BOZ SCAGGS & ROBBEN FORD - Jazz Festival,New Orleans,LA - 05/06/1990

Robben Ford
1990-05-06
Jazz Festival,New Orleans,LA

May 6, 1990  Fairgrounds

With all of the great Robben Ford posts, I thought I would keep changing it up a little.
Since the last Charles Ford Band torrent I posted, here's one with Robben playing with Boz Scaggs at
the NO Jazz & Heritage Festival.


Sbd: Ex Quality

Setlist:

1. Runnin' Blue
2. Monkey Time
3. Drivin' Wheel
4. Jojo
5. Miss Sun
6. T-Bone Shuffle
7. Lowdown
8. Gimmie The Goods
9. Loan Me A Dime
10. Lido Shuffle
Encore:
11. Band Intro - You're Mine

http://fp.io/59b4767a/

ROBBEN FORD - Bringing It Back Home

Robben Ford – Bringing It Back Home (2013)

Robben Ford‘s last studio effort, 2007's Truth, received a Grammy nomination for best contemporary blues album. Where that recording focused on his workmanlike songwriting skills and his prodigious guitar technique, Bringing It All Back Home highlights other aspects of his musical persona. This is Ford putting on offer his considerable skills as a bandleader and song interpreter. There’s not a lot of superpicker athleticism on display here, and there doesn’t need to be. Backed a smoking band that includes organist Larry Goldings, drummer Harvey Mason, bassist David Pilch, and trombonist Stephen Baxter, Ford makes it look easy. On this series of mainly cover tunes, his modern blues is infused with his love of New Orleans’ R&B throughout. This is especially true on the slippery, punchy, readings of Allen Toussaint’s “Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky” and “Fair Child” — two of the first three tunes here — that are simultaneously polished and greasy. One of the three guitar burners here is “Trick Bag,” by NOLA guitar hero Earl King. It showcases the locked-in interplay between Pilch and Baxter as they ride atop Mason’s funky butt breakbeats. Even Bob Dylan’s “Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine” gets a second-line backbeat treatment. Another guitar highlight, albeit a gorgeously relaxed one, is an instrumental update of the traditional “On That Morning,” wherein Ford expertly channels his inner Wes Montgomery. On “Slick Capers Blues,” by little known pre-war bluesman Charlie “Little Buddy” Doyle, he and Goldings trade knotty lines in updating the tune for the new century. A great surprise here is how fine a singer Ford has become. His voice is as much an instrument on this set as his guitar is. Whether it’s on the aforementioned cuts, his version of wife Ann Kerry Ford’s and Michael McDonald’s jazzy “Traveler’s Waltz,” or his Mose Allison-by-way-of-Ben Sidran reading of “Fool’s Paradise,” his vocals are expressive and relaxed; he displays sophisticated, savvy, seemingly effortless phrasing. The grain of his voice on the lone original, “Oh, Virginia,” establishes a seamless connection between Southern soul, New Orleans rhythm & blues, and country music — and may be the finest song he’s written. There is a precedent for Bringing It All Back Home: Lowell George’s classic, Thanks, I’ll Eat It Here. That album was misunderstood upon release because it downplayed the artist’s slide guitar and songwriting chops to focus on his consummate skill as a singer. Ford has done something similar, yet offers his fans enough of his instrumental talent to balance the equation.
http://fp.io/e93da372/

ROBBEN FORD - ANTHOLOGY: THE EARLY YEARS

ROBBEN FORD
''ANTHOLOGY: THE EARLY YEARS,
MARCH 6 2001
142:34

DISC ONE
1/Sweet Sixteen
Joe Josea / B.B. King/12:34
2/You Drive a Hard Bargain
Robben Ford/5:44
3/Raining in My Heart
Boudleaux Bryant / Felice Bryant/10:32
4/Blue and Lonesome/8:27
5/Red Rooster
Willie Dixon / Big Mama Thornton/4:26
6/Eighty-One
Ron Carter / Miles Davis/8:09
7/Miss Miss
Robben Ford/8:59
8/Sunrise
Robben Ford/11:29

DISC TWO
1/Oh Gee/6:33
2/You Don't Know What Love Is
Gene DePaul / Don Raye/8:51
3/Everyday I Have the Blues
Peter Chatman/5:28
4/It's My Own Fault
John Lee Hooker/10:29
5/Ladies' Choice
Robben Ford/6:33
6/Hawk's Theme
Robben Ford/6:25
7/S-K Blues
Sonny King/3:45
8/Low Ride
Robben Ford/2:29
9/Softly Rolling
Robben Ford/7:30
10/Stella and Frenchie
Robben Ford/8:05
11/Goin' Down Slow/6:06

Jim Baum /Drums
Robben Ford /Guitar, Guitar (Electric), Sax (Tenor), Vocals
Paul Nagle /Keyboards
Stanley Poplin /Bass
Jimmy Witherspoon /Guest Artist, Vocals

REVIEW
by Alex Henderson
Robben Ford has always been a very eclectic musician; therefore, the people who get the most out of his recordings tend to have eclectic tastes themselves. If you're the sort of broad-minded listener who holds blues, rock, and jazz in equally high regard, Anthology: The Early Years is a musical feast. This two-CD set, which Avenue Jazz provided in 2001, looks back on recordings that the singer/guitarist/saxman made from 1972-1976 (when he was in his early to mid-20s). Even then, Ford was difficult to categorize -- those who insist on pigeonholing musicians wondered if he was really a blues-rock singer or a jazz instrumentalist at heart. And, truth be told, he wore both hats equally well. Anyone who loves down-and-dirty blues-rock cannot help but applaud his gutsy versions of Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster" and B.B. King's "Sweet Sixteen." But Ford is equally convincing as a jazz instrumentalist on "Softly Rolling," "Miss Miss," and Miles Davis' "Eighty One." Many of the instrumentals are shining examples of 1970s fusion, but Ford favors more of a post-bop approach on the standard "You Don't Know What Love Is" (which is one of the tunes that finds him on tenor sax and is very John Coltrane-minded). Anthology: The Early Years isn't the last word on Ford in the 1970s, but Avenue Jazz' picks are generally excellent -- and it is certainly among the places to go if you're exploring his early output for the first time.

