Summary: RRFB Robert Randolph and the Family Band are ready to change your life, just as music changed that of this group's dynamic leader. Raised in a firestorm of faith and danger, dividing his time between battles in the streets and safety in the arms of his music, Robert Randolph found his way up from darkness with help from a most unusual source: the pedal steel guitar. That's right -- those same slippery strings that weep and whine behind cowboy crooners and hula dancers. But in Randolph's world, which centers on the unique "sacred steel" tradition within the House of God Church, the pedal steel is a different animal, a source of ferocious, passionate sound. And in Randolph's young hands, it's a weapon, used to slash at darkness and rip away the shades that hide sunlight from our lives. What Randolph has done isn't just about taking the spirit of the church into the wider world, though that's part of the picture. It's more than a story of beating heavy odds, of watching friends die or disappear while trying to find your own way out. Certainly it's more than an odd twist of fate how an urban New Jersey artist finding his voice through an instrument seldom seen outside of Nashville studios or Southern honky-tonks. The buzz has actually been on for a while. Randolph began winning attention some three years ago, after being invited to join in on sessions for The Word, an adventurous marriage of gospel and "downtown" traditions with John Medeski and the North Mississippi Allstars. Interest picked up as he released Live At The Wetlands on his own Dare label, perhaps the most incendiary concert album of the year, recorded on the fabled venue's closing night with the Family Band that he formed with two of his cousins and fellow House of God musicians, bassist Danyel Morgan and drummer Marcus Randolph, and noted session keyboardist John Ginty. All of this has set the stage for Unclassified, their aptly titled, genre-defying Warner Bros. debut, co-produced by Robert Randolph and the Family Band and Jim Scott. There's an energy in these tracks that's unlike anything on the charts today -- positive and inclusive, in the fashion of Stevie Wonder, Al Green or Sly and the Family Stone. It's about celebration, not about preaching; the handclap grooves, the words that welcome everyone, the whirl of dance and sweat and song and, always, the steel guitar, riding above it all, improbable yet the perfect voice to bring this message home. Not that long ago, all of this would have seemed like a dream to Robert Randolph. When he was born, Irvington, New Jersey, was a comfortable town, with handsome homes and tidy little yards. But even as he grew up there, Randolph saw all that change. "We were close to Newark and Orange," he remembers, "so things got really bad. I'm talking about murder and crime and drugs. As a child, when you're around all these things, you somehow become a part of it because you're curious. And I became a part of it too." MARCUS RANDOLPH - Drums Robert is joined by cousin Marcus Randolph on the drums. Marcus pounds the skins relentlessly, powering the tight jams through stops, starts and changes and provides a steady rhythm section as foundation for Robert's eloquent pedal steel preaching. DANYEL MORGAN - Bass Danyel Morgan on the bass has a unique strum/slap technique on the bass and is the hidden secret behind the band's success. Driving bass lines, thumping fills and downright funky fingering are the food that the band subsists and thrives on. JASON CROSBY - Hammond B-3, Piano, Violin Jason Crosby was born on June 2, 1974 in Long Island, New York. Jason began studying classical violin at age 2 and piano at age 4. In his early teens, Jason began playing trumpet, French Horn, Viola, and Guitar. Jason began his professional musical career at age 14 playing in restaurants, coffee shops, country clubs, and theaters.
