Blues Reflex

Biography

Bob Brozman (March 8, 1954 – April 23, 2013) was an American guitarist and ethnomusicologist. He has performed in a number of styles such as blues, Gypsy jazz, calypso, ragtime, Hawaiian and Caribbean music. Brozman has also collaborated with musicians from diverse cultural backgrounds such as India, Africa, Japan, Papua New Guinea and Reunion Island. He has been called "an instrumental wizard" and "a walking archive of 20th Century American music." Bob maintained a steady schedule throughout...

Bob Brozman (March 8, 1954 – April 23, 2013) was an American guitarist and ethnomusicologist.

He has performed in a number of styles such as blues, Gypsy jazz, calypso, ragtime, Hawaiian and Caribbean music. Brozman has also collaborated with musicians from diverse cultural backgrounds such as India, Africa, Japan, Papua New Guinea and Reunion Island. He has been called "an instrumental wizard" and "a walking archive of 20th Century American music." Bob maintained a steady schedule throughout the year, touring constantly throughout North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa. He has recorded numerous albums and has won the Guitar Player Readers' Poll two years in a row in both the blues and slide guitar categories. From 1999-2006, he co-founded International Guitar Seminars, which hosted over 120 students annually at sites in California, New York, and Canada." From 2000 to 2005 his collaborations have landed in the European Top 10 for World Music an unprecedented five times.

Brozman was also a linguist, anthropologist, and ethnomusicologist. He was formerly an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Contemporary Music Studies at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. He started a foundation for the purpose of getting some of the western surplus of instruments and other musical supplies directly into the hands of musicians in third world countries in Africa and Oceania.

Brozman was well known for his use of National resonator instruments from the 1920s and 1930s, as well as National Resophonic resonator instruments. He also used Weissenborn style hollow neck acoustic steel guitars, including original models and top of the range versions from Bear Creek in Hawaii www.bcguitar.com. Among his National instruments was a baritone version of the legendary tricone guitar, which was designed in conjunction with him in the mid to late 1990s. This instrument is now part of National's actual range of products. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.