I just read in the News Journal about the final concert by Wilmington’s adoptive son, David Bromberg. He said the show he played at New York’s Beacon Theater June 10 with his band will be his last as a touring musician. Bromberg, who sold his violin repair shop a couple of years ago, is now 77 and is reluctantly selling off his collection of American-made violins after a deal for the Library of Congress to acquire it fell through.
Ryan Cormier notes that the public is most familiar with him through his cover of Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles,” but his best-known composition is this paean to circus sideshows and the terpsichorean pleasures to be found within, one of the cuts on his 1972 sophomore LP “Demon in Disguise.” Bromberg, already a well-respected sideman by then, was backed on the track by Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Keith Godchaux — the core of the Grateful Dead at the time.
In concert Bromberg expanded the tune into a comic highlight of his sets. Here’s how it sounded at the Beacon Theater concert. The way Bromberg vamps when the lighting operator misses his cue illustrates why he’s been able to entrance concertgoers for 60 years.
