Paying Compliments and Playing Complements

What we have here is a mutual admiration society.

John Hammond and Duke Robillard, two of the finest blues guitarists on the planet and friends for 25 years, have joined forces on the road and in the studio. Robillard produced and played on Hammond’s latest album, “Found True Love,” and the two have been touring together on and off for the past year and a half.

These two, appearing Sunday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, approach the blues from polar-opposite planes--each excelling in the other’s weakest area of performance. In recent, separate phone interviews, neither could say enough complimentary things about the other.

“I was in Rhode Island, and Duke was playing with Roomful of Blues at a place called the Block Island Inn, and I decided to drop in,” said Hammond. “I had my mind blown; Duke was just outstanding! I was compelled to stay till after the show and introduce myself, and it turned out he knew who I was, and we got along real well.

“So now, I’m very excited to be working with a guy of his knowledge and ability. The guy can play! He’s one of the best guitar players I’ve ever heard. He’s also a great singer, a great arranger, and he knows how to mix and master records. I admire him from the bottom of my heart.”

Robillard was equally deferential.

“I first heard John when I was still in high school,” he said. “Friends of mine had just gotten back from the Newport [R.I.] Folk Festival and were raving about him, so I went out and started buying his records and became a big fan.

“He was one of the first white blues players I heard that I really felt something from. This was when I was just learning to play the blues, and hearing tunes on his records helped me search out the masters and hear the original people. I’ve always been a fan of John’s.”

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Hammond, 53, was part of the first wave of young, white musicians who discovered the blues back in the early ‘60s. Son of legendary talent scout and record producer John Hammond Sr., Hammond the younger made his recording debut in 1962 and has since produced 30 albums by his own count.

Excelling at complex, bottleneck country blues styles, Hammond is a superlative musician with a particularly authentic finger-picking technique and a genuine feel for rural-black blues techniques.

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Adept at the rhythmically intricate and emotionally intense style employed by Robert Johnson, Hammond was selected as host, guide and performer for the recent British documentary “The Search for Robert Johnson.” The program traced the roots of the storied, mysterious blues pioneer, tracking down relatives, old pals and girlfriends and attempting--albeit inconclusively--to resolve how Johnson had died and where he was buried.

“That was a serious effort,” he said. “It was amazing. To be in that position to be asking those people about Robert Johnson, I felt kind of out of my body. I don’t think it’s so important to know where the man is buried as it is to acknowledge him as a human being, as a musician, as a great artist and as someone that was not some ghost, but a real person that made great, great music.”

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Robillard, 47, assimilated and can play verbatim the work of such jazz and blues guitar giants as T-Bone Walker, Charlie Christian, Tiny Grimes, B.B. King and Guitar Slim, but always adds his own unique flourishes and improvisations.

Robillard founded Rhode Island’s Roomful of Blues back in 1967 and played with the group through 1980. He’s also been a member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds and the Legendary Blues Band and has backed such performers as Muddy Waters, Freddie King and Robert Gordon.

But it has been with his solo albums, such as 1992’s “After Hours Swing Session” and the recently released “Duke’s Blues,” that Robillard has done his finest work.

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He’s a versatile and masterly performer deserving the recognition of better-known guitarists such as Robert Cray and Jimmie Vaughan.

“I’ve never sat down and tried to learn any one style or any one solo off a record,” Robillard said. “What I try to do is just listen to so much music, the feel and sound of it. Then I get my band to play a style correctly, and that allows me to improvise on that style and maybe do what T-Bone Walker would have done, kind of channel him, so to speak.”

Robillard feels that the disparate but workable styles he and Hammond bring to the table make for some great blues concerts and help both become better musicians in the end.

“John’s playing in some different styles than I am, country blues and Chicago,” he said. “So what we do is meet somewhere in the middle ground. I get to do something a little different from what I usually do, and he gets to show another side of himself. We complement each other very well.”

* John Hammond and Duke Robillard play Sunday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano. 8 p.m. $13.50-$15.50. (714) 496-8930. Also, Hammond plays with Keb’ Mo’, Charlie Musselwhite and Doug MacLeod Saturday at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach. 8 p.m. SOLD OUT. (310) 985-7000.