Robben Ford

Born in Woodlake, California, in 1951 and raised in Ukiah, Robben Ford trained early in blues, jazz and rock — first on saxophone before devoting himself to the guitar. In the late 1960s he played with the Charles Ford Blues Band, founded with his brothers, and later backed Charlie Musselwhite and Jimmy Witherspoon, which immediately rooted him in a blues approach based on ensemble playing. In the 1970s Robben Ford joined Tom Scott's L.A. Express and worked in a more jazz-fusion context, notably alongside Joni Mitchell and George Harrison. His first album under his own name, The Inside Story, was released in 1979 and gathered musicians who would later form Yellowjackets. Over the decades he developed a very distinctive style in which electric blues converses with jazz harmonies, a flexible melodic sense and rock inflections without showy effects. He also appeared with Miles Davis in 1986 and on records such as Talk to Your Daughter (1988), Robben Ford & the Blue Line (1992), Mystic Mile (1993), Handful of Blues (1995), Truth (2007), Bringing It Back Home (2013), Into the Sun (2015), Pure (2021) and Night in the City (2023). Between trios, bands and sideman projects, Robben Ford has for decades moved between blues clubs, jazz stages and international festivals.