He was kind of under my radar somewhat. I have 3 solo albums that I haven't played much over the years, I was more into 'flash' guitarists when I got them. I was listening to the podcast interview with him on No guitar is safe the other day, and I thought I'd give them a spin again.
Wow! lovely stuff, really tasteful melodic playing. I think I'm going to have to get hold of a lot more of his records, it really is my style of music these days, right on the money for me, very inspiring. I really want to try and transcribe the solo for Lateral climb. Transcribing is something that I'm not good at but it would be so cool to play along.
Any other fans?
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Favourite albums are Robben Ford & The Blue Line, Handful Of Blues, Blue Moon, Keep On Running, Truth and the live album Soul On Ten.
On top of those the 2 Renegade Creation albums with Michael Landau are superb. Countless live DVD's available as well and if you're onto learning from the man himself check out the Truefire website, loads of courses on there.
To my disappointment I've only seen him live once at The Cheese & Grain in Frome. Stunning stuff.
My mate and I bumped into him upstairs in the restaurant when he played The Robin in Bilston. Star struck is not the word... I couldn't think of anything to say to him...
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His DVD tutorials are good but if you only had to get one then go for The Art of Blues Rhythm - no licks but a great insight into jazz/blues based rhythm ideas - You won't learn and remember it all in one go, but you can go back many times and pick up on something you didn't get at the time - Like having a never ending 1 to 1 lesson for £25 or so, that will last you 5/10 years - Plus generally easy to take his ideas and quickly let them slot into what you are already doing with out having to learn to split the atom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hng2tp2S-5Y
EDIT: also check out Tiger Walk for a set of superb instrumentals.
His phrasing and rhythm and chordal work are exceptional.
If you want to hear him in a more traditional jazz role and on acoustic, have a listen to Rikki Lee Jones's "Pop Pop" album.
And here's something that not many people might know
http://www.kissopolis.com/2013/01/guitarist-robben-ford-discusses-his.html
yeah, got that from his interesting interview on the 'no guitar is safe' podcast. Weird!!
Well done, I was gonna make sure that got mentioned here. :evil:
I'm also pretty sure I read in an ancient Guitarist mag that his first recordings ended up being used as a porn soundtrack.