The Guitar Hero Series: Bob Brozman

Written by Ava

The Guitar Hero series on Jemsite features interviews with guitarists and musicians who may not have star status YET, but their current situations have shaped them to be who they are--determined, fond of their craft, and heroes in their own right. Perhaps you'll see in these upcoming entries the next Jimi Hendrix, Melissa Etheridge, or Duane Allman. Or perhaps they'll become household names by doing what they do best---doing their thing.

A performer, entertainer, virtuoso, producer, author world traveler, guitarist...Bob Brozman is all of these things and more. We were lucky enough to catch Bob between gigs (who knew which side of the world he would fly to next!)

Find out what else this diverse global musician brings to the table and why he's our newest Guitar Hero! Then head on over to his official website for more on this mastermind of music.

What’s your background with the guitar? How did you get started?

I have been banging and tapping on things since I was a baby…..I started listening to music at 3 years old, and was affected deeply by a record my parents had, of Ravel’s Bolero—a great piece of music for a kid because of the repetition of the themes with increasingly dramatic instrumentation. It left me with my continued fascination with sound and timbre.

I started with the guitar at 5 years old, but was thrown out of the one guitar class I attended, because the teacher was tuning everyone’s guitar, and I was last, so by then I had the chance to figure out the tuning and a few chords. Then while happily strumming a couple of chords over and over, I was gently urged never to return. I have been self-taught all the way, and the Delta Blues was the first real “kick in the head” I received from music, the delicious combination of raw emotion and free improvisation.

Why did you move beyond the more mainstream music to play genres within a diverse variety of cultures and genres? Why blues, jazz, gypsy swing, calypso and modern hip-hop and not rock like a lot of rock performers the guitar world is used to seeing? Why not stick to American music?

The great bluesman Bukka White once said, “ There’s only 2 kinds of music, the Blues and zip-i-dee-doo-dah.” I concur heartily! “Regular” music just did not/does not really grab me by the ears. So when I first heard Charley Patton as a young kid, I was struck by the intensity of rhythm, tone, and freedom to be found in his music. For me he remains the #1 Delta blues musician.

Then, by collecting old 78rpm records, I discovered Hawaiian music of the 1920s, another kind of music, but with the same depth and feeling as the Delta Blues, and with the same tunings, yet with a whole slew of playing techniques and sounds. From there I kept looking outward, and realized that from Latin America to Africa to Oceania, the COOLEST guitar music happened at the frontiers of colonialism. So I have spent my life enjoying and playing and searching for the cry of the human soul through music, a kind of universal world blues music.

As far as American rock music, I feel that there have been many great artists who have done and are doing great things. But there are even more mediocre artists, recycling the same few decades of music and style over and over, as if progress has somehow frozen in mainstream pop culture. In particular, the RHYTHM of pop, rock, disco, metal is so boring and lifeless—and EXACTLY the same beat as military march music….and the polka! In my humble opinion, the art of rock guitar seems to be kind of exhausted and spent, as guitarists strive the shred scales faster and faster without really saying anything much. Remember, NOBODY ever reads a book and says, “What a great alphabet!”

All the greatest “traditional” musicians were people who were pushing the artistic limits of their time. What has happened to this, in pop music? Madonna was radical in her day, but Britney is just doing the same Madonna thing ( not as well) with nothing new added—25-30 years later! Where’s the progress? Compare Elvis to Hendrix and you can see that there WAS an artistic leap there.

I’m a guy who simply loves music. A lot of mainstream music seems to be more about money and image than about music. So I work in service of music in my small way, and I am sure I am having a MUCH more fun and interesting life than a typical rock star!!

Tell me about some of your travel experiences playing this diverse variety of music.

My first entry into a foreign musical culture was being accepted by Hawaiians after playing Hawaiian guitar for many years on the mainland. I had the good fortune to record and collaborate with the Tau Moe family, classic Hawaiians who started a world tour in 1928 which finished in 1988, when I discovered them. The record we made came out 60 years after their first record. From there I went on to record projects with other Hawaiians, slack key legends Ledward Kaapana, Cyril Pahinui, and George Kahumoku.

From there I was invited to record with the #1 Okinawan artist, Takashi Hirayasu. This music is distinctly Asian, but has funky elemnets of blues and polynesian in it. We met as strangers, spent 4 days recording in a shack on a tiny island with no cars and only 200 people, south of Okinawa—and came out with a surprise world music hit. This enabled me to record many other ethnic collaborations, with Rene Lacaille of Reunion Island, Indian Ocean, Djeli Moussa Diawara, a kora player from Guinea, Debashish Bhattacharya an amazing slide guitarist from India, and a project with 50 musicians from Papua New Guinea!

