (mandolin, tenor saxophone, vocals); Joe Ferguson (alto and baritone saxophones); Peter Ecklund (trumpet, mellophone); John Payne (alto flute, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone), Jeff Gutcheon, Keith Godchaux (piano); Phil Lesh, Tony Markellis (bass); Bill Kreutzmann (drums); Jack Lee, Andy McMahon, Tracy Nelson, The Sweet Inspirations (background vocals).
Engineers: David Brown, Buddy Graham, Jerry Smith, Pete Weiss, Frank Laico.
Recorded at Wally Heider Studio, San Francisco and Columbia Studios, New York City.
Bromberg is a gifted multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and bandleader. He can be, however, an inconsistent recording artist, and searching out the gems in his catalogue may prove a confusing task. Not so with WANTED, one of his finest, most consistent albums. He's backed by a band that includes most of the Grateful Dead, but Garcia and company's psychedelic excesses are entirely absent, as they focus instead on their tradition-minded AMERICAN BEAUTY-era style. Blessed with a fine sense of humor, especially about himself, Bromberg plays up the irony of a nasal-voiced, skinny, white Jewish kid playing the blues.
Instead of aping traditional blues styles, he simply creates his own. The process, which works so well on the acoustic fingerpicking delight that is the country blues standard "Statesboro Blues" is indirectly celebrated on Bromberg's own ironic "Someone Else's Blues." Elsewhere, timbales add a Latin touch to the tongue-in-cheek outlaw bravado of "Danger Man," and a Mariachi horn section adorns the highwayman's tale "The Holdup," co-written by George Harrison. All the irony and self-mocking aside, it's Bromberg's virtuosic guitar work is the heart of WANTED.
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