“God gave church people a lot of patience to deal with beginning musicians,” says Robert Randolph in String Episode 340, as he reflects (with no small amount of wonder) on his tutelage on one of the hardest instruments humans ever invented. “So my church growing up, man, they put up with me being off key, wrong key, wrong song, wrong changes and (too) loud at the same time. It's kind of like boot camp. It's a never ending boot camp, because there's every type of song and every type of change.”
Randolph, as a young man and musician, was in for more change than he had any idea about. At 21 years old, he was an assistant paralegal, playing in the worship band at the House of God Church where he grew up in Orange, NJ. Two years later, he was playing for tens of thousands of people at Bonnaroo as one of the new prodigies and hotshots on the jam band circuit. His ticket wasn’t just his consummate musicianship, but his instrument - the pedal steel guitar.
Imported to the US mainland from Hawaii in the early 20th century and influenced by the Delta blues and early country, the slide guitar has long been one of the most emotive and vocal instruments in American music. It was central to the original honky tonk sound of Hank Williams, but that was an electric lap steel, with no levers or pedals. Then in the 1950s, a few mechanically inclined people added an array of string-bending devices, allowing for surprising new kinds of harmonic and melodic motion. With new levels of sophistication, the pedal steel was embraced in Nashville and the West Coast as a core sound of modern country music.
The instrument found another home in a more out of the way environment - a network of pentecostal African American churches that spread from Florida through the south and up the East Coast. Some pioneering musicians deployed the steel as a substitute for the organ, because it could play all kinds of sonic roles.
“When you grow up in our church, you see it from the time you’re born. And there were these guys, and we kind of treated them like they were like the rock stars of the church,” Randolph says. “There was a guy named Henry Nelson, who had moved from Florida up to New York. He lived in Harlem. (He) was one of the old originators of sacred steel. And then there was Ted Beard and Calvin Cooke. So I grew up watching all these guys play, and when you grow up into it, you kind of just kind of dream of, you know, maybe doing that one day.”
Randolph moved from drums to steel at about 15 years old, embarking on that phase of learning in front of a congregation. He had limited exposure to secular music of any form until well into his teens, and he certainly wasn’t planning on playing for a wider audience. But he got a hold of a tape of Stevie Ray Vaughan, which began influencing his musicianship right away. When, in 2000, a white music and media guy named Jim Markel attended the first ever Sacred Steel Convention in Florida out of sheer curiosity, he was blown away and proposed managing Randolph and introducing him to the rock and jam scene.
Robert seems to have slipped into that new skin without much trouble and with almost instant success. He launched his stage and recording career in an instrumental combo called The Word with keyboard wizard John Medeski and the core of the North Mississippi Allstars. Then he and his Family Band released three albums (with impressive singing and songwriting by Randolph himself) for Warner Records and one for the Blue Note jazz label, picking up four Grammy nominations along the way. As an instrumentalist he collaborated with an army of greats: Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Ozzy Osborne, Elton John and Leon Russell and a lot more.
Following the pandemic, Randolph decided to go forward using just his own name, and now we have a stellar new collection called Preacher Kids from the revitalized Sun Records. Just days before this show was broadcast, news broke that the new album earned Randolph his fifth Grammy nomination, this time for Best Contemporary Blues Album.
in the show, you’ll hear “Sinners,” a thundering call-out of churchy hypocrisy, “King Karma,” a country-leaning duet with Margo Price, and “7 Generations,” an old song in Randolph’s catalog that he says he never found the right groove or feel for until these sessions, working with super-producer Shooter Jennings. But the show-stopper here is “When Will The Love Rain Down,” a big production number sung by star LA session singer Judith Hill. It’s Randolph’s favorite - and mine too - one that proves there’s immense depth and soul in his jam-friendly roots music. No surprise, given its provenance, in conversation with a higher power.
