Duke Robillard

If the kitchen-sink approach to blues is your kind of music, Duke Robillard is definitely your guy. Robillard is one of the genre's foremost proponents of the "more is more" philosophy when it comes to making records. Horns? Works for Duke. Saxophone and other winds? Put 'em in there. Heavy organ lines? No problem. Robillard's latest album, Living With the Blues, is billed as an all-blues effort. While he does eschew the rock, R&B, soul, Latin, and jazz that have influenced previous releases, don't expect too much stripped-down stuff here. Only an acoustic version of Tampa Red's "Hard Road" and his own gritty "Buy Me a Dog" can satisfy the blues purists. But those two songs are so damned good, it becomes obvious that the man could make a blues CD sans all the extra toppings, if the spirit ever moved him to do so. And his guitar playing is strictly A-list. It's worth the price of admission to see him handle his instrument the way a master furniture maker works a lathe.