The Duke Robillard Band - The Iridium, NYC - 4.10.15

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• published: 11 Apr 2015
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Duke Robillard (guitar/vocals) Bruce Bears (keys) Brad Hallen (bass) Mark Texiera (drums) Songs: Deed I Do You Don't Love Me She's A Real Live Wire Make It Rain Who is Duke Robillard? http://www.epiphone.com/News/Features/2013/Duke-Robillard-The-Epiphone-Interview.aspx John Lennon once said that if you had to give rock and roll another name you might call it Chuck Berry. With that in mind, if Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode walked the Earth today, you might know him as Duke Robillard. For fans of all American music styles, Duke is a national treasure and a vital example of how the roots of jazz, bop, swing, rock and roll, blues, and country can be endlessly challenging and renewing in the right hands. Duke manages the near impossible timebend of being two musicians at once; one, an original stylist and composer, and the other a compact walking, talking, grooving shaman who can recall T-Bone Walker, George Barnes, Barney Kessel, Les Paul, Mickey Baker, or any number of guitarists who made their mark on the great independent blues and jazz labels like Cobra, Chess, Excello, Sun, Atlantic, and RPM. Born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island in 1948, Duke grew up in a family that loved music ("Hank Williams and Bob Wills") but it was his brother that was originally drawn to guitar. That all changed when Duke heard Fats Domino's "Blueberry Hill." "I remember hearing that intro and then the guitar and the bass came in with that riff," Duke told Epiphone in 2011. "And that riff just hit me in a way that knocked me out." It was another six years before Duke got his own guitar ("When my brother was on a date or at football practice, I'd go in his room and I'd teach myself to play guitar by listening to the records"). He not only became a disciple of the pioneering rhythm guitarists like Freddie Green, T-Bone Walker, Lowell Fulsom, but of horn players as well. In 1967 at the age of 19, Duke founded Roomful of Blues and further developed his trade accompanying great vocalists like Big Joe Turner and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, who sought out the band for Duke's melodic lines and rock steady rhythm. "After a stint with the Fabulous Thunderbirds replacing pal Jimmie Vaughan, Duke set out on a terrific--and ongoing--string of albums featuring both his blues band and jazz trio while also contributing to albums by Bob Dylan, Ruth Brown, Ronnie Earl, as well as a tour with Tom Waits in 2006. Duke has just released a terrific new album, Independently Blue, and his stint with the Bob Dylan tour this spring got rave reviews. And Duke's constant companion for both gigs? An Epiphone, or course. When we last spoke with you, you talked about finding the perfect guitar and you thought our 50th Anniversary '61 Casino might be it! (Laughs) Right! Well, that's still a great guitar. But my favorite now is the reissue Epiphone 1962 50th Anniversary Sheraton. I've been using that on my jazz gigs and recordings--really anytime I'm playing different kinds of music. It really does seem to absolutely fit the bill for everything. One of the things I love about the Sheraton is that it's got that longer reach up the neck. It gives me the ability to play anything on it easily. And I've always loved the mini-humbuckers because you can get a hollowbody sound but you can also get a tight treble-type sound so it works in place of any guitar. That's really become my main guitar. How do the Sheraton's pickups compare to those found in early Epiphone electric archtops that you've played? Pickups from that era--the early 50s--can have really cool sounds. They just vary greatly in tone and performance. Sometimes you get them where they will feedback and howl. But I've had a few (Epiphone) guitars with those "New York" pickups in them that have sounded phenomenal. Because that was kind of an early electric pickup, they didn't really have it down quite yet. Independently Blue is getting great reviews. And you recorded it with an old friend, Monster Mike Welch. How long have known each other? I've known him for a long time through the band that he's been with for quite awhile, Sugar Ray and the Bluetones. That's a great band! I've known Ray since I was in Roomful of Blues so its all part of this Rhode Island cult of blues people. Once Mike started playing in that band, I saw him quite a bit more and I really loved his style of playing. We did a few gigs with Ray with a lot of horns where I was a guest. When we played together, we immediately fit. I think being so young, he heard me at some point and I had some kind of influence or effect on him. Plus, we kind of have a lot of the same influences but also some differences. It was totally easy to come up with guitar parts together.