“Blues music, in particular, becomes a language that you go back to, to find yourself and collect your thoughts. I guess you could call it a Romance Language!”

Tad Robinson: The Blue(s) Shades of Soul!

Singer and harmonica player Tad Robinson is one of the leading voices of modern soul-blues music. From his NYC roots and his Indiana and Chicago musical upbringing, Tad has caught the attention of the scene with his 10 Blues Music Award nominations and his recordings for Delmark Records and the Severn Records label. He tours widely in the U.S. and has played in over 20 countries worldwide with performances at some of the most important international blues festivals. With Harmonica chops influenced by Junior Wells and Junior Parker and a voice inspired by Otis Redding, Syl Johnson, Al Green, and Teddy Pendergrass, Tad ranks as one of the most unique and talented members of the international blues and soul communities. Along the way he’s been drawn to musicians and kindred souls whose creativity thrives at the nexus of soul and blues. After being recruited by guitarist Dave Specter to join his Chicago band in the 1990s and record the studio album, Blueplicity as well as a “live-in-Europe” release, Tad has gone on to collaborate with some of the highest profile musicians in the genre. In 2004, Robinson was signed to a record deal with Maryland-based soul/blues focussed, Severn Records, a turning point in his career which moved him further into the blues spotlight.  

(Tad Robinson / Photo by Rich Voorhees)

His last five album releases for Severn have featured backing by the great Severn house band. Tad Robinson returns to Delmark with a much-anticipated brand-new recording SOUL IN BLUE (Street Date: May 2, 2025). His first as a leader on Delmark since 1998'sLast Go Round; Tad recorded his debut album as a leader way back in 1994 on Delmark (One To Infinity.) He's added his remarkable soul-drenched vocals and powerful, yet tasteful harp playing to many Delmark recordings over the years, including such hit titles from Dave Specter, Floyd McDaniel, Al Miller, and Rockwell Avenue Blues Band. Robinson proves on his album Soul In Blue that he still has plenty of skin in the blues game. Six of these tracks were recorded in Indianapolis with his longtime road band, plus special guests. Four tracks were cut in Chicago at Delmark’s Riverside Studio with the DELMARK ALL-STARS. You’ll savor the sounds of a set of mostly self-penned songs along with two covers, of Wilson Pickett, and Arthur Adams, rounding out the list. Robinson and his remarkable collaborators imbue each track with the varied shades of Chicago soul, in blue.

Interview by Michael Limnios                

Special Thanks: Tad Robinson, Kevin Johnson & Delmark Records

How do you think that you have grown as an artist since you first started making music? What has remained the same about your music-making process?

I think when you start out in a traditional music, like blues, the inclination is to reflect the creators of the music. So, in the beginning it’s natural to start out as imitators, modeling our whole musical identity on our heroes’ past work. For a while that is an end in itself, resulting in people saying things like, “Wow, he sounds exactly like ...”. Eventually, hopefully, you realize that you need your own sound, your own voice, your own point of view. And that’s what people want to hear. They want to hear your flavor, your fresh take. However, I try to still hold on to some of the tenets of the music, hanging on to some of the traditions, while singing music that is still relevant to my own life experience. It’s a balance between staying true to yourself but also staying to the traditional aspects of the music and remembering where it came from and whose music it really is.

What is the driving force behind your continuous support for your music? With such an illustrious career, what has given you the most satisfaction musically?

One of the driving forces is to do my best work. The other is to work with as many great musicians as I can in the time I have left. Of course the simple answer is that I need to make a living and pay the bills. And that is true too. Music is a job after all, but it’s also a passion. Blues music, in particular, becomes a language that you go back to, to find yourself and collect your thoughts. I guess you could call it a Romance Language! Ha…think I receive the greatest satisfaction from having been able to travel the world singing my own songs for the past thirty years. That has been a very rewarding experience for me. I cherish the friends that I have met through those travels.

What are you doing to keep your music relevant today, to develop it and present it to the new generation?

I think if you are consciously trying to modernize your music or trying to conform to a TikTok version of yourself you will fail from both an artistic and social-media perspective. So, I don’t even try to think in terms of making it relevant except to make it relevant to my own life.

