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Robert Randolph & The Family Band
Biography
Robert Randolph set the music world on fire in late 2000 and early 2001 when he began to play his first club dates in New York City. These were a result of being discovered playing his pedal steel guitar at the first Sacred Steel Convention in Florida in the spring of 2000. Randolph started playing the pedal steel as a teenager and started playing at his Orange, NJ, church just outside of Newark. The House of God Church, an African-American Pentecostal denomination, has been implementing steel guitars (or "Sacred Steel") in services since the '30s, with the pedal steel in particular being introduced during the '70s. Randolph learned to play by watching other steel players in his church. Jim Markel was the man who heard Randolph play at the Sacred Steel Convention, and he later introduced him to his friend, Gary Waldman. Waldman, who already managed several artists, invited Randolph to audition for him. Waldman and Markel began to manage Randolph; they played the audition tape over the phone to Matt Hickey, talent buyer at Manhattan's Bowery Ballroom. Hickey signed Randolph on as the opening act for the North Mississippi Allstars and it was the beginning of a very large explosion.
Selected Discography