Robert Randolph has gone out of his way to let people know that he and the Family Band’s latest LP, “We Walk This Road,” is a celebration of African-American music.
But that goes without saying, really. Everything Robert Randolph and the Family Band has released can be classified that way. Of course Randolph, a pedal-steel legend, loves his blues, R&B and gospel.
That said, this newish T Bone Burnett- produced record has a more pointed concept than his past releases.
“We went into the original library of American music and went back into the earliest forms of recorded music,” Randolph said recently. “The slave field recordings, ‘Traveling Shoes,’ the stuff recorded in the early 1900s, ‘Dry Bones.’ We wanted to go back and listen to that stuff and see how we could fit it in my own original musical brain to see what would happen. And we came out with a lot of these different things.”
Randolph and the Family Band are hitting the road with “Traveling Shoes,” “Dry Bones” and more songs off their latest album, and they’ll swing through Denver at the Ogden Theatre on Saturday.
Q: Are you or your crew planning on skiing or riding while in Colorado?
A: Not really. Some of the guys do, but I never do any of that stuff. I broke my hand about a month ago. I fell on some ice while walking around and cracked the bone in my right hand.
Q: Is it affecting your playing?A: It’s on one of my picking fingers. It’s healing up pretty good.
Q: Your hands are insured, I would suppose. For how much?A: For enough money.
Q: Sounds like you had fun listening to all this old music and reinterpreting it.
A: It was really cool listening to this stuff. Over time it really just became this event record to where there was something new happening every day. Ben Harper came and brought ideas for “If I Had My Way” and other tunes.
Q: What about working with T Bone?
A: T Bone is a guy who enjoys when we all attack stuff. He got so excited, and it was like, “Man I’ve never heard anything like the way you play the guitar and the history of the church where you all come from and how it all holds together.”
Q: How did you arrive at John Lennon’s “I Don’t Wanna Be a Soldier Mama?”
A: We were watching the (presidential) debates and following all these different story lines with the press. We found this Lennon tune that we were listening to in the studio, and we just said, “Hey, let’s record this song. It sounds like something we’re going through today.”
Q: So you’ve been working on this record for a long time. What’s taken so long?
A: I guess that’s what happens when you’re having fun. You have all these great guys coming by the studio every week. Robbie Robertson and Bob Dylan. Everybody’s telling stories and collaborating and writing music for other things. Leon Russell and Elton John — all these different names. It was the greatest time of my life so far.
Q: Did it surprise you that your search for a producer led you to a middle-aged white guy?
A: When you look at it, T Bone is a really soulful guy. It was cool to be able to make music with a guy who doesn’t care about radio or doing things that are trendy. He said, “What’s trendy is diving in and finding your stuff and doing it and not worrying about a radio hit.” These things will last forever, and it’s been great.
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com
“ROBERT RANDOLPH & THE FAMILY BAND.”
Pedal steel boogie. Ogden Theatre, 935 E. Colfax Ave. with the Constellations Saturday. 9 p.m. $25.