There are love songs on my new album; songs of love lost; there’s a song about a worker who feels like he is falling behind in life; and there is a song that is sung from the perspective of an immigrant in America who is fleeing from persecution into the arms of American-bred persecutors. So, I am just going with the flow of life when I write. Perhaps my current songs, feelings, view points, will feel relevant to others. I can only hope.

”Blues music, like other roots music forms, has always been a mirror held up to the face of society, which reflects or lays bare the society’s inherent contradictions, hypocrisies, cruelties and injustices. But it also reveals to those who listen, the tenderness, yearning, hardship, redemption, and hope, that define the human experience. So, I think blues music preserves in its raw power the ability to open hearts, and minds about the human condition.” (Tad Robinson / Photos by Rich Voorhees & Peter M Hurley)

Currently you’ve one more release with Delmark Records. How did that relationship come about? Do you have any interesting stories about the making of the new album “Soul in Blue”?

After a great run making 5 albums with incredible producer, David Earl and his rock solid team at Severn Records in Maryland, I had been out of the recording mode for a while. Then, of course, the pandemic hit. On the other side of that I started writing again and thought I’d explore a situation closer to my Indiana home. The idea of a record with Delmark, close by in Chicago, also struck me as a return to my roots, since I’d recorded with them back at the beginning of my career. I soon met the production team of Elbio Barilari and Julia Miller, the post-Bob Koester, new owners of Delmark and we began to plot out the new album. I, of course, was thrilled and remain incredibly grateful to them for being open to the idea of a Delmark album for me. They have given me a lot of artistic freedom, but at the same time have wisely led me in directions that have made my music stronger. I greatly admire their musical knowledge, ears, and judgement and as business partners, so everything has a wonderful feeling associated with it. They gave me the opportunity to record with the Delmark All-Stars which consists of some of the finest in the Chicago blues business. Bass player, Larry Williams; drummer, Pookie Styx; organist, Roosevelt Purifoy were all great team players who elevated my session. I loved working with them. Not to mention guitarists, Mike Wheeler, and Carlos Showers. I wish I could do more with those guys.

At the same time, I had my working band back in Indianapolis (Kevin Anker, Paul Holdman, Dave Murray, Brian Yarde) also recording some of the album. So the final product is a variety of grooves, ensembles, and approaches. I hope people will like the flow of it. In addition we have some ringers and an international group of special guests: Alberto Marsico, Tomi Leino, Devin B. Thompson, Alex Schultz, Dave Specter, Steve Gomes, Geraldo, de Oliveira, and others.

Why is it important to preserve and spread the blues? What is the role of blues music in today’s society?

Blues music, like other roots music forms, has always been a mirror held up to the face of society, which reflects or lays bare the society’s inherent contradictions, hypocrisies, cruelties and injustices. But it also reveals to those who listen, the tenderness, yearning, hardship, redemption, and hope, that define the human experience. So, I think blues music preserves in its raw power the ability to open hearts, and minds about the human condition.

In a time when people are so divided along ethnic, economic, country, political, and ideological lines, I think that blues music provides (forgive my wokeness) a safe-haven where people can come together. I’ve seen it happen.

For example, as a white musician, I can say that when I first approached the boundaries of working in the blues music world, a world which was created and perfected by Black people, the Black people who greeted me resonated with what we now call DEI: that is, they projected and practiced a great openness in accepting me even though I was from outside of their immediate community. And they did so with grace and kindness. I’ll never forget that.

From the musical and feeling point of view is there any difference between the late great bluesmen and the young blues musicians?

I love the current scene of musicians in the blues. I’m a big fan. There are many who are remaking the music in interesting ways and whose music is very memorable. But I have yet to hear anybody in the last thirty or so years who better represented the essence of the music than those artists who coined the music in the first place. There hasn’t been another Freddie King, or Otis Rush, Howlin Wolf, Little Walter, T-Bone Walker, let alone another Muddy Waters, or Blind Blake, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, or Bessie Smith. So, I guess for emotional impact, for innovation, for sheer profundity, I still think the new generation of blues musicians doesn’t compare with the old.

Tad Robinson - Home

(Tad Robinson / Photo by Rich Voorhees)