The Robert Randolph Foundation will host its second BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn partnership, when stellar musicians take to the stage to celebrate Juneteenth Unityfest on Saturday, June 17, at the Lena Horne Bandshell, in Prospect Park.
This year, Juneteenth Unityfest will feature performances from seven-time Grammy nominated Singer Songwriter, Joe and Grammy Nominated Singer, Stokley (of Mint Condition fame), among others.
The Juneteenth Unityfest founded in 2021, is the brainchild of the Robert Randolph Foundation. Randolph, who is described as a man with a long history of community involvement, remains passionately committed to programs and initiatives focused on family support and development.
A virtuoso on the pedal steel guitar, Randolph set the music world on fire in 2000 when he began playing his first club dates in New York City. He started playing the instrument as a church-going teenager in Orange, New Jersey.
He regularly attended the House of God Church, an African American Pentecostal denomination that had 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 during church services; years later, he updated that sacred basis with a secular mix of funk and soul, giving a new multicultural facelift to an instrument that had often been associated with country music.
Leader of The Family Band, a funk and soul ensemble, Randolph who began a partnership with BRIC Celebrates Brooklyn in 2022, at the first ever Juneteenth Unityfest concert on Father’s Day, had said that the Unityfest celebration brought many different entertainers, educators, and activists to the event to celebrate black artists and provide a platform to unite a coalition of charitable grassroots organizations. He described the festival as a national experience uniting diverse voices in commemoration and celebration of Juneteenth and Black culture.
Randolph, during the launch of the concert at BRIC celebrates Brooklyn last year, said that the Unityfest included performances by genre-bending artist Mali Music, and brought many different entertainers, educators, and activists together.
A world-renowned gospel artist, Randolph was selected by avant-garde jazz organist John Medeski to join him and the North Mississippi Allstars on their 2001 jam project, before releasing albums with The Family.
Just prior to the release of The Word’s debut album, Randolph, described as a prodigy was brought to the attention of music fans through a review by Neil Strauss in the New York Times in April 2001. On their first non-church tour of the East Coast, Randolph’s new Family Band opened for the North Mississippi Allstars and then rejoined the musicians after their set, with Medeski.
The first Robert Randolph and the Family Band album, “Live at the Wetlands” was released in 2002 on Family Band Records, recorded live on August 23, 2001, just prior to the club’s closing.
In September 2003, Randolph was listed as No. 97 on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time list. He entered the list following Leigh Stephens and directly preceding Angus Young. In February 2004, Randolph and the Family Band along with the band O.A.R. released a cover version of Led Zeppelin’s “Fool in the Rain,” which was made available for online purchase through iTunes.
The song “Ain’t Nothing Wrong with That” from The Family Band, was used in several commercials for NBC and used in Katherine Jenkins and Mark Ballas’ jive on Dancing with the Stars. In June 2008 the Discovery Channel used this same song in a popular promo entitled “It’s All Good” for their summer lineup. The song “Thrill of It” was used throughout the 2007 college football season by ABC during their College Primetime games.
Their 2019 recording, “Brighter Days,” was chosen as a ‘Favorite Blues Album’ by AllMusic.
