Guitar Virtuoso Duke Robillard Wears a Three-Cornered Hat : Music: His famed versatility lets him split his time between jazz-swing, blues-rock and the Fabulous Thunderbirds.

Say the name. Let it roll off the tongue. Then try and pick a career to match the handle. With a name like Duke Robillard, he must be either: a) European royalty, b) the weasely manager of a rule-breaking pro wrestler in the WWF or c) a blues guitarist.

“C” is correct, but it is an inadequate description of Robillard, a Providence-born virtuoso who splits his musical duties three ways.

His most high-profile gig is as a member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, the popular blues-rock group he joined in 1990 to replace Jimmie Vaughan. But Robillard, 44, also splits his time between two distinct solo careers, one as a blues-rock artist, the other as a jazz-swing picker.

“It’s pretty unusual, I must admit,” Robillard said in a recent interview. “As far as the jazz records go, I really haven’t done much touring behind that format. I put a little bit of it into the show I’m playing, but basically it’s separate from the blues and rock ‘n’ roll. There’s separate audiences for that.

“A lot of people that come out to see me just like my guitar playing, like all the different styles I play in,” he said. “But other people just like the jazz records and don’t listen to the other stuff. They’re jazz fans. It’s different, it’s unusual, but I think it’s interesting that I have these different avenues I can take.”

Robillard grew up enamored of the blues, rock ‘n’ roll and jump-jazz pioneers of the ‘40s and ‘50s, whom he still listens to intently today. Just out of high school, he founded the East Coast horn powerhouse, Roomful of Blues, with which he recorded two albums in the ‘70s.

Since that time, he’s toured with rockabilly revivalist Robert Gordon, recorded two albums with Muddy Waters’ back-up group (The Legendary Blues Band), recorded four solo albums (two blues-rock, two jazz) and joined the Thunderbirds.

Replacing Jimmie (brother of Stevie Ray) Vaughan in the group could have been a daunting task, considering the family legacy and fan loyalty involved in the surname Vaughan. In fact, the Thunderbirds decided to replace Vaughan with two guitarists--Robillard and Kid Banghem--but Robillard said it was a relatively smooth transition.

“I’d known all those guys since the early ‘70s,” he said. “We’d been friends and jammed a lot together. Jimmie was on one of my albums. I thought of it as a natural thing. We do get the ‘Where’s Jimmie?’ people every now and then--he was really a great stylist, and a big visual part of the band, too--but most people are accepting of myself and the Kid.”

From smooth, swinging jazz to the raunchy sounds of the Thunderbirds, versatility and a cool, easy way of getting himself over has always been the name of the game for Robillard, whose guitar playing excels in all forms of music. Guitar Player magazine described him as “without a doubt the most consummate (guitarist), the one able to cover the widest range of styles with the most authority.”

The eclectic nature of Robillard’s taste becomes apparent when he discusses his influences.

“Most of the guitarists I listened to and who influenced me are older guitarists,” he said. “Early rock ‘n’ roll greats like James Burton, Chuck Berry and Link Wray, and in jazz, people like Charlie Christian, Tiny Grimes and Oscar Moore. In the blues, it was always T-Bone (Walker) and B.B. (King), you know, the classic players. When I first discovered T-Bone, that was like a revelation.”

In fact, author Helen Oakley devoted an entire appendix of her tome “Stormy Monday Blues: The T-Bone Walker Story” to Robillard’s reflections on the Texas guitar great. But Robillard doesn’t live completely in the past. He likes to keep up with modern music as well.

“I listen to modern music, what’s going on on the radio, and I incorporate some of the sounds and things that I hear out there into my own music,” he said. “I’m influenced by it all to some extent, even though my roots are in blues, roots-rock and jazz.”

Between all the projects he indulges in, Robillard finds little time for a private life anymore. If he’s not cutting an album with the Thunderbirds or as solo, he’s in the studio guesting on a friend’s project. If he’s not in the studio, he can be found on the road--especially in Europe, where his popularity far exceeds his acceptance here at home.

“Let me put it this way: I love to be home, but after not too long, I begin to get the itch, and I have to go back to work,” he said. “I need to get the playing out of my system, and that’ll always be a part of me.”

* Duke Robillard will appear Thursday night at the Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach. The Mighty Penguins will open the show. Tickets, available at the club, are $7. Show starts at 8:30 p.m.