Rhode Island born and bred guitarist, songwriter, singer, producer and artist Duke Robillard has dedicated his life to performing, recording and furthering the meaning, magnificence and majesty of the American art form that is The Blues.   

From his humble beginnings in Harrisville, RI, to national and international fame, the twice grammy nominated, four-time winner of the W.C. Handy/Blues Music Award, Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame inductee, and co-founder of the legendary ‘Roomful of Blues’ has been praised, respected and revered by the greatest names in blues, rock, and jazz. 

Recently, as per his gracious approval to my request, I had the pleasure to sit down with Robillard at his RI home. I found him to be humble, candid, articulate and a charming raconteur. 

Following a warm greeting from his wife Laurene — whom he has affectionately dubbed ‘The Duchess’ — we sat down and chatted for over an hour and a half, touching on, among other subjects, his early attraction to the blues, sitting and working next to Bob Dylan in the recording studio and as a young boy, pursuing his love of the guitar despite, at the time, his mother’s strong objections.  

What is your first memory of music? 

“’It’s funny you asked me that because I’m writing a book and going back as far as I can remember,” said Robillard. ‘“My first memory is sitting on the floor in the kitchen at my parent’s house. I’m in diapers and I could hear big band music on the radio. I can even recall a specific day. My mom was doing stuff in the kitchen, and I remember hearing that sound. I even believe that it was ’In the Mood’ by Glenn Miller. Most of that song is a 3 chord, 12 bar blues progression. I distinctly remember the sound and movement of those chords. It stuck in my head. Whenever I heard music, I would pick up on it. And if it was a blues related thing, it made me kind of think — made me feel strongly about the possibility of reincarnation because I was just a baby, yet it was so familiar to me.” 

Were your parents into music? 

“You know, they were just kind of normal people when it came to music,” said Robillard. “We only had a few records in the house. They would listen to the radio but mostly in the background. I was born in 1948 and probably by around 1950 or so we might have had a television. They’d watch the entertainment variety shows on TV which would feature singers and groups. That was their main exposure to music. I would watch too.” 

What drew you to the guitar? 

“It’s all I’ve ever been interested in. When I was a kid, I was never really into sports. I did play them a bit like any kid but then I got asthma and that prevented me from continuing,” said Robillard. ‘’I was out of school for quite a while. I got winded very easily and I needed something else to focus on. I was always drawn to music anyway but once I got asthma I got totally into music.” 

Robillard’s older brothers both owned guitars. Brother Gerald bought a used fender Stratocaster and brother Russell acquired a martin flat top, mainly as an investment. Gerald brought home current hit rock ’n’ roll records including Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ricky Nelson. When kid brother Michael (Duke’s birth name) heard these recordings he just went crazy. His brothers would not let him touch their instruments and his mother forbade him from acquiring an electric guitar. “It was the only thing I was interested in, and nobody would let me have or play one,” said Robillard. 

 Why did your mom allow your brothers to play but not you? 

“Because they were not obsessed with it, and I was, and she could see that. She knew I was serious,” said Robillard. “She saw the rock and roll artists of the day — Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Elvis. They kind of looked like maniacs to her. I understand that it looked kind of crazy and almost immoral to her in a way — the way they moved and jumped around — but I decided music was what I wanted to do. I told my mother that and she said ‘oh no you’re not.’ ”

Conversely, Robillard’s mother did offer to provide him with, in retrospect, a most unlikely instrument for a future blues guitar titan. 

“My mom got me a clarinet,” said Robillard. “I didn’t really want it and it wasn’t in any of the music that I was listening to. I tried to play it. I took lessons for a little while but I just did not bond with it. I would, however, go into my brother’s room when he wasn’t home and pick up his guitar. I could play songs right away. I’d watch him make chords and try the chord myself. I taught myself to play and it was relatively easy for me. I wasn’t going to give up no matter what anyone said. My dad was sympathetic. He knew I really loved it but he also knew my mom would get mad at him if he even thought about buying me an electric guitar.”

