Duke Robillard is now a half-century or so into his career and remains one of the hardest working and most prolific bluesmen in music today. He helped found Roomful Of Blues and has gone on to release 30 plus solo albums, in addition to producing and guesting on dozens of projects.<\/p>\n
Many times, the simple path is best and so it is with his new album,\u00a0Blues Bash.\u00a0<\/em>The concept was just to make an album of blues songs he liked with a group of longtime friends. The music, as always, is impeccable and well-produced. Robillard\u2019s guitar solos are creative and powerful, and they continue to be a highlight of any of his releases.<\/p>\n His basic band of keyboardist Bruce Bears, drummer Mark Teixeira, and bassists Jesse Williams and Marty Ballou provide the foundation for his three original and seven cover songs. He then builds upon this foundation with brass, harp, and guest vocalists. It all adds up to an album of basic but party-oriented blues.<\/p>\n The three tracks with Chris Cote handling vocals work well. Cote has more of a jazz\/big band type voice that works well with Robillard\u2019s straight blues guitar approach. Ike Turner\u2019s \u201cDo You Mean It\u201d finds the duo meshing together. Ray Milton\u2019s 1953 classic adds piano player Bruce Bears to the mix. The final Cote Vocal performance is on T-Bone Walker\u2019s \u201cYou Don\u2019t Know What You\u2019re Doin\u2019\u201d with a wall of saxophones providing support.<\/p>\n Instrumentals are always a Robillard treat. \u201cRock Alley\u201d is a straight, concise blues piece, while the original \u201cJust Chillin\u2019\u201d has more of a smooth jazz feel. The best of Duke\u2019s vocals is his \u201cNo Time,\u201d which presents him in a different light as he has to handle both the singing and playing. <\/p>\n At this point in his career, I doubt if Robillard could make an average album.\u00a0Blues Bash\u00a0<\/em>is well above that level and should provide enjoyment for any aficionado of the blues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":34215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10597],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-46048","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-duke-robillard-friends","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46048"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}