Robben Ford returns in exceptional form with Two Shades of Blue, a record defined by its sophistication, taste, and timeless musicality. The album will be released on 27 March via Provogue/Artone. To celebrate the news, he has revealed the first single from the album, ‘Make My Own Weather.’

The album opens exquisitely with the brittle groove of Make My Own Weather. “That’s one of my favourite straight-up, slamming blues things I’ve ever written,” says Ford. “It’s about a guy reclaiming his freedom. I tried to create the rumble of a motorcycle with the rhythm guitar.” 

Robben Ford is a man in motion. Scan the five-time Grammy nominee’s back catalogue – a half-century hot-streak that darts between jazz, rock, fusion and blues – and you’ll find a musician in a constant state of metamorphosis. Spin new album Two Shades Of Blue – a transatlantic modern classic that shapeshifted as the sessions unfolded – and you’ll feel the risks taken and rules broken. “I have that curse,” smiles the 74-year-old guitarist. “I don’t have two records that sound the same…”

Two Shades Of Blue is not the album Ford was planning to make – but it’s all the better for it. Tracked in the US and UK with two different crack-squad bands, this album paints with his inimitable palette, from the low-slung funk-blues of lead single Make My Own Weather to skyscraping instrumentals that even test the limits of a player ranked amongst the 100 Greatest Guitarists Of The 20th Century by Musician Magazine.   

From his early days, Ford was a special talent. The 60s saw him backing Mississippi harp wizard Charlie Musselwhite and stretching those skills across Los Angeles with jazz giant Jimmy Witherspoon, before he fell in with the fearless adventurism of saxophonist Tom Scott’s esteemed ’70s fusion outfit, The L.A. Express.
 
That lineup’s blazing skills saw them recruited by Joni Mitchell for two classic albums (“the most formative two years of my musical life”), before Ford stepped out with rock royalty on George Harrison’s Dark Horse tour. That collaborative streak would continue throughout his career, from Bonnie Raitt to Bob Dylan. “I’m out there on the bandstand and this rocket ship takes off,” he recalls of his mid-’80s debut with jazz talisman Miles Davis. “For my solo, I put my head down and played every note I knew, as fast as I could. I look up, and Miles just goes: ‘Yeah’. And I’m like, ‘OK, he likes it’.”
 
Two Shades Of Blue was loosely sparked by Ford’s move to London, where his antennae picked up the echoes of a sadly departed British blues-boomer. In the same period, having launched the Robben Ford Guitar Dojo with partner Milam Kelly Roberts, he felt the burning urge to explore the instrument’s outer limits.
 
“The way this album started, I planned it as a tribute to Jeff Beck,” he recalls. “Meanwhile, the Guitar Dojo had reinvigorated my playing, so writing instrumental music became fresh for me again. I didn’t own a Stratocaster, so I literally went out and bought one for this project. Then Daniel Steinhardt from That Pedal Show put together a new pedalboard for me, along the lines of what Jeff Beck was using. I wanted to do something different, set myself a challenge.”
 
Loading into Eastcote Studios with engineer George Murphy, the chemistry is palpable, with Ford’s guitar and vocals leading a first-call band that takes in drummer Ianto Thomas (Mark Knopfler), keys man Jonny Henderson (Otis Grand), bassist Robin Mullarkey (Paloma Faith) and a brass section comprising of Paul Booth (saxophone), Ryan Quigley (trumpet) and Trevor Mires (trombone). “Great cats,” smiles Ford. “London has been incredible for finding musicians. This place is loaded, even better for me than Nashville or LA.”    

“I still love to play,” he considers. “I’ve kept writing better music and become more acquainted with what it is to make a record. The fact that I’m all over the place musically has confused some people over the years. But I always need a change. I always want to do something different. And I’ve been that way since the very beginning…” I truly feel that right now, I am at the top of my game.