The Duke Robillard Band – They Called It Rhythm And Blues

01-04-2022

Michael John "Duke" Robillard (born October 4, 1948) is an American guitarist and singer. He founded the band Roomful of Blues and was a member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Although Robillard is known as a rock and blues guitarist, he also plays jazz and swing. Duke Robillard is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, bandleader and session player. His warm, vintage sound and clean playing style crisscross the history of blues, jump R&B, swing, and roots rock. Anyone who knows Duke Robillard's music, will immediately smile at the first few seconds of the opening track "Here I'm Is" from the new album "They Call It Rhythm & Blues", available from Stony Plain Records. It's that joyous jump-blues shuffle sound that Duke has been perfecting since the late 60s. Indeed, every song on this generous 18-song album is about the groove, master musicianship, great understated taste and a perfect band mix that always complements the pulse and the singer. Duke's guitar is at the center and brings it all together. For a lifetime Duke Robillard has been playing the jazzy corners of the blues. He was a founder of Roomful of Blues in the early 1970s, and replaced Jimmy Vaughan in the Fabulous Thunderbirds in the 1990s and was a core member of the New Guitar Summit through the 2000s, in addition to releasing an astounding 37 albums on his own. He has won the W.C. Handy Award as Best Blues Guitarist twice, and been nominated for two Best Blues Album Grammy Awards. He is credited with taking the blues to a new level for multiple generations of blues guitarists. Special guests include : John Hammond, Kim Wilson, Sue Foley, Michelle Wilson, Sugar Ray Norcia and many more ! The title of Duke Robillard's new album may use the past tense, but make no mistake: These old-school sounds - swinging and jumping, earthy and elegant , remain very much alive on the guest-laden They Called It Rhythm & Blues out March 18 via Stony Plain Records with guests including John Hammond, Kim Wilson, Sue Foley, Sugar Ray Norcia and others. That's no surprise. Since Robillard helped found Roomful of Blues in the 1960s, he has been the leading torch-bearer for this vibrant music that eventually morphed into rock-and-roll. The guitar master and his usual ace band provide the musical base here, and they come out swinging, literally and figuratively, on the horn-fueled "Here I'm Is" by Chuck Higgins. It's one of six numbers featuring full-throated band vocalist Chris Cote, whose centerpiece is a show-stopping rendition of "Someday After Awhile," a blues ballad first recorded by Big Joe Turner and later covered by Eric Clapton, among others. The way the guitar solo plays off the piano, and the baritone sax coloring throughout, typifies the rich musical interplay at work on the 18-song set. The guests begin showing up on Track 2. Blues firebrand Sue Foley is the perfectly suited foil as she duets with Robillard on a rambunctious take on the old Mickey and Sylvia number "No Good Lover," with Foley's partner, Mike Flanigin, contributing an organ solo. Kim Wilson, Robillard's old mate in the Fabulous Thunderbirds, revives two of his own T-Birds numbers. He slashes his way through the hard-hitting "Tell Me Why," punctuated by his wailing harmonica, while "The Things I Forgot to Do" rolls along on an easy New Orleans groove and piano triplets. Another noted harmonica man, Sugar Ray Norcia, gets to pay tribute to his hero Big Walter Horton on a stinging rendition of Tampa Red's "Rambler Blues," and he exudes some finger-snapping flair on Jimmy Nelson's "She's My Baby." John Hammond gets the blues part of the R&B equation down to its grittiest with Bessie Smith's "Homeless Blues" and Howling Wolf's "No Place to Go." Heard too little lately, Michelle Willson makes her mark belting her way through the propulsive "Champagne Mind," by Effie Smith, and helping to give a world-weary, late-night ambience to the blues standard "Trouble in Mind," expertly accented by an acoustic guitar solo and trumpet. Robillard of course contributes impeccable guitar throughout, his playing mixing taste and bite. He doesn't sing much here, but again shows that his voice makes up in color and character what he might lack in lung power, whether he's delivering a kiss-off in his own rollicking "Outta Here," offering sage advice