Artist:     Duke Robillard

Album:     Ear Worms

Label:     Stony Plain

Release Date:     05.17.2019

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BUY DIGITAL

BUY PHYSICAL

At 19, he was the Duke of the Roomful of Blues. Guitar stylist Duke Robillard founded that still-New England-based institution in 1967, kicking open the door to a huge warehouse of distinguished, old-fashioned blues and swing music. Uptown and lowdown, it blew around the globe, energizing people, and furthering the genres.

Separating from Roomful early on, Duke became the king of successfully switching it up. He released solo albums in all manner of guises—and continues to do so. He replaced Jimmie Vaughan in The Fabulous Thunderbirds, played in Bob Dylan’s band and produced a plethora of albums for his own heroes and their disciples, always blending in his fantastic guitar playing.

Now comes Ear Worms, featuring The Duke Robillard Band playing a variety of popular and unusual songs that burrowed deep into Robillard’s psyche when he was a boy; songs that used to stream together seamlessly across the radio waves.

In an unusual twist, he sings only one of the 13 presented, the Gerry Goffin and Carole King-penned, Memphis-inspired “On This Side of Goodbye.” The remainder are either neat instrumentals, or are conveyed in voice by a cast of his friends, resulting in an up and down rollercoaster of thrills. Dave Howard, one of Roomful’s latter-day front men, grinds out “Don’t Try To Steal Her Love,” sounding very much like Robillard did when he first sang the rollicking original on his album You Got Me, in 1987. “Living with the Animals,” a 1968 left-field number by Powell St. John and Mother Earth, fits right in, its sardonic outlook, delivered by Chris Cote, ideal for things right now. There’s period-elegant Muscle Shoals soul in “Everyday I Have to Cry Some,” sung in beautiful duet by Sunny Crownover and the legendary Julie Grant, and then there’s boozy, Steve Earle-like country in Mark Cutler’s rendition of Bob Dylan’s “I Am A Lonesome Hobo.” Crownover’s s sexy, come-hither behaviors pump Ronnie Self’s “Sweet Nothin’s,” and Chuck Berry’s “Dear Dad”—one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll songs ever—gets pleaded to perfection by Klem Klimek. All these singers deserve lots of recognition. But in every case, Duke Robillard remains the star, playing guitar with now-legendary sophistication, and ample twang.

—Tom Clarke