Bob Margolin

“Steady Rollin’” Bob Margolin was born May 9, 1949 and grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts. He started playing guitar in 1964, and his first appearance on a record was in 1967 with Boston-based psychedelic band The Freeborne.

After local jazz and blues impresario Fred Taylor introduced him to Muddy Waters before a gig at Paul’s Mall in 1972, Margolin ended up playing in Waters’ band from 1973 to 1980, including in the classic rock film The Last Waltz. He appeared on Big Joe Duskin’s debut album in 1978, The Nighthawks’ 1979 vinyl with Pinetop Perkins and with legendary blues harpist Jerry Portnoy on John Brim’s Ice Cream Man LP, which was nominated for a Blues Music Award for Best Traditional Blues Album of the Year.

In 2013, Margolin himself was nominated for a Blues Music Award as Best Traditional Blues Male Artist and his joint album with Ann Rabson, Not Alone, was nominated in the Acoustic Album category. In January 2016, Vizztone Records released his solo album My Road, which differs from his others in that he sings and writes most of the songs and even plays bass on some of the cuts. His superb playing moves beyond the classic Chicago blues for which he’s best known and his mastery of country blues shows a completely new element of his talent. This cat can play!

Margolin is columnist for Blues Revue Mag and several other music-related publications. In 2020, he won a Blues Music Award for Acoustic Album of the Year for his LP This Guitar and Tonight.

(by A.J. Wachtel)