In the nearly six decades since Roomful of Blues was founded in 1967, upwards of 55 members have passed through its ranks.
But in all that time, save for a three-month stint, Texas-born Lou Ann Barton was in Roomful, no woman has played in the band long enough to record an album with them. That is, until D.D. Bastos was added to the roster in 2024 and became front and center of “Steppin’ Out!,” the octet’s recently released 20th studio album.
For bandleader/guitarist Chris Vachon, who has been in the band three-and-a-half-plus decades, Bastos is a welcome addition to Roomful and an addition he’s eager to show off when the Rhode Island band hits the stage at My Father’s Place.
“I had worked with D.D. Bastos, before in a side project I had called Sons of Providence,” Vachon said. “Most recently, Roomful had lost our previous vocalist, Phil Pemberton, who had to leave after 15 years because of health issues. Having worked with D.D. before, I thought she would work out for the band. When she joined last year, she and I went through a whole bunch of material and picked out some new stuff. She’s been in Roomful for about a year and we’ve gotten a really good response. Of course, when we were doing shows, people kept asking for a record with D.D. on it and we didn’t have one. So, we went and made a new record to showcase the new lineup. In the process, D.D. became the first female to be on a Roomful record.”
Recorded back in February, “Steppin’ Out!” is a 14-song platter consisting of interpretations of mostly obscure songs drawn from the canons of blues legends ranging from Big Mama Thornton (“You Don’t Move Me No More”), Big Maybelle (“I’ve Got a Feeling,” “Tell Me Who”) and Etta James (“Good Rocking Daddy”) to Tiny Bradshaw (“Well Oh Well”), Z.Z. Hill (“You Were Wrong”) and Smiley Lewis (“Dirty People”). Expect to hear this and more when ROB brings its tour through Roslyn.
“We’re going to be doing the whole record and while it’s hard, because we’ve got some stuff that we have to put to the side for a bit while we do this, we’re also pretty psyched about all of this,” Vachon said. “The fun part of all this was going through so many songs from all the other albums we’ve done that we never got to record. We went through all that, revisiting these tunes and realizing we never got to cut this one or that one and are finally getting to do it. And now we get to play them live.”
Vachon’s own musical journey began in Wakefield, RI, where his older sisters introduced him to “Meet the Beatles.” As a guitar obsessive who got his first guitar when he was 10 while trying to figure out what was going on between the grooves of “Are You Experienced?” and “Disraeli Gear,” it took a friend introducing him to B.B. King’s seminal “Live at the Regal” for him to get bitten by the blues bug—hard. By the time he was 18, Vachon was leading his own band. It was also the first time he got to catch local legends Roomful of Blues play live. It was at that time that he had an epiphany.
“Seeing them when I was around 18 or 19, I thought to myself, ‘Maybe someday I’ll be in that band,’” he recalled with a laugh. “It’s kind of like when someone sees a woman and says they’re going to marry that woman one day. It was that kind of funny feeling. I didn’t really think about it all that much. Years later, I heard that Ronnie [Earl], the guitar player at the time, was going to leave. I asked Greg [Piccolo] if I could try out, so I did. Then Ronnie came back again—that was probably seven years more than he stayed. They got this other guy, Tommy K., for a while. He broke his arm and I filled in and then they ended up hiring me. So now it’s going to be 36 years in October.”
When Vachon is asked the secret to the longevity Roomful of Blues has enjoyed, he feels it’s a pretty simple answer.
“I think it’s just that we love the music,” he explained. “For me, I really don’t know what other band I’d want to be in. I’ve been doing this for so long. It just keeps going. We’re lucky in the way that we usually have work and people still want to come see us, so why hang it up?”
Roomful of Blues will be appearing on Oct. 9 at My Father’s Place at the Roslyn Hotel, 1221 Old Northern Blvd., Roslyn. For more information, visit www.myfathersplace.com or call 516-625-2700.
