Cafe Wha? has a history that very few rooms can match. Bob Dylan played there. So did Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and The Velvet Underground. Now Victor V. Gurbo has added his name to that story with ‘Gurbo & Co. Live 2025,’ a raw, blues-soaked live album recorded in that same Greenwich Village room, out now.
The album captures Gurbo and his band channeling the timeless spirit of 1960s New York through a contemporary folk-rock and roots lens. Brooklyn-born and deeply steeped in the lineage of Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Hank Williams, Tom Waits, John Prine, and Leonard Cohen, Gurbo carries that tradition forward in a voice that is entirely his own. NPR’s Soundcheck host John Schaefer described his sound as evoking “sounds we probably heard in New York City from the late ’20s, early ’30s.”
The live setting suits him. ‘Gurbo & Co. Live 2025’ is a foot-stomping, archival-feeling document that also sounds vividly present. Gurbo has performed at Carnegie Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Greene Space, Highline Ballroom, and City Winery, and his work has been covered by Top 5 Press Radio and The Big Takeover. This album adds a significant entry to that catalog.