DUKE ROBILLARD

Robillard founded Roomful and left after 13 years to venture on his own. While making solo albums and touring the world, Duke's also been a member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds and the Legendary Blues Band. And he's played on albums by Bob Dylan (1997's Grammy-winning Time Out of Mind), Ruth Brown ('97's Handy-winning R + B = Ruth Brown), Johnny Adams, Kim Wilson, Sax Gordon Beadle, Jay McShann, Joe Beard, Pinetop Perkins, John Hammond, Jimmy Witherspoon, Snooky Pryor, Jerry Portnoy, Ronnie Earl and many more. Duke's become an in-demand producer, too. Last year he helmed Eddy Clearwater's Handy-nominated Cool Blues Walk and produced soon-to-be-released CDs by Jay McShann, Sax Gordon and Edmondton, Alberta's Rockin' Highliners, among others. "It's enlightening to produce and play guitar on other peopleÕs albums," Robillard attests. "The way songs sound on records has always been a big thing for me, ever since I started listening to '50s R&B. Now that I'm producing I've learned to get the sounds I hear in my head quickly. Knowing how to get a really good sound in a short amount of time is important, because I believe that American roots music - which is essentially what I do - needs to be recorded that way. This music doesn't need to be fabricated in the studio. There has to be a solid live backbone for everything."