David Bromberg - Try Me One More Time Appleseed APR CD 1099 Format: CD Released: 2007 by David J. Cantor davidc@soundstage.com Musical Performance Recording Quality Overall Enjoyment

Veteran musician and acoustic-instrument connoisseur David Bromberg, who has even studied violin-making and plies the trade at his own store, achieves a special sound on his new solo-guitar-and-vocals CD Try Me One More Time. His Martin M-42 David Bromberg Signature Edition guitar with Elixir Acoustic guitar strings -- the album’s only instrument -- comes through with engaging clarity, nearly as well as if he performed in your living room, due to skilled production, engineering and mastering.

The CD opens with the title song -- a catchy, straightforward, gently sung blues number Bromberg wrote based on a much older tune. Try Me One More Time then visits with Robert Johnson, Elizabeth Cotten, Blind Willie McTell and other blues greats, and ventures into "East Virginia," "When I First Came to This Country," other traditional ballads, and a fine rendition of Bob Dylan’s "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry." I especially liked the quiet artistry of this work and how it invites the listener in rather than slamming him with a "wall of sound."

If you haven’t already, try Bromberg for the first time with this CD. He goes way back in broadly defined rock, emphasizing blues and folk. He even took lessons from the Reverend Gary Davis. He built bands, recorded, and toured throughout the 1970s, released only one album after 1980 until this one, and recently has been on the road with different configurations of musicians for different gigs -- all extremely well received. Try Me One More Time is a gem, and most if not all of Bromberg's previous releases are available on CD and ready for discovery.

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