He’s Got the World on Many Strings : Pop music: Fabulous Thunderbirds guitarist Duke Robillard also has careers as a jazz/swing picker and as the leader of a blues/rock trio.

Duke Robillard is a guitar virtuoso who is splitting himself three ways.

His highest-profile gig is as a member of the popular blues/rock group the Fabulous Thunderbirds--he replaced Jimmie Vaughan in 1990. He splits the rest of his time between two solo careers--one with his own blues/rock trio (with which he’s currently touring), the other as a jazz/swing picker.

“It’s pretty unusual, I must admit,” Robillard, 44, said during a recent phone interview from a tour stop in Eugene, Ore. “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’re separate audiences for that.

“A lot of people who come out to see me just like my guitar playing, like all the different styles I play in,” he continued. “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.”

When he was just out of high school, Robillard--who appears at the Palomino tonight--founded the East Coast powerhouse-with-horns band Roomful of Blues. He recorded two albums with Roomful in the ‘70s before touring with rockabilly revivalist Robert Gordon. He also recorded two albums with Muddy Waters’ backup group, and several of his own albums, among them the recent “After Hours Swing Session” on the Rounder label. His work with the Thunderbirds can be heard on their latest album, “Walk That Walk, Talk That Talk.”

The eclectic nature of his tastes becomes apparent when he discusses his influences: “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.”

But Robillard, who’s now based in Louisville, Ky., doesn’t live completely in the past. He said he likes to keep up with modern music.

“I listen to 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. I’m influenced by it all, to some extent.”

Replacing Jimmie Vaughan (brother of the late Stevie Ray) in the T-Birds could have been fairly daunting, considering the family legacy and the fan loyalty involved (indeed, the Thunderbirds replaced Vaughan with two guitarists: Robillard and Kid Bangham play side by side in the group). But Robillard says 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.” In fact, T-Bird bassist Preston Hubbard and drummer Fran Christina had been members of Roomful. “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.”