With the open-minded attitudes I maintain, I can go anywhere and have a great jam with almost anyone! Each project has taught me so many new things about music. You can read about all of these and more at www.bobbrozman.com

Each time I hook up with a new culture, I arrive without a big entourage, put my name second on the CD cover, and I show up prepared to learn like a young kid. I wind up getting great music blending, learning so much about music, learning foreign languages (all self-taught), and making wonderful lifelong friends!

How did you come to build a large collection of art-deco era instruments?

Well, I began with fascination with sound. In the “old” days of the 60s, when “vintage” meant pre-WW2 instruments, there were not many good new instruments available. So I used to haunt pawnshops and educate myself about good vs bad qualities of instruments. For the 20th century, the golden age of instruments would be 1910-1940. Everyone knows how these have increased in value, so as a musician, it is not as much fun as it used to be. The thrill was in the discovery, not in investing in known blue-chip guitars.

Today we are living in a new Golden Age of instrument making, with the quality bar higher than ever. After using only vintage for decades, I have been playing, touring and recording with only the new National Reso-Phonic guitars, my recent Bear Creek Hawaiian guitar, other new instruments, and I let the vintage instruments stay home.

Besides recording albums and traveling the world?

I founded and ran 13 weeklong sessions of the International Guitars Seminar from 1999-2006, with Woody Mann under the name International Guitar Seminars, where we would take over a university campus, in New York city, Vancouver, BC, San Diego, Santa Cruz and Seattle. We would have students fly in from all over the world to study with us and our staff of fine teachers. It was a great project, created a nice community of players. Finally touring schedules became too heavy to continue running it. The adjunct professorship at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, has enabled me to do projects such as the five villages/five guitar bands project Songs of the Volcano, in Papua New Guinea, the last place on earth where guitars arrived!

You do so much! What is a typical day-to-day schedule like for you?

Well, I work in many countries giving concerts and some workshops. On tour, I try to have a show every night. It is simply a question of moving 5 or 6 guitars and other gear several times a day, and travelling from place to place, interviews and shows. Every night I play each show as if it was my last, as if my life depended on it, which in fact it does! Every day doing soundcheck is a new puzzle to solve (which I enjoy—I’ve posted good advice for sound at http://www.bobbrozman.com/soundhints.html ) I enjoy being a service worker, and having a stack of good memories of all the people I get to work with on tour.

And every day, of course, I try to stay on top of fan emails, tour planning, guitarist questions. I am a worldwide dealer for National Reso-Phonic, so I spend some time working with guitarists needs in that regard, too. And always I have 2 or 3 recording projects in the hopper…..

Then there’s the garden and the chickens to attend to! Getting in the dirt is good for the soul.

How do you help third-world musicians focus on their talent and get the right resources?

I have a small foundation called the Global Music Aid Foundation, where I receive donated materials such as guitars, ukes, picks, strings, etc and then I pack them up to send to groups of musicians I know in developing countries such as Papua New Guinea or Madagascar. When I arrive someplace, I show respect to local musicians and I never act like a big imperialist, but as a natural man trying to help music happen.

Do you have a favorite guitar or a favorite genre to play?

I am crazy about National reso-phonic guitars in general, and in particular the tricone guitars, and ESPECIALLY the BARITONE tricone I designed for National Reso-Phonic in 1996, with Don Young. 2009 Marks 50 years of music playing for me, so NRP is bringing out a special half-century BB baritone signature model, with lots of special design features!

A genre I love is the funky syncopated 6/8 rhythms of Africa, and of Reunion Island in particular. It makes a whole new rhythm bed for jamming!

When/how did you know that the guitar was for you—that this is what you wanted to do for the rest of your life and it wasn’t just a hobby on the side?

Music and sound-making is something I need like air, water and food! I started playing gigs as a teenager, and was a street musician in the 1970s which gave me good honest experience. There was never any doubt for me; though if it was not for music, I would have gone into anthropology or physics…..

What do you say to the naysayers who tell you you should stick to the mainstream?

Hmmmm..I never really heard that much from anyone, except perhaps the occasional journalist. There are no rules about what kind of music to play, are there? I think the mainstream is pretty well-covered and is doing just fine without me! I have been asked, “…but don’t you want to be BIGGER?” To which I respectfully reply, “Well, no, not bigger, just better.”

What tips or advice would you give struggling guitar players on honing their skills or looking at world genres in music rather then focusing on the mainstream?

Listen to a lot of music, and when you hear something that turns your crank listen more closely--break it down in your mind, hum along with it. Tap on things constantly, playing little grooves. Try playing in open tunings: Check my Tips for Guitarists section at http://www.bobbrozman.com/tips.html for easy information about playing in open tunings. It is a great way to make fast progress and write new music. Remember that open tunings were invented by guitarists WITHOUT musical training—that should tell you that it is easier than standard tuning!

Be nice to other people in the music biz, like sound technicians and other musicians, it may sound corny, but it really pays off!