{"id":28797,"date":"2025-01-23T05:30:56","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T10:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28797"},"modified":"2024-12-17T11:54:35","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T16:54:35","slug":"album-review-duke-robillard-roll-with-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/23\/album-review-duke-robillard-roll-with-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Duke Robillard \u2013 Roll With Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Singer-guitarist Duke Robillard has had a long, illustrious and creatively fruitful career. Co-founder of Roomful of Blues in 1967, he remained with that group for a decade, cutting a pair of albums. Subsequently working with other artists and as a solo artist, he stayed busy through the following decades. In 1990 he took over on guitar from Jimmie Vaughan in the Fabulous Thunderbirds. A prolific recording artist, Robillard has released more than three dozen albums, dazzling listeners with his work in jazz, swing, blues and sometimes all three at once.<\/p>\n

Robillard\u2019s latest is a semi-archival release: Roll With Me<\/em> is the product of session that took place some 20 years ago; for years he referred to the long-shelved project as The Lost Duke Sessions<\/em>. Now in 2024 Robillard has dusted off those tapes, adding bits here and there as necessary to polish them up.<\/p>\n

Other than a modern production aesthetic, everything about Roll With Me<\/em> sounds and feels like classic jump blues and swing from the 1940s and \u201850s. “Blue Coat Man” has a chunky and exuberant horn section. A reading of Fats Domino\u2019s “Are You Going My Way” sports the requisite New Orleans feel, with yakety sax and rollicking piano. A cover of Joe Turner\u2019s “I Know You Love Me” mines a similar vein, with an even tastier piano part; the song conjures visions of a horn section swaying to and fro as they churn out a hypnotic melodic line.<\/p>\n

The highly-charged “Boogie Uproar” is Robillard\u2019s tribute to Clarence \u201cGatemouth\u201d Brown, and a fine one it is. Muddy Waters\u2019 “Look What You Done” layers a new lead vocal by Robillard\u2019s band vocalist Chris Cote atop the instrumental track; Sugar Ray Norcia lays down a solid harp solo.<\/p>\n

Howlin\u2019 Wolf\u2019s “Built for Comfort” gets a full arrangement, with sinewy guitar licks sparring with beefy horns and a raspy Robillard vocal. “My Plea” is a Robillard original in a Fats Domino style, its composition dating from Duke\u2019s years with Roomful. The saucy, uptempo “You Got Money” is another track finished with a new and spirited Cote lead vocal. Doc Pomus\u2019 oft-covered “Boogie Woogie Country Girl” is approached with a faithful arrangement.<\/p>\n

Another Duke Robillard original, “Give Me Back My Money” is straight Chicago-style blues, with a languid pace that allows him plenty of space to stretch out and solo. The set closes with a remake of “Don\u2019t You Want to Roll With Me.” The Robillard composition was Roomful of Blues\u2019 debut single back in 1975, years before the group would release a full album. Robillard\u2019s remake changes the key and pumps up the horn volume; with a lead vocal that subtly recalls Louis Prima, it\u2019s a fine way to wrap up a solid set of songs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Singer-guitarist Duke Robillard has had a long, illustrious and creatively fruitful career. Co-founder of Roomful of Blues in 1967, he remained with that group for a decade, cutting a pair […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,65],"tags":[5599],"class_list":["post-28797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-review","tag-duke-robillard","cat-9-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28799,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28797\/revisions\/28799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}