Fame came early to Robben Ford.
The Ukiah native was still in his teens when he signed on to play guitar in harmonica legend Charlie Musselwhite's band. Before he reached 25, Ford had toured and recorded with blues singer Jimmy Witherspoon and pop stars George Harrison and Joni Mitchell.
The hotshot of the early 1970s has now reached 60. Over the ensuing decades, he saw a number of young guitar greats – Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jonny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, John Mayer – command the media spotlight. Ford understands the attention is as intense as it is fleeting.
So what advice would he offer the Next Great Guitarist?
''That's a tough one,'' Ford told me in an interview a few years back. “When you're young and you're unprotected, everything is kind of overwhelming. So I think it's very important to have people around you whom you trust. No matter what you're age ... you will know if a person is trustworthy or not. If you don't feel that (trust), don't do it.''
Ford comes to Northern California this week for shows Thursday at the Colonial Theatre in Sacramento, Friday through Sunday at Yoshi’s in Oakland and Monday at the Napa Valley Opera House. The dates come as the guitarist is preparing for the April release of “Made to Last,” the second disc from Renegade Creation, which also features Michael Landau (guitar), the Yellowjackets’ Jimmy Haslip (bass) and Gary Novak (drums).
Recent years have seen Ford move effortlessly between blues and jazz, with plenty of adventurous and experimental stops along the way. Standout recordings include the bluesy “Truth” (2007) and the Charlie Haden collaboration “Helium Tears” (2006).
''My records have always contained a variety,'' Ford told me. ''You can't really zero in on one thing. I basically think of my music as R&B, but it branches out into other things.''
The son of a guitar player, Ford taught himself how to play the instrument at 13. Five years later, Ford and his brothers moved to San Francisco and formed the Charles Ford Band, named for their dad. By 21, Ford had cut an album with his brothers, toured with Musselwhite and recorded with Witherspoon. He also had begun attracting industry attention.
''I was very aware that people were thinking about me and talking about me,'' he said. ''I was given a couple of opportunities which I turned down because I was just into what I was doing and they would have taken me away from that.
''I was offered a record deal with Atlantic Records by Jerry Wexler,'' he recalled with a slightly rueful laugh. ''That I still regret (turning down).
“The other opportunity, actually, was a record deal with Chess Records, but my brother Mark quit the band and didn't want to do it. I myself didn't really want to continue with the band either at that point.''
While Ford released a pair of solo albums – ''Discovering the Blues'' (1972) and ''Schizophonic'' (1976) – he wasn't entirely comfortable in the spotlight. Instead, he gladly fell into the role of the hired gun.
Ford had moved to Southern California, where he was invited to join saxophone player Tom Scott's fusion outfit, the L.A. Express. Ford played on the group's ''Tom Cat'' (1974), as well as its two collaborations with Mitchell, ''Miles of Aisles'' (1974) and ''The Hissing of Summer Lawns'' (1975).
"The guys who were in the band – particularly with Joni Mitchell – were really good guys and made me feel comfortable and wanted,'' Ford said. ''I found a little home there, so the aspect of money and fame was not particularly a consideration.''
Touring with Mitchell took the L.A. Express to England, where Ford met Harrison. The former Beatle recruited Ford to play on his album ''Dark Horse'' (1974) and during a subsequent tour of America.
Ford worked as a studio musician in the second half of the '70s, contributing guitar to tracks by Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Barbra Streisand and Rickie Lee Jones. He closed the decade by releasing ''The Inside Story,'' a jazz project whose musicians went on to form the Yellowjackets.
Ford played on the Yellowjackets' self-titled debut (1981) and ''Mirage a Trois'' (1985). He then toured with Miles Davis, his bluesy solos playing off the trumpeter's eclectic jazz.
Ford's has been a truly varied career, and he said he's learned at least one enduring lesson over the past 40 years.
''It's very hard to advise anyone, you know,'' Ford said. ''But, having been around as many years as I have, it's still the music that's the most important thing.''
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