For
whatever reason you find yourself in a nightclub — nursing a beer, drowning a
broken heart, looking for love, or to actually hear the band — you’re bound
to learn something. See Duke Robillard finesse and strangle notes out of his
guitar and you’ve just had a lesson in the blues. Watching him play up-close
and personal-like is a crash course in passion and quiet determination.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Most of life’s lessons, especially
those learned after dark, are at best fleeting. You’ll soon discover that beer
mugs aren’t bottomless and that heartaches are. You’ll learn (perhaps too late)
love initiated over cocktails is frequently the gateway to more romantic tragedy.
But through it all, Robillard’s blues endure.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Twenty years ago I got the opportunity
to open up for Robillard’s trio and to get schooled in big six-string cool. He
put everything into his playing and the audience got everything that came out
the other end in spades. His attack was relentless: full of muscular attacks
and soft, soft notes he would render by simply blowing across the strings.
Robillard even slung my ES-350 to bang out Chuck Berry’s “Thirty Days.” The
club owner also didn’t pay me at the end of the night. “We didn’t discuss
money,” he said with a snicker — yet another lesson.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Robillard — who just won his fourth
W.C. Handy Award as “Guitarist Of The Year” — is the player’s player; a man
who through the reverent application of his heroes’ prints has become a hero
himself.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย “I’m the kind of person who loves all
kinds of blues-related music,” he says from his New England home. “I definitely
have my own sound and my own style, but I also, many times during a night, pay
tribute to the people that I have learned from.”
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย He founded the legendary Roomful Of
Blues back in 1967, long before jump blues was dug by thirsty ears outside the
hipster realm. Besides his work primarily as a solo artist, he has been highly
in demand as a sideman for folks like Bob Dylan, The Blind Boys Of Alabama,
Ruth Brown, Jay McShann, Herb Ellis, Jimmy Witherspoon, Robert Gordon, Scott
Hamilton, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds, who he briefly joined after Jimmie
Vaughn split.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย “I’ve always, for the most part, been
a frontman,” he says. “I like that because I like to do, you know, whatever it
is I like to do. But then again, I love backing up people. It brings out a
different side.”
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Being able to do whatever he wants has
led Robillard to finally dish out a beautifully humble and accurate tribute to
blues master T-Bone Walker.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Blue
Mood is Robillard’s homage to an influence that has been readily apparent
to anyone who’s heard him play all along. It’s no secret.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย “I’ve always wanted to do it,” he
says. “He’s been one of my main influences and he is the creator of electric
blues. It’s long overdue, really. For the last 20 years I figured I was gonna
be doing this but I just didn’t know when. The time just seemed right now.”
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย The record is right, too… and
downright righteous. Robillard technically nails Walker’s slick, terse attack
and warm, cutting tone. As the band pumps and swings throughout the disc on
tunes like “T-Bone Shuffle” and “T-Bone Boogie,” Robillard’s guitar counters,
chops, and syncopates as if to add “yeah, that’s right” to everything the horns
have to say.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Robillard sings in a soulful yet
casual style that is similar to Walker’s wail. But then again, he always has.
If things were different, I know T-Bone would salute Duke the same way. I know
he would.
Duke Robillard plays
an outstanding blues double bill with John
Hammond Thursday, June 17, at The High Falls Festival Site, at 5:30 p.m.
Free. All ages.
This article appears in Jun 16-22, 2004.