Undaunted by resistance, Robillard came up with a plan. When he was in the eighth grade he told his dad, with modest guile, that he was given an assignment in school to make an electric guitar for the science fair. Surely his mom could not object to a school project. His uncle had previously given him a Kay craft flat top acoustic guitar. Shaped like a mandolin, inexpensive, and for all intents and purposes, unplayable. The young Robillard, with the help of his dad, got to work. 

“The neck on the Kay was attached with a wing-nut so I removed the nut and pulled the neck off. Then we got some wood in the basement. I drew a telecaster shape. I really didn’t know what a telecaster was but I saw James Burton playing one along with Ricky Nelson on The Ozzie and Harriet show every week and he was my idol,” said Robillard. “So, we cut out the guitar shape, figured out how to join the neck. We cut the heel off the Kay and screwed it to the new body. Then we took the tailpiece and bridge off the acoustic guitar and attached it. Lastly, I bought a twenty-dollar DeArmond pick up from a local music store and I was in business. I was in a band the following week,” he laughed. 

So, your mom softened? 

“She did. I joined a local three-piece band. Ernie Potter, who is today the singer and leader of Through the Doors, a Doors tribute band, was the drummer then. He heard me playing from my bedroom. I was using my brother’s tape recorder as an amp,” said Robillard. “Ernie was walking down the road to visit his girlfriend who lived next door to me. He heard me playing through the window and he walked up to the house and asked my mom who it was playing the guitar and could he talk to me. My mom said yes and he asked me right off If I wanted to join the band.”

At fourteen years old Robillard was in his first band. The band, named The Wildcats, played CYO dances, the basement of the YMCA and local block parties. But just before graduating high school Robillard’s family moved from Harrisville to Westerly, a move designed to shorten his dad’s long commute to his work at Electric Boat in Connecticut. 

“When we moved to Westerly, I immediately met musicians and folks there were asking who this new kid in school was that plays guitar,” said Robillard. “I started to play with various guys that got me into blues more heavily than I already was. I got really serious about blues. I studied it. I spent all my money on records to learn it. By the time I graduated from high school I became a blues fanatic. I was collecting all the records and buying 78’s, really finding out about that music.  I wanted a band that played in the style of the authentic blues I was listening to.  

So, in 1967, I, along with my friend and keyboard player Al Copley, founded Roomful of Blues.”

The original “Roomful” lineup was guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and occasionally a harmonica player (with Robillard doing most of the singing) but, as Robillard tells it, he loved the Louis Jordan music era, an era which inspired him to fill out his fledgling band with horns. 

“In the mid 1940’s, people like Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner came along and melded the blues with the big band style of music,” said Robillard. “The big bands started to fade in popularity for many reasons but chiefly it was much too expensive to keep all those musicians on the road. Jordan got his band down to five or six pieces, with a few horns to keep that sound from the swing era of jazz. It was a mix of the blues and swing. It was a whole new genre. I loved that era. That’s the era where I kind of come from and where I decided to make my mark when I added the horns to Roomful.”

“It took a long time but eventually Roomful landed a record contract. Our first album was recorded in 1977 and came out in 1978 so that’s a good ten years before the first incarnation of the band. By then we were a full band really going in that three horn R & B direction.”

But by 1979, Robillard had decided to accept an outside offer and leave Roomful of Blues.  

“Robert Gordon, (the great rockabilly singer) offered me a job playing in his band at a good pay, paying me even when we weren’t working. I felt it was a way for me to make a change and allow me to try something new so I accepted.”

“Things were going well with Robert. We were booked to go to Italy for a tour and, all of a sudden, he decided not to go. He said he thought ‘maybe they won’t like me and he just got paranoid about it and cancelled the tour. So, we did some gigs around New York, New Jersey and Connecticut but then he wanted to take some time off.”

