Give David Bromberg an hour and 50 minutes, and he’ll play for you the blues, country and western, bluegrass, rock ‘n’ roll and gospel music. Stay long enough, and he’ll even toss in an old English drinking song for fun. 

“Confusing shit, isn’t it?,” Bromberg asked the 100 or so attendees during his eponymous band’s April 10 concert at Natalie’s Grandview, in suburban Columbus, Ohio. 

Playing a set heavy on material from 2020’s Big Road, the Bromberg band – Mark Cosgrove (guitar, mandolin), Nate Grower (fiddle, mandolin), Josh Kanusky (drums) and Suavek Zaniesienko (bass) – ran the gamut of American music as the namesake band leader played lead and rhythm electric and acoustic guitars and mandolin and directed traffic and solos like a smiling Buddha in dad jeans and untucked shirt. 

At 76, Bromberg remains in fine voice, taking his quavering baritone to falsetto cries with nothing flat on tracks like the hard-charging “Big Road,” which led into the humorous blues of “I’ll Take You Back.” 

“When rattlesnakes have knees/and money grows on trees/I’ll take you back,” he sang between licks on his six-string. 

The band sizzled through Blind Willie Johnson’s “Nobody’s Fault but Mine,” with Grower’s fiddle taking the role of keyboards and three-part harmony on the chorus. They doffed their instruments and gathered around a single mic for the traditional spiritual “Standing in the Need of Prayer,” with Bromberg doing the calling and the responding vocalists falling between Kanusky’s bass and Zaniesienko’s falsetto. And Bromberg and Cosgrove went toe-to-toe in a guitar duet amid “Diamond Lil” that got the crowd so worked up, the music was nearly drowned out. 

Natalie’s tiny stage was ceded Cosgrove for the flat-picking master class that was “Remington’s Ride.” And Bromberg let the fans know what was happening backstage when he re-emerged alone to show off what he learned from the Rev. Gary Davis in performing “Mary Jane.” 

And when Bromberg, Grower and Cosgove faced off in a battle of spiraling mandolins on “Katy Hill,” the impact was stupefying, leaving players and listeners delirious with satisfaction. 

Playing with his band of multi-instrumentalists is like a “zipperless fuck,” Bromberg said before a weepy “Tennessee Waltz.” It was back to a cappella for the drink- and-sing-along “I am the Strongest Man Alive.” 

The diverse musical landscape was impressive enough; however, the flawless execution of all of it is the thing that makes the David Bromberg Band a one-in-a-million group. Rather than “confusing,” it’s exhilarating.