Duke Robillard – Duke’s Mood (Live in Bremen 1985 / 2008)
25 songs – 169 minutes
Let’s cut to the chase: Duke’s Mood (Live in Bremen 1985 / 2008) is a wonderful release and absolutely unmissable for fans of top drawer blues guitar playing.
Most readers will already be familiar with Robillard and his 50+ year musical career, either leading his own band or from his stints with the likes of Roomful of Blues, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, The Legendary Blues Band or Robert Gordon. He writes great songs, has a fine voice and is an astonishingly versatile guitarist, equally comfortable playing jazz, rockabilly, blues-rock or the entire spectrum of electric blues, from the early Texas blues of T-Bone Walker and the jump blues of Big Joe Turner onwards.
Duke’s Mood (Live in Bremen 1985 / 2008) is a three CD collection, capturing two blistering gigs in Bremen 23 years apart. The first CD has 11 tracks from 1985, with Robillard and his band The Pleasure Kings (Thomas Enright on bass and and Tom DeQuattro). It understandably features a lot of material from his then-current release, Too Hot To Handle. In a live setting, however, Robillard is able to stretch out, take his time and let his guitar do the talking, resulting in what the studio album should have sounded like. The 7 minute “Duke’s Mood” is a superb slow blues, while “T-Bone Boogie” swings with abandon. There is also a fire and grit in the performances that wasn’t captured on the studio album, so Chuck Berry’s “It’s My Own Business” or the dirty groove of “Someone” have a real kick to them, while the band and Robillard take “Long Gone Baby” to a wholly unexpected place, musically.
The second two CDs see Robillard with the Duke Robillard Band (Bruce Bears on organ and keyboards, John Ross on electric bass and Mark Teixeira on drums. The liner notes list Doug James as playing “bass and harmonica”, but to this reviewer’s ear it sounds that it’s more likely to be the Doug James from Roomful of Blues, providing the magnificent saxophone playing throughout). The CDs still see plenty of swinging Jump Blues, such as on “Jump The Blues For You” and the wild ride of “Gee I Wish”, but the band leans away from the blues-rock of the 1985 era and a little more towards the early jazz and swing of “Swinging With Lucy Mae.” There is of course of straight blues too, from the upbeat shuffle of “Gonna Get You Told” and the funky blues of “Fishnet” (with fine sax, organ and guitar solos) to the nine minute T-Bone homage, “Glamour Girl” (long a staple of Robillard’s sets), which doesn’t have a wasted moment.
The recording quality across all three CDs is first rate, although the press kit provides no information on who recorded and engineered the sound, which is a shame. The sound quality is uniformly excellent, with a mix that is bang on.
Either way, if you enjoy hearing top class musicians playing great songs in a live setting and allowing themselves to really let loose with their endlessly inventive solos, Duke’s Mood (Live in Bremen 1985 / 2008) is an essential purchase.
