Though they’re often categorized as a blues outfit, the Fabulous Thunderbirds have always defied easy categorization. Vocalist, harmonica player and founding leader Kim Wilson says that’s by design. He admits that he wasn’t brought up on a strict musical diet of the blues. “I was basically raised on soul music,” he says. “Motown, and some Stax.” It was only when he picked up the harmonica that he discovered—and fell in love with—the blues.
Wilson says that the wide-encompassing style of the band reflects his own musical proclivities, inspired by blues giant James Cotton. “It all goes back to his first record on Verve [1967’s The James Cotton Blues Band],” he explains.
On that record, the powerful singer and blues harpist made a point of not getting hemmed in by the blues idiom. “He did [Eddie Floyd’s] ‘Knock on Wood.’ He did so many different things: Little Milton’s ‘Need You So Bad,’ Sonny Boy [Williamson], Little Walter. He did it all,” Wilson says. And that inspired Wilson. “I heard it and realized, ‘He’s doing everything that I like. And if [that approach is] good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.’”
Wilson took a leaf from Cotton’s winning playbook. “We just do what we like,” he says. And that means a mix of original songs celebrating the American musical traditions of blues, soul and R&B. “And we expanded into a little bit of rock ’n’ roll,” he adds, before pausing a beat for emphasis. “But not rock,” he adds.
After their start in Austin in 1974, the band toiled in relative obscurity for many years. They released their self-titled debut album in 1979; that record earned critical praise but sold few copies. The pattern would repeat itself on the group’s next three albums, all made by a lineup that included guitarist Jimmie Vaughan, elder brother of the soon-to-be-famous Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Chrysalis Records dropped the band after reviewing the disappointing sales figures for 1982’s T-Bird Rhythm. But the group rallied, continuing to build a fan base through regular touring and stellar, soulful performances. After signing a new deal with Epic Records, the Fabulous Thunderbirds struck gold with their 1986 album Tuff Enuff. The album’s Wilson-penned title track reached No. 10 on the Billboard singles chart, and “Wrap it Up” (an Isaac Hayes-David Porter tune first cut by soul duo Sam and Dave in 1968) enjoyed modest chart success as a single, too.
Vaughan left for a solo career in 1989; his exit signaled the start of an extended period in which the Fabulous Thunderbirds’ lineup would change regularly. Many of the guitarists who passed through the band’s ranks would go on to high profile careers of their own: Duke Robillard, Kid Ramos, Kirk Fletcher, and Nick Curran are just some of the six-string hotshots who lent their skills to the Fabulous Thunderbirds in those years.
Wilson laughs when it’s suggested that his group is something of a modern equivalent to John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, another long-running band that figured in the early career of many stars (Eric Clapton, Peter Green, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Jack Bruce, Mick Taylor, Coco Montoya, etc.). Wilson has never thought of his band as a springboard for ambitious players. “It’s all about the music,” he says. “And it always has been that way.” He emphasizes that as a bandleader, he has never sought to teach his band members how to play the music, per se. “Maybe I’m schooling them a little bit in how it’s supposed to sound,” he says.
The current configuration of the Fabulous Thunderbirds features Wilson out front as always, joined by guitarist Johnny Moeller, Bob Welsh on piano and second guitar, bassist Steve Kirsty and Rudy Albin on drums. That lineup made the band’s most recent studio album, 2024’s Struck Down. The record earned a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Blues Album, and one of its tracks, “Nothing in Rambling” was nominated in the Grammys’ Best American Roots Performance category.
Alongside his half-century-plus career with the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Kim Wilson has a thriving (and Grammy-nominated) solo career, both live onstage and on record. His latest solo album, Slow Burn (out Nov. 21) leans heavily in a blues direction, with spirited covers of songs by B.B. King, Robert Nighthawk, Sonny Boy Williamson II and Howlin’ Wolf. In between T-bird concert runs, he has scheduled several dates with his other band to play those songs.
Born in Detroit and closely associated for many years with the Texas music scene, these days the 76-year-old Wilson lives in Chicago. And if a demarcation line existed between the Fabulous Thunderbirds and a more blues-purist approach, it’s likely to become blurred—if not erased—very soon. Wilson says that the T-birds’ 2026 run of live dates will focus on a celebration of Chicago blues.
“That kind of goes to where we already are [musically],” Wilson says, “Mixing it up.” He notes that rock ’n’ roll pioneer Chuck Berry was signed to Chicago blues label Chess Records. “And Muddy Waters’ band was playing behind him half of the time.”
Underscoring Wilson’s belief that it’s all about the music, The Fabulous Thunderbirds will continue to deliver their own brand of rootsy, genre-blurring music, however one wishes to label it. “The blues is a wide-open subject,” Wilson says. “It’s really much more open than people think it is.”
The Fabulous Thunderbirds play at 7pm on Sunday, Nov. 16 at Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga. $78. my.montalvoarts.org
