Simon RushworthSunderland singer songwriter Robert Kane has been the voice of British R&B royalty Dr Feelgood for more than 25 years. At the age of 70 he’s just dropped his debut solo album.
Without Al Jolson there’s every chance Robert Kane would never have set foot on stage, let alone travelled the world living his rock and roll dream. As a young boy finding his feet in the Wearside village of Whitburn, a painfully shy and socially awkward Robert didn’t scream consummate and charismatic frontman. However, Jolson, the self-styled ‘World’s Greatest Entertainer’, proved to be a pivotal inspiration.
“My parents were from the pre-war generation,” explains Robert. “My dad was born in 1925 but my mam was slightly younger — between them they brought an eclectic mix of music into the house.
“My dad brought Bing Crosby 78s and records by Slim Whitman to the table. My mum loved Elvis Presley, The Everly Brothers and Cliff Richard. But my first idol, I suppose, was Al Jolson.”
Jolson was a do-it-all entertainer who, during the 1910s and 1920s, was one of North America’s best-paid stars. Regularly credited with revolutionising Broadway, the Lithuanian-born performer has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for contributions to radio, motion pictures and the recording industry.
“I absolutely loved Al’s voice,” adds Robert. “You know, most people don’t know who he is — or who he was — but he was as big as Elvis Presley at his peak. And there’s something about that voice that still resonates with me today.”
Robert was born in Roker and Sunderland Football Club’s former Roker Park home was ‘at the bottom of the road’. “My first memory is of people piling down the street on a Saturday afternoon to go to the game,” he adds.
“But we moved as soon as we could. Back in those days the place was effectively a slum. I must have been about five when we moved to Whitburn and it was then that I became aware of music.”
Jolson might have been an inspiration but he was hardly relatable: Robert never imagined he could one day emulate his hero’s globetrotting career. Post-war Wearside seemed like a world away from the bright lights of Hollywood — or even London — and stories of working-class heroes breaking out of the North East were few and far between.
“The first time I ever went to the cinema, my dad took me and my sister to see a rerun of The Jolson Story,” recalls Robert. “He wanted to see it because it was in colour, which it wouldn’t have been on the telly.
“It was my first time in a cinema — with that enormous screen — and it was all in colour! I’d never seen or heard anything like it.
“I loved the idea of Jolson travelling from town to town, city to city and singing his way across the world. There’s that romantic idea of the travelling troubadour.
“But I wasn’t in America. I was living in the North East of England. It was impossible to even contemplate doing the things I was watching on the big screen.
“But when The Beatles came along and I heard John Lennon singing Twist And Shout, I just thought ‘I want to do that and maybe I can do that’. I just immersed myself in music as a kid and a teenager.”
Robert freely admits he struggled to make friends as he forged ahead with his music. The ultimate late developer, he was 19 before he got on stage — a chance meeting at college opening the door to what would be a lifelong love of live entertainment.
Robert fronted the Showbiz Kids before his first brush with mainstream fame almost cut short a promising career. “I’d gone on to sing in a band called Well Well Well and we signed a two-record deal with Arista Records,” he adds. “Just before our debut album dropped a new band form Scotland released their first single and went straight into the Top 10. They were called Wet Wet Wet.”
If two bands with dangerously similar names wasn’t challenging enough, Robert was sidelined for six months with a serious bout of pneumonia. When he finally returned to action, Well Well Well were handed one last tilt at the big time.
“When I was fully recovered Arista said they’d put out a second single with a video,” he explains. “They gave us a budget of £30,000 which, in the 80s, was a decent chunk of money. And somebody from the record company came up with the idea of doing it on an oil rig.
“We all headed off to a rig in the middle of the North Sea and filmed the single for a song called Revolution. The week it was released, [oil rig] Piper Alpha blew up. Suddenly there wasn’t a television director in Europe who would touch the video. That’s the kind of luck we had with Well Well Well. When I look back on it now, as an older man, I just realise it wasn’t meant to be. At the time I was utterly broken.”
Fast forward 35 years and Robert couldn’t be in a better place. A full-time member of British R&B royalty Dr Feelgood — he’s been the band’s pocket rocket frontman since 1999 — devoted grandfather and vocal supporter of Sunderland’s resurgence as a nationally recognised creative hub, the singer-songwriter’s enjoying a richly -deserved Indian summer.
Debut solo album Blues Is Blues, was released by North East label Conquest Music on Friday. It’s been 70 years in the making and it’s the glorious sound of triumph in adversity. But why now? “I’m always writing down words here and there — just in case they could come in handy for a song some time,” says Robert. “Some of those words or song ideas just don’t fit Dr Feelgood and certainly the material I wrote for Blues Is Blues wasn’t right for the band.
“One day I had a debate with myself: is a song actually a song if nobody’s ever heard it? Maybe not. These songs should be heard so I decided to record them. Most were done as first takes and they’re all stripped down to the bare bones. But I love that. What you hear are the most authentic versions of the songs I write.”
Blues Is Blues is a beautiful record. It’s raw, heartfelt and disarmingly optimistic. There are those who suggest Robert’s never sounded better. If he wished he was lucky back in the dark days of the 80s then fortune’s always favoured the brave — and Blues Is Blues is the bold sound of a proud Wearsider who refused to be beaten.
“I just always knew I could do it,” he adds. “It was something instinctive. Something inside me told me that I could do this. I’m incredibly proud of my Sunderland roots, the career I’ve built and the contribution I’m continuing to make to what’s always been a magnificent music city.”
Blues Is Blues is available now via Conquest Music.
Dr Feelgood’s final live date of 2025 is at Newcastle’s Cluny on December 19.