in a swinging take of Zuzu Bollin's "Eat Where You Slept Last Night," or playing off Foley on the aforementioned "No Good Lover." Foley and Flanigin return for "Swinging for Four Bills," which Robillard says is a tribute to Bill Jennings, Bill Doggett, Wild Bill Davis, and Billy Butler. The six-minute-plus instrumental closes the album on a note of jazzy elegance. It highlights Robillard's versatility as it ends another album reaffirming that, when it comes to classic rhythm and blues today, Duke is really the king. In an interview promoting 2020's fine Blues Bash, guitarist Duke Robillard stated, "I want to make a straight vintage-style blues album ... danceable blues ... like the blues records I bought as a kid." This notion may have guided him in recording They Called It Rhythm and Blues, too. The majority of these 18 songs are beautifully crafted covers of vintage R&B, blues, and jazz tunes. Robillard's band, vocalist Chris Cote, pianist/organist Bruce Bears, bassist Marty Ballou, drummer Mark Teixeira, and saxophonist Doug James, are drenched in swinging earthiness playing these R&B, jump, and rowdy blues jams. Robillard appended them with fine guest singers and instrumentalists; everybody approaches the material with sophistication and spontaneity. Cote sings six songs, including the opener, Chuck Higgins' spunky fingerpopper, "Here I'm Is," atop Robillard's stinging fills and James' moaning tenor framing a piano and snare shuffle. He also delivers a riveting vocal on Joe "The Honeydripper" Liggins' piano-pumping, horn-drenched party anthem "In the Wee Wee Hours" and Freddie King's Big Joe Turner instrument "Someday After Awhile." Mickey & Sylvia's "No Good Lover" features a vocal-and-guitar duet between singer/axe slinger Sue Foley, as well as a choogling organ break by Texas bluesman Mike "The Drifter" Flanigin. Kim Wilson joins his former Fabulous Thunderbirds bandmate on vocals and wailing harmonica in a raw, spirited, spiky revisit of "Tell Me Why," with pumping piano by Matt McCabe. Further, Wilson reprises his NOLA-inspired R&B stroller "The Things I Forgot to Do." Speaking of harmonica, Chicago's Sugar Ray Norcia lends his voice and snaky harp to a roiling tribute to Big Walter Horton on Tampa Red's "Rambler's Blues," and puts the party into overdrive with a version of a Louis Jordan-inspired read of Jimmy Nelson's "She's My Baby." The W.C. Handy Award-winning Michelle Willson lends her resonant voice to Effie Smith's jump groover "Champagne Mind" and Richard M. Jones' immortal "Trouble in Mind." Robillard's gently swinging solo on the latter underscores her smoky performance, framing it with a muted trumpet -- sounding like the ghost of Bix Biederbecke -- and throaty baritone sax. John Hammond offers a scorching vocal on Melvin "Lil' Son" Jackson's Bessie Smith vehicle "Homeless Blues, and Howlin' Wolf's lonely, sinister "No Place to Go." Robillard and Anita Suhanin duet on the guitarist's "Outta Here" amid greasy guitars, Stax-styled horns, and Bears' bumping B-3 grooves. Robillard sings on what may be the first recorded cover of Texas bluesman Zuzu Bollin's R&B groover "Why Don't You Eat Where You Slept Last Night?" His instrumental set-closer "Swingin' for Four Bills" is a soulful exercise in bluesy soul-jazz with Flanigin's B-3 and Foley's guitar. It's Robillard's tribute to organists Bill Doggett and Wild Bill Davis, and guitarists Bill Jennings and Billy Butler. They Called It Rhythm and Blues showcases Robillard at a peak: We already appreciate him as a guitar giant and blues, jazz, and R&B scholar, but here he reveals himself as a generous accompanist, accommodating bandleader, and sympathetic producer to boot.

1 The Duke Robillard Band - Here I'm Is 2:20

2 The Duke Robillard Band Feat. Sue Foley - No Good Lover 3:36

3 The Duke Robillard Band - Fools Are Getting Scarcer 3:09

4 The Duke Robillard Band Feat. Kim Wilson - Tell Me Why 2:43

5 The Duke Robillard Band Feat. Sugar Ray Norcia - Rambler Blues 3:38

6 The Duke Robillard Band - The Way You Do 2:50

7 The Duke Robillard Band Feat. Michelle Willson - Champagne Mind 3:15

8 The Duke Robillard Band Feat. John Paul Hammond - Homeless Blues 5:00

9 The Duke Robillard Band - Outta Here 4:00

10 The Duke Robillard Band - In The Wee Wee Hours 2:55

11 The Duke Robillard Band - Someday After Awhile 5:08

12 The Duke Robillard Band Feat. Sugar Ray Norcia - She's My Baby 3:30