Few upstarts in the realm of rock-and-roll music have moved as fast as Robert Randolph, who at the spry age of 24 has seemingly transformed overnight from a grassroots church performer into one of the most wanted men on the jam-rock scene. With his core group, Robert Randolph ‘ the Family Band, as the foundation for his vast musical platform, Randolph is now starting to pop up virtually everywhere from sitting in with blues rock warhorses Gov’t Mule and Allman Brothers Band over the past year to landing opening gig slots for the Dave Matthews Band and Phil Lesh ‘ Friends this spring and summer. He even created one of 2001’s best supergroups and best albums: a union with John Medeski and the North Mississippi All Stars called “The Word.” Randolph is one of the brightest and most energetic new sounds in rock and roll, and he’s smiling all the way.
“It’s been absolutely amazing,” Randolph said amid giddy laughter during a recent phone interview. “Me and the boys — it seems like we just started playing together yesterday. And now these days we’re selling out venues in the Northeast right and left, people are coming to the shows and knowing the words to the songs, and I’m meeting all these people — Dave Matthews, Warren Haynes [of Gov’t Mule]. It’s just incredible. I am so surprised and warmed by how quickly our music has been embraced.”
Well, his peers have certainly embraced his sound, and his fans are growing by the day. Randolph ‘ the Family Band, so called because of its combination of his cousins and best friends, are gradually being seen and heard, and opening for Dave Matthews Band on several East Coast dates, including April 12 in Providence, will most likely prove that extra edge that catapults the band onto the jam culture A-list.
Randolph himself specializes in all kinds of guitars but his love and passion is for his pedal steel, a 13-string wonder that combines guitar strings with a complex array of pedals and levers, giving it the ability to make numerous sounds over a wide spectrum. It is played sitting down and displayed horizontally like a keyboard.
“It’s a special feel, and man oh man, is it a beautiful music voice. It’s not your traditional ‘wah-wah’ feedback guitar, but more a cool, round sound that still has all that edge,” he says.
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Randolph, at the command of this four-legged beast of a guitar, leads his band; a close-knit outfit driven by “solidarity and a love of music. We’ve been playing together for a real long time,” Randolph fondly remarks. The band rounds out with cousins Marcus Randolph on drums and Danyell Morgan on bass, and third “cousin” and good friend John Ginty on the Hammond B-3 organ, an instrument that has found, as of late, a resurgence in jam band popularity. “My band, well, we’re a friendship, a kinship in music, in brotherhood, in passion,” Randolph explains.
Randolph was discovered, so to speak, at the 1st Annual Sacred Steel Convention in Florida in August 2000. Since that time, he has been bringing to the musical table a creative blend of rock, blues, jazz, funk, soul and even hip-hop that is rooted in the gospel church of his past and present and draws on a wide variety of influences both old and new. He cites his primary influence as “the great Stevie Ray Vaughan, who, ” he says, “is one of, if not the last word in guitar playing as far as I’m concerned.” In fact, Randolph has taken one of Vaughan’s most famous musical contributions, an amped up version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child,” and put his own spin on the tune. It is now a concert standard and crowd pleaser for the band, which, as Michael Trevors recently wrote on Jambands.com, an online magazine, “makes you wonder what Hendrix could have done with 13 strings.”
Randolph is himself a strong believer in religious faith, a proud product of a church-going youth and possessor of strong religious conviction. “Always remember who you are,” he advises young artists who hope to follow in his footsteps. “And always remember, someone’s watching over you. It’s God, man. God is in control.”
Tapers, traders and MP3 technology has put Randolph’s music into circulation, and next week, his band will release a live album, Live at the Wetlands, culled from shows played at New York City’s legendary rock club, which closed last year. “I’m very proud of that disc, it shows a lot of our range and a lot of what we can do,” Randolph says. “But like all live albums, that was just one or two nights. Our performance is different every night and every inch just as energetic and just as inventive. We love to mix it up.” Randolph and company will also go to work on their first studio album in a few months, “due out probably sometime in the fall,” he says.
Whatever your pleasure, Randolph claims he has the answer, calling his shows “something you’ve probably never seen before” and “a damn good, foot-stomping, sweaty time.” In this day and age, when live shows come as packaged and unoriginal as many of the artists that put them on, that sure sounds refreshing.
Robert Randolph and the Family Band play the Paradise Rock Club tomorrow, March 29, at 9:00p.m., doors at 8:00p.m.. This is an 18+ show. Tickets are $14.