Product Description
ROOMFUL OF BLUES - STEPPIN' OUT
RELEASE DATE OCTOBER 10, 2025. ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!
World-renowned, horn-powered, houserocking blues band releases their first new album in five years. Recipients of five Grammy nominations and winners of multiple Blues Music Awards (the Grammy of the blues), plus numerous victories in DownBeat’s International Critics Poll, Roomful of Blues are celebrated coast to coast and around the world. They’ve scanned over 364,000 units, even though their first six releases predated SoundScan. And Roomful of Blues continues to break new ground on Steppin’ Out, debuting dynamic new vocalist DD Bastros, the band’s first female singer.
Roomful’s muscular, horn-driven blues and high-voltage live performances have garnered media praise for decades. A hero’s welcome is expected throughout blues and roots music press for Steppin’ Out. The title will be aggressively promoted to over 700 print and internet media contacts around the world for reviews and features, plus over 1400 radio contacts for regular airplay and specialty show spins. Every gig will be promoted to print, radio and online media as well.
Steppin’ Out adds powerful, soul-stirring vocalist DD Bastros to the band’s potent, impeccable musicianship on an exhilarating mix of jump, swing, proto rock ‘n’ roll and funky, contemporary blues, including timeless gems first cut by Etta James, Big Mama Thornton, Jimmy McCracklin, Tiny Bradshaw and more. Bastos’ and the band’s emotional connection to the material is palpable from the first note to the last.
ROOMFUL OF BLUES
Steppin’ Out!
Alligator Records
Roomful of Blues, the institution and launching pad for blues-inspired musicians lucky enough to be invited through its Rhode Island doors these past 58 years, returns, and once again they present themselves in brand spanking new, fine form. Guitarist Chris Vachon has been leading Roomful for the past 36 years, wavering only occasionally, but effectively, from delivering the band’s signature blend of 1940s and ‘50s-inspred blues, swing, and jumping rock and roll. Of the band’s current eight members, none were present when guitarist Duke Robillard formed the band. Only saxophonist Rich Lataille comes close, having joined Roomful in 1970.
Over 60 players have Roomful of Blues on their resume. The latest of them includes powerhouse vocalist D.D. Bastos, of New England’s D.D. & the Road Kings, the band’s first female singer to record with Roomful (Lou Ann Barton briefly shared lead vocal duties in concert in the early 1980s). Why it took so long to draft a lady is anyone’s guess, because Bastos positively lights up this 21st Roomful of Blues studio album, ideally titled Steppin’ Out!
Bastos sings these 14 quick and clever covers with fresh, feisty energy spiced with hints of the spirits of the ladies that sang a few of them back in the day. Check her version of Big Mama Thornton’s “You Don’t Love Me No More” and the sly way she slips in a few lyrics from “Hound Dog,” also penned by Thornton. Altogether, the songs seem to have been chosen to place the focus on Bastos’ strong, effective tenor and her stage presence.
The set blasts off with Billy “The Kid” Emerson’s “Satisfied,” the rhumba beat an ideal showcase for the band, with Bastos and Vachon standing out. She displays confidence and command, and he tears through it, both with undeniable class. Z.Z. Hill’s “You Were Wrong” benefits greatly from the fiery treatment Roomful affords it. On the slinky rhythm and blues of Don Robey’s “Steppin’ Up In Class,” Bastos turns up the sass while the horn players (saxists Lataille and Craig Thomas, and trumpeter Christopher Pratt) accent her voice in sweet unity.
Roomful’s smoky, slow burn on New Orleans great Dave Bartholemew’s “Tend To Your Business” offers Bastos a chance to shine on a ballad, Pratt’s trumpet bursts and Vachon’s guitar licks ideally mournful. But Roomful of Blues is best when everything leaps high. Their silky, swinging take on Tiny Bradshaw’s “Well Oh Well” offers a prime example.
These veterans offer an intriguing slate of semi-well-known and obscure blues songs like excited new kids on the block. What is not to love?
– Tom Clarke