Duke,

When did Chan's Restaurant first come into the picture for Roomful of Blues?  This area (in the shadows of Boston) seems to have been a small mecca of Jazz & Blues in the wake of World War II.

 Various Roomful members continue to play this unexpected (but cool) jazz & Blues venue to this day!

Duke Robillard and longtime friend and sideman Scott Hamilton play Chan's Restaurant in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.

Bluest Regards,                                      

Tim.

Hi Tim, Well the history of jazz and blues in Rhode Island is a long one. First of all in the 30s and 40s, big bands travelling from New York to Boston often stopped in Rhode Island to play dances and later in the 50s there were various jazz venues like the famous Celebrity Club which had all the touring jazz and some blues also frequenting  the club. Billie Holiday, T-Bone Walker, Baritone sax genius Serge Chalof are just a few name of artists who played there. R&B sax music of the 50s was also very popular there. Players like Red Prysock and Sil Austin played Providence's small R&B clubs regularly. None other than Ben Webster is documented as recording an album in a small club there. Scott Hamilton, Bobby Hackett, Dave McKenna, Mike Renzi, Greg Abate and hunderds of great jazz and blues players hailed from RI. And of course the Newpoet Jazz and Folk Festivals were trend setting events that hosted hunderds of the worlds finest blues folk and Jazz musicians. As for Chans, John Chan was recently awarded the Keeping The Blues Alive Award from the BMAs. John has hosted blues and jazz at his club for over 25 years now and continues to be one of its biggest supporters anywhere! I'm proud to be from RI. Too bad the world doesn't see what great talent is here. Roomful of Blues, the band I founded 43 years ago and lead for 12 years just recieved a RI Hall of Fame Music Award a few weeks ago along with Dave McKenna John Cafferty and Beaver Brown also being inducted along with many others. When The Fabulous Thunderbirds needed a great drummer, bassist and guitar player in the 80s and 90s they hired RI musicians. Now If a Texas band has to come to little Ol' Rhode Island for great players, what does that tell you?