Guitarist. Bandleader. Songwriter. Singer. Producer. Session musician. A one-man cheering section to support the blues in all its forms. Each of these names have shared recording studio time or stage time with a legend in blues music. The Blues Music Awards (formerly W.C.Handy Awards) have named Duke Robillard “Best Blues Guitarist” four years out of five (2000,2001,2003,2004) making him the second most honored guitarist for that award! In the same category, he was nominated in 2005, 2007, and again in 2008. In 2007 Duke received a Grammy nomination for his “Guitar Groove-a-rama” CD and was also honored with the prestigious Rhode Island Pell Award for “excellence in the arts” along with actress Olympia Dukakis, actor Bob Colonna, and R.I. Choreographer/Festival Ballet director Mihailo “Misha” Djuric.The Pell award is named for Senator Claiborne Pell who help establish the the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities in 1965. Over the past decade, Duke has received three Canadian Maple Blues Awards for “Best International Blues Artist”, The Blues Foundation’s 2004 “Producer-of-the Year” award, the French Blues Association’s 2002 “Album of the year” award (Living with the Blues), and the 2002 “Guitarist/of the Year” awards. BB King called Duke “one of the greatest players” and The Houston Post called him “one God’s guitars”. The New York Times also says that Robillard is an original soloist with extraordinary force and originality. Robillard is the beneficiary of all this. Robillard is still out on the road and still plays as many as 250 shows per year. He is still proving night after night that his true talent lies in bringing people out to listen to the music, enjoy the show, and to dance to the blues. He was a member of his first high school band — he was born in Woonsocket in Rhode Island — and was immediately fascinated by the connections between jazz, swing and blues. He formed Roomful of Blues in 1967. The band was strong enough to record with Big Joe Turner and Eddie Vinson, as well as perform live. He was always ahead of his time. His first band, Roomful of Blues, predated the revival in jump blues by more then a decade. Nearly 20 years later in 1986, Duke recorded a collection classic big band tunes with Scott Hamilton. This predates the neoswing craze of mid-’90s. He was first exposed to the public through Roomful of Blues, which continues forty years later. After playing briefly with Robert Gordon for a dozen years, he recorded two albums with The Legendary Blues Band, a collection of Muddy Waters ex-band members. From 1990 to 1990, he led his own band and was then replaced by Jimmy Vaughan in The Fabulous Thunderbirds. He met Holger Petersen at a Winnipeg folk festival, just as he was about signing a worldwide recording deal with Virgin/Pointblank. He mentioned that he wanted to record an entire album of blues without any r