Jack Broadbent
On each album, Jack Broadbent is used to people saying, “Oh, this is a departure from your previous stuff.” That’s something the British-born singer, songwriter and guitarist has heard to varying degrees, over the course of his six albums to date, and is certainly fitting of his latest release, RIDE. As someone who is as connected to the quality of his relationships with people as he is to the quality of his music, rest assured he considers that a compliment.
“I think there’s a lot of variety on my records. This is no different,” Broadbent says. “I’m really getting a sense now that this idea of genre and where you fit in is not as important as it used to be — which I think is good.”
Broadbent grew up in rural Lincolnshire, England. His earliest influence, his father, Mick Broadbent, plays bass on RIDE and is a well-established musician, including a tenure with Bram Tchaikovsky. “I fell in love with music at a young age,” he says, informed by the steady diet of music played around the house. His father would take Broadbent to open mic nights as a youth, and by his early teens he was playing drums in his dad’s bands. Broadbent gravitated to guitar around the same time as he became interested in song writing.
“Being a drummer, I tried to develop a very rhythmic approach to my guitar playing,” Broadbent recalls. “What interested me was being able to hold down a groove and do some gymnastics to incorporate solos and subtle bass lines.”
Broadbent’s slide guitar playing evolved from the busking he did during his early 20s. “It seemed to appeal to people as something that was both visually and musically exciting. This was interesting to me,” Broadbent explains. “I was already playing in altered and open tunings, so when it came to using a slide I was well-versed in how those patterns worked together.” He took some cues from influences such as John Lee Hooker and Little Feat, but ultimately Broadbent says, “I never really wanted to emulate anybody else’s style, which is why I ended up going down a slightly more hard-hitting, brash, kind of route in my playing.”
Broadbent found acclaim and an audience after the Montreux Jazz Festival hailed him as, “The new master of the slide guitar.” Bootsy Collins famously proclaimed him, “The real thang!” He won over more fans touring with the likes of Ronnie Wood, Peter Frampton, and other musical legends.
His penchant for writing on the road ensured that there was usually an abundance of material whenever Broadbent was ready to return to the studio. That was the case with RIDE, although the album took a turn from what Broadbent initially intended.
“I had to come off the road because of Covid and was going to work on a solo project of acoustic material,” he recalls. Instead, with Quebecois drummer and co-producer Mark Gibson, “…we started playing some of the more rock ‘n’ roll stuff I had, and we couldn’t deny that there was a kind of vibe happening. So, I just went full steam ahead in that direction which brought the sound of this album into focus. We built on those grooves and ended up with the rock ‘n’ roll record I’ve been wanting to make for a long time.”
RIDE does, indeed, rock…Broadbent’s natural grit, voice and guitar, riding atop every song with a driving force. There us a great deal of stylistic diversity here — from the moody ambience of Who Are You? and the title track, which he calls “a tale of adventure”, to the blues roots of New Orleans, a love letter to one of his favorite towns. Grace soars with a kind of front-porch spirituality, while “I Love Your Rock ‘n’ Roll”, is as Broadbent explains, “…an homage to the bands that I like” and boasts an energetic Americana lope. Even though there are several twists and turns, the album takes the listener on a trip, strung together by a vision that Broadbent developed during the recording process.
“Mark and I recorded the tracks live in a small home studio in Quebec, Canada. I then sent the recordings to the UK where my dad added the bass lines and then sent them back to us for mixing and mastering, ” explains Broadbent. Working around travel limitations and within the uncertainty of the last year, this international collaboration translates that edge. Throughout RIDE, one can detect what Broadbent calls “this underlying theme of trying to get a feel for where you’re heading and recognizing how much distance you’ve still got left to travel.”
The next step, of course, is to take RIDE on the road, which Broadbent will be doing throughout 2022. He knows the songs will only grow as he presents them on stage, but they’ll continue to speak to the experiences from which they were born. “I really like the energy of this record,” Broadbent says. “There seems to be an interesting dichotomy between what I write while I’m touring and what I write when I’m able to sit and think. I think what the album speaks to is that juxtaposition between the ride and the time spent parked up. It all ties into the journey of the artist.”
No matter what lies on the road ahead, Broadbent’s fans can rely on his dedication to the music and to his evolving craft. Little Feat founding member and current US tourmate Bill Payne says it best:
“I love his voice. His playing is superb, showing an almost reckless abandon when he gets revved up. He is performing on the edge, and if he falls, so be it. The pieces will not break.”