MUSIC: After hiatus, guitarist back with big American playlist

With a repertoire that probably exceeds 300 tunes, from fiddle reels to Chicago blues to Stephen Foster ballads to goofy story-song originals, guitarist David Bromberg is like a walking encyclopedia of American roots music.

His sidemen, by necessity, are equally well-versed. That's because Bromberg, who never plans a set list, likes to surprise.

"Every now and then I'll spring something on them they've never heard before," said Bromberg, who will perform tonight in Atlanta at the Variety Playhouse. "That gets their attention."

Bromberg's return to Atlanta, with a trio that includes his wife, Nancy Josephson, on bass and vocals and multistring player Mitch Corbin, marks a new chapter in a career full of surprises.

Known as a hard-working session man in the 1960s, and a rip-roaring live entertainer and recording artist in the 1970s, Bromberg dropped out of sight in the 1980s to study violin-building. He opened his own shop and stayed behind the counter for the next 22 years.

He crept back into performing through a most unusual door. When he decided to settle in Wilmington, Del., where he runs David Bromberg Fine Violins from a four-story brick commercial building downtown, the mayor convinced him to host a twice-weekly jam session at his property in hopes of sparking a bit of a revival.

"I figured I'd endure it for a month or so," said the 63-year-old native New Yorker. Then he started having a great time. "So many wonderful musicians started showing up, it really got me playing again," he said.

More playing led to his first new record in 17 years, 2007's "Try Me One More Time," a solo outing that earned the surprised Bromberg a Grammy nomination. "My name never got mentioned in the same paragraph with the word 'Grammy.' "

The hiatus also led to some significant changes in his music.

Bromberg is among the '70s artists who introduced bluegrass virtuosity to a rock audience.

On such albums as "Midnight on the Water" and "Reckless Abandon," he'd toss tailgate trombone and gutbucket blues numbers together with funk rave-ups, then tear off a medley of string-band breakdowns. The combination exposed a new generation to blazing bluegrass guitar, fiddle and mandolin playing.

But his somewhat nasal singing voice was never considered Pavarotti material. Today his voice has deepened and settled.

"I'd gotten lots of tips on how to improve my singing over the years, and I pretty much ignored them," he said. "When I stopped touring I started messing with it now and then, and I found out all the advice I got was good advice and it really worked."

Mostly, he has more fun now. "I put less stress on myself, and that even reflects in the shows I do. I don't play clubs until 4 in the morning, I don't do two sets a night, as a rule. I learned to make it easy for myself."

Finally, he says, "I'm comfortable in my own skin."

DAVID BROMBERG ON ...

> Violin making: "I built about half a dozen fiddles. My interest in violins was more about identification. I learned to build them to educate my eye. What always fascinated me was how somebody could look at a violin and figure out when and where it was made and frequently by whom. I can frequently do that now."