BIOGRAPHY
by Scott Yanow
Robben Ford has had a diverse career. He taught himself guitar when he was 13 and considered his first influence to be Mike Bloomfield. At 18 he moved to San Francisco to form the Charles Ford Band (named after his father, who was also a guitarist) and was soon hired to play with Charlie Musselwhite for nine months. In 1971, the Charles Ford Blues Band was re-formed and recorded for Arhoolie in early 1972. Ford played with Jimmy Witherspoon (1972-1973), the L.A. Express with Tom Scott (1974), George Harrison, and Joni Mitchell. In 1977 he was a founding member of the Yellowjackets, which he stayed with until 1983, simultaneously having a solo career and working as a session guitarist. In 1986, Ford toured with Miles Davis and had two separate periods (1985 and 1987) with Sadao Watanabe, but he really seemed to find himself in 1992 when he returned to his roots: the blues. Ford formed a new group, the Blue Line, and subsequently recorded a couple of blues-rock dates for Stretch that are among the finest of his career. In 1999, he released Sunrise on Rhino and Supernatural on Blue Thumb. Ford signed to the Concord Jazz label in 2002 and released Blue Moon that same year, followed by Keep on Running in 2003 and Truth in 2007. That same year, he was a billed special guest on Larry Carlton's Live in Tokyo. He followed this with the predominantly live Soul on Ten in 2009. In 2013, Ford began his label association with Provogue, and issued the studio album Bringing It Back Home, comprised mostly of blues and R&B covers played by an all-star band.
http://fp.io/mfe4f9b1/

JIMMY WITHERSPOON & ROBBEN FORD - LIVE JIMMY WITHERSPOON & ROBBEN FORD - LIVE AT THE ASH GROVE 1976

JIMMY WITHERSPOON & ROBBEN FORD
''LIVE JIMMY WITHERSPOON & ROBBEN FORD''
LIVE AT THE ASH GROVE 1976
1976
43:15

1. Low Down Dirty Shame/2:06
2. Goin' Down Slow/6:42
3. Kansas City/3:16
4. Past Forty Blues/6:37
5. Times Are Getting Tough/2:21
6. Outskirts Of Town/2:32
7. S-K Blues/3:42
8. Around The Clock/6:37
9. Walkin' By Myself/2:55
10. No Rollin' Blues/6:27

Jim Baum /Drums
Robben Ford /Guitar, Vocals
Paul Nagle /Keyboards
Stanley Poplin /Bass
Jimmy Whitherspoon /Vocals

BIOGRAPHY
by Bob Porter
One of the great blues singers of the post-World War II period, Jimmy Witherspoon was also versatile enough to fit comfortably into the jazz world. Witherspoon was born on August 8, 1920, in Gurdon, AR. As a child, he sang in a church choir, and made his debut recordings with Jay McShann for Philo and Mercury in 1945 and 1946. His own first recordings, using McShann's band, resulted in a number one R&B hit in 1949 with "Ain't Nobody's Business, Pts. 1 & 2" on Supreme Records. Live performances of "No Rollin' Blues" and "Big Fine Girl" provided 'Spoon with two more hits in 1950.
The mid-'50s were a lean time, with his style of shouting blues temporarily out of fashion; singles were tried for Federal, Chess, Atco, Vee Jay, and others, with little success. Jimmy Witherspoon at the Monterey Jazz Festival (HiFi Jazz) from 1959 lifted him back into the limelight. Partnerships with Ben Webster or Groove Holmes were recorded, and he toured Europe in 1961 with Buck Clayton, performing overseas many more times in the decades to follow; some memorable music resulted, but Witherspoon's best 1960s album is Evening Blues (Prestige), which features T-Bone Walker on guitar and Clifford Scott on saxophone. As the '70s began, Witherspoon decided to take a short break from live performances, settled in Los Angeles, took a job as a disc jockey, and continued making records. In 1971 Witherspoon teamed up with former Animals vocalist Eric Burdon for the album Guilty. Unfortunately it sold poorly. By 1973 his short retirement from live performances was over. Witherspoon was ready to get back on the road and assembled an amazing band featuring a young Robben Ford on lead guitar. Those live shows had received positive reviews, rejuvenating Witherspoon's move toward a definite rock/soul sound. He traveled to London in 1974 to record Love Is a Five Letter Word with British blues producer Mike Vernon. Vernon had produced critically acclaimed British blues albums by John Mayall, Fleetwood Mac, and Ten Years After. By the early '80s, Witherspoon was diagnosed with throat cancer. Although he remained active and was a popular concert attraction, the effect of the disease on his vocals was obvious. Witherspoon passed away on September 18, 1997, at the age of 77.
http://fp.io/6faf1d7m/