After Library of Congress deal, Bromberg preps album

When guitar virtuoso and violin-maker David Bromberg decided to sell his 263-piece collection of American-made violins to the Library of Congress for $1.5 million, he wasn't thinking about his legacy or eyeing a move from Wilmington.

Instead, he was thinking about his age.

"Well, I'm 70 and this is my life savings. So this seemed like it would be a good time," he says of the decision to unload his collection, which dates back to the '60s, years before he released his self-titled debut album that included Bob Dylan playing harmonica.

"I hope to live for quite some time, but I can't predict that. And what's going happen to them when I'm gone? It's time to put them where they belong," adds the renowned multi-instrumentalist, who turns 71 next month and will release his 18th album in the fall.

After conducting a search for his collection's future home with his wife, artist Nancy Josephson, they decided that the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States was the best fit.

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"If I was asked where is the best place in the word to have this collection, I would say the Library of Congress," says Bromberg, who lives and works on Market Street.

Bromberg's collection, which has been 50 years in the making, will be the second largest collection of a single instrument in the Library of Congress behind Dayton C. Miller's collection of about 1,500 flutes, donated in 1941, says Library of Congress musical instrument curator Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford.

But while the Library of Congress announced its intention to acquire the collection last week, it's not a done deal quite yet.

The library, located across the street from the U.S. Capitol, has just begun the process of raising the $1.5 million needed to buy the collection with a target date of April 2018 for the transaction, Ward-Bamford says. Until then, Bromberg's violins will remain on Market Street where some hang in his home and others are locked in a vault.

Once the collection is on Capitol Hill, a new Center for the Study of American Violins will be created with Bromberg's collection at its core, Ward-Bamford adds.

It's been nearly 15 years since Bromberg, Josephson and all those violins moved to Wilmington from Chicago, injecting a blast of world-class musicianship and artistry into downtown, long before the area's current arts-and-culture rebirth began to flourish.

At the time of his arrival, Bromberg started low-key, open-to-the-public jam sessions at the old 4W5 Cafe, which was located in the vacant space behind where La Fia Market Bistro now stands. Both the blues and bluegrass jam sessions still live on, although only the bluegrass jam remains on Market Street, held each Monday night around 7 p.m. at LOMA Coffee. (The blues jams are now held at The Reef in Brandywine Hundred on Wednesdays at 7 p.m.)

Before moving to Delaware, Bromberg had stopped releasing albums, focusing on his second career as a violin maker and collector. By the time he released his 2007 comeback album, the aptly titled "Try Me One More Time," he hadn't released a new studio album in 17 years.

With the release of that album, he was promptly rewarded with a Grammy Award nomination for Best Traditional Folk Album, losing to another knock-out comeback album released that year, Levon Helms' "Dirt Farmer."

Bromberg credits the jam sessions for reigniting a fire within, setting him on a path of musical rediscovery that has produced four studio albums in nine years, including his newest release, "The Blues, The Whole Blues and Nothing But The Blues," due Oct. 14 on indie folk label Red House Records. It's produced by longtime Dylan and Levon Helm collaborator and multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell, who also oversaw his 2013 release "Only Slightly Mad."

In between recording albums after his East Coast move, Bromberg has been busy touring, regularly playing theaters and even mega festivals such as the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. In doing so, he's exposed his brand of American roots music to a new audience, showing why he has counted everyone from Dylan to George Harrison of The Beatles as collaborators during his 50-year career.

Bromberg says he has no current plans to leave Wilmington, which helped spark his career's second act: "I've gotten a lot back. This has been a very good move. It's worked out very well and we're happy here."

His deal with the Library of Congress builds on last year's donation of another collection to Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center. Papers from his music career, including notes, photographs, letters and more are now housed there.

But all of this doesn't mean Bromberg is eyeing his legacy.

He doesn't do legacy.

Retrospection is not his thing. And having his violin collection, like his albums, live on beyond his years on Earth doesn't tickle him like it might others.

"I don't think about that. My mind doesn't work that way. I'm not a person who has an overview. I'm not interested in overviews. I'm interested in the moment," Bromberg says.

He is more enamored with the idea that his collection will be preserved, proving that the sometimes-maligned American violins are as good as the ones made by European luthiers.

"We know the names of many violin-makers from Italy during the golden period of violin-making and we have no idea what their work looks like. The reason is that over the years, the labels have been changed to make them worth more money," he says. "The same thing is happening to American violins. And they are not necessarily inferior to what they are pretending to be, but the makers deserve to have their identities preserved."

While he has big dollar dealings with the federal government afoot, Bromberg is also preparing for the roll-out of "The Blues, The Whole Blues and Nothing But The Blues," which finds Bromberg covering 11 songs by artists such as Robert Johnson, Ray Charles and Sonny Boy Williamson. It also includes a pair of newly-penned songs by Bromberg.

One of his new songs, "This Month," was first performed at the local blues jam a few years ago when it was held at the old Genelle’s Bakery & Cafe on Market Street.

Bromberg wrote it at the jam after someone called out for him to do his song about "my woman quitting me for the third time."

"I did't have any such song. But it gave me an idea. So I sat down then and there, wrote it and sang it that night," he says.

The result is a sorrowful tale of a man whose woman has left him not three times, but four times in a single month. "The fourth time the woman quit me this month/I was onto her jive/I packed up everything and went back to the country/Won't hang around here for number five," he sings.

"This Month" and the song "How Come My Dog Don’t Bark When You Come ‘Round" both have flashes of Bromberg's sense of humor, which is a key part of his live shows. "How Come My Dog" is about a man who realizes he is being cheated on.

"I have a sense of humor and it comes out in what I do. But to me, one of the most important elements of good blues is irony. And irony can be humorous. And it is frequently taken as humor when it's more than humor -- it's irony," he says. "Take the classic line, 'I've been down so long it feels like up to me.' That's ironic and that it's also funny is incidental."

Toward the end of "How Come My Dog," Bromberg stops singing and starts talking, delivering one of the album's biggest laughs.

"That dog barks at everyone. He barks at his shadow. Now he's barking at me!" he says as the band plays behind him. "We'll go out walking together, her and me, and the neighbors will ask, 'Where's your husband?' I'm standing right there! They ask if I'm her cousin. This is terrible. I can't handle this. I hate it, I hate it when the kids call me uncle daddy."

Contact Ryan Cormier of The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier), Twitter (@ryancormier) and Instagram (@ryancormier).

'THE BLUES, THE WHOLE BLUES AND NOTHING BUT THE BLUES' TRACKLIST  

1. "Walkin’ Blues" (Robert Johnson)
2. "How Come My Dog Don’t Bark When You Come ‘Round" (Unknown)
3. "Kentucky Blues" (George “Little Hat” Jones)
4. "Why Are People Like That?" (Bobby Charles)
5. "A Fool For You" (Ray Charles)
6. "Eyesight To The Blind" (Sonny Boy Williamson)
7. "900 Miles" (Traditional)
8. "Yield Not To Temptation" (Deadric Malone)
9. "You’ve Been a Good Ole Wagon" (John Willie Henry)
10. "Delia" (Traditional)
11. "The Blues, The Whole Blues and Nothing But the Blues" (Gary Nicholson & Russell Smith)
12. "This Month" (David Bromberg)
13. "You Don’t Have to Go" (David Bromberg)

IF YOU GO

What: David Bromberg Big Band Bucket List Birthday Bash with special guests Tom Rush, Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams

Where: Keswick Theatre, 291 N. Keswick Ave, Glenside, Pa.

When: Oct. 7 at 8 p.m.

Cost: $29.50-$49.50

Tickets: keswicktheatre,com