The Duke Robillard Band - They Called It Rhythm & Blues

Bitrate: 320K/s
Year: 2022
Time: 67:27 
Size: 158,8 MB 
Label: Stony Plain Records
Styles: Blues/Modern Electric Blues
Art: Front 

Tracks Listing:
 1. Here I'm Is - 2:27
 2. No Good Lover - 3:38
 3. Fools Are Getting Scarcer - 3:09
 4. Tell Me Why - 2:43
 5. Rambler Blues - 3:38
 6. The Way You Do - 2:51
 7. Champagne Mind - 3:15
 8. Homeless Blues - 5:00
 9. Outta Here - 4:00
10. In The Wee Wee Hours - 2:55
11. Someday After Awhile - 5:08
12. She's My Baby - 3:30
13. Trouble In Mind - 4:16
14. No Place To Go - 3:54
15. The Things I Forgot To Do - 3:58
16. I Can't Understand It - 2:39
17. Eat Where You Slept Last Night - 3:57
18. Swingin' For Four Bills - 6:20

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.

They Called It Rhythm & Blues