Stony Plain Records announces an August 30 release date for Roll With Me, the new album from two-time Grammy nominee and four-time Blues Music Award-winning guitarist Duke Robillard.
“Back in the early 2000’s I was given the OK to start a new blues album for Stony Plain,” Duke Robillard explains about the new album’s genesis. “It was a very prolific period for me, and somehow after recording nine hot blues tracks, I got another album concept and we started another album session. I said we’d get back to the blues album soon after finishing the new project. As things sometimes go, we got busy with gigging, touring and life, and the blues album we cut kept getting put aside and we kept coming up with new album concepts within months of release of the last one.
“Finally, after two decades and dozens of recordings, we got to the place where it was time for my final Stony Plain record. All this time, I knew we had to get back to the album we had started back in 2005. I knew those tracks were really strong, but until I listened to them again, I didn’t realize just how strong they really were.”
On Roll With Me, Robillard pays blazing tribute to Texas immortal Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown on “You Got Money” and the instrumental “Boogie Uproar;” legendary blues shouter Big Joe Turner on a piano-driven “Boogie Woogie Country Girl” and New Orleans kingpin Fats Domino on the rumba-rocking “Are You Going My Way.” There’s also a trio of Chicago blues classics from the respective songbooks of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Eddie Boyd. Duke’s vocals connect with the same power as his razor-sharp guitar (Chris Cote takes over at the mic for “Look What You’ve Done” and “You Got Money”).
Duke invited some heavy hitters to back him up. Pianist Matt McCabe is on all but two tracks (those feature Bruce Bears), while bassist Marty Ballou and drummer Mark Teixeira keep the rhythm section cooking. Doug James and Rich Lataille are among the muscular saxophonists; Sugar Ray Norcia guests on harp for “Look What You’ve Done.” Duke cools the tempo down to lights-out level for an elegant “Give Me Back My Money,” but the title track sums the mood up: this album hurtles forward like a hard-charging midnight express.
Recorded at Duke’s Mood Room in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, by Thom Hiller and Lakewest Recording in West Greenwich, R.I. by John Paul Gauthier, Roll With Me is the latest in a long and distinguished series of albums the guitarist has made for Holger Petersen’s Canadian indie Stony Plain. Their working relationship harks back to 1993, when the two met at a folk festival in Winnipeg. Petersen was the executive producer on Robillard’s album, Duke’s Blues the next year. Duke developed into a Stony Plain mainstay with Stretchin’ Out Live (1998), Living with the Blues (2002), Exalted Lover (2003), Blue Mood—The Songs of T-Bone Walker (2004), Guitar Groove-A-Rama (2006), Duke Robillard’s World Full of Blues (2007) and The Acoustic Blues of Duke Robillard (2015).
“I’m traveling and playing all over the world still, so this is definitely not a farewell record,” Robillard happily reports. Now it’s time to roll with Duke!
ROLL WITH ME Track Listing
1. Bluecoat Man (Eddie Boyd)
2. Just Kiss Me (Duke Robillard)
3. Are You Going My Way (Antoine Domino)
4. I Know You Love Me (Joe Turner)
5. Boogie Uproar (Clarence Brown)
6. Look What You Done (McKinley Morganfield)
7. Built For Comfort (Willie Dixon)
8. My Plea (Duke Robillard)
9. You Got Money (Clarence Brown)
10. Boogie Woogie Country Girl (Joe Turner)
11. Give Me Back My Money (Duke Robillard)
12. Don’t You Want To Roll Will Me (Duke Robillard)