Despite being put on a retainer with Gordon, the musical hiatus didn’t agree with Robillard. Having worked 5 to 7 nights a week for the last 10 years with Roomful he didn’t know what to do with himself. At that point, he decided to scale things down and form a blues/rock trio — Duke Robillard and the Pleasure Kings. The historical significance of his trio concept cannot be overstated. The shift, which was less a mulled over career move than it was his ‘keep on keepin’ on mindset, helped to establish and showcase Robillard as a solo artist and name. 

“I decided to put the guitar and my playing out front. The guys behind me would be my rhythm section. I learned a lot and I learned I had to work a lot harder supplying all the chords, solos and vocals. But I enjoyed it,” said Robillard. “My first solo album, Duke Robillard and the Pleasure Kings was mostly made up of songs I had written in roomful but reworked to be a bit more contemporary.” 

It was the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and the blues-rock genre enjoyed mainstream popularity fueled by the likes of six string shooters Stevie Ray Vaughn, Robert Cray, Jimmy Ray Vaughn and Eric Clapton. This nouveau musical trend placed Robillard’s blues/rock wizardry in the right place at the right time, cementing his name among these notable artists of the day. Consequently, his solo efforts blossomed and afforded him the opportunity to play around the world, meeting, recording and touring with countless giants in the industry. 

The artists that Robillard has worked with is a staggering pantheon of all-time greats: Muddy Waters, Maria Muldaur, John Hammond, Ruth Brown, Herb Ellis, Jim Keltner, B B King, Scott Hamilton, Tom Waitts, Dr. John, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Roscoe Gordon, Jimmy Witherspoon, Big Joe Turner, Jay Giels, Pinetop Perkins, Debbie Davies and Ronnie Earl to name but a few. 

One particular behemoth in the industry pursued Robillard to be in his band. Ultimately, after a few years, DR acquiesced. 

“I’d actually been asked by Bob Dylan’s management to join his band four times. But I kept turning it down because I wanted to be my own boss. Bob wanted me to play on his Time out of Mind album. I told him I would,” said Robillard. “I had gigs in Nashville at the time but as soon as I could I flew to Miami where he was recording. It was a real joy to be involved in that project. Bob insisted on having me. I really enjoyed working with Bob. I happened to be the closest person to him in proximity in the studio so I could really respond to him in my playing which was a thrill.”

Were you given chord charts or previews of the songs? 

“No, you’d just go in and listen to him play. They would roll the tape as soon as he started playing anything and you never knew if it was a real take or not so you better not make a mistake. Bob didn’t rehearse. He liked things to be spontaneous. It was great fun to play that way because it put you right in the moment. I loved that experience. I joined his touring band a few years later. It started off great. The first couple of months on the road got better and better,” said Robillard. “Right from the beginning the whole band loved it. We all made a conscious effort to play a bit softer so it sounded like Bob Dylan music. No loud guitar solos and smaller amps — that kind of thing. We tried to develop that sound for him. That’s what he wanted and it was very musical because we could hear each other. There was no competition for volume. It kept growing and going well. I felt really good about it.”

Dylan then took a break for approximately a month. He was preparing to launch what he called the Americanarama Tour.  But the increasing pressures of touring with a giant, coupled with a giant ego, justifiably took its toll on Robillard.  

“If you join Dylan’s band and tour with him, he owns you while you’re on the road. At that time, I thought to myself, I’m 65 years old, I’ve got my own band and my own career so I decided I had enough of being on the road, being a side man, even if it were being a side man to the poet laureate of the 1960’s generation.”

Today Robillard and his all-star band span the globe performing on his “home turf” of New England, and all across the United States and Europe. He’s working on his 38th album, writing his life story, pouring over hundreds of hours of live recordings for an upcoming anthology and enjoying a happy, fulfilling musical career and home life. 

Finally, I asked what the best musical advice was he’s ever received. 

‘'Once I was talking to Count Basie. I was stumbling over my words to tell him how I felt about playing before him and he said to me, ‘Duke, just play it, don’t say it’.’’ 

 For more info go to dukerobillard.com 

Michael Khouri is a Barrington resident writing occasionally about the Rhode Island music scene. Reach him at mkhouri@cox.net.