Duke Tumatoe

Chicago native Duke Tumatoe built a durable career as a performer by blending raw R&B, rock, blues, and funk with generous doses of comedy and unfiltered honesty. He helped start the group that later became REO Speedwagon yet departed in 1969 to launch Duke Tumatoe & the All-Star Frogs. For thirteen years the band crisscrossed the Midwest, filling college venues and taverns night after night, which allowed just two studio releases: Red Pepper Hot! in 1976 and Back to Chicago in 1982. In 1983 Tumatoe disbanded the Frogs, assembled the Power Trio, and cut Duke’s Up for Blind Pig Records. The lighter touring load also let him establish his own imprint, Sweetfinger Music, which issued Dr. Duke in 1992, Wild Animals in 1994, Greatest Hits Plus in 1996, and the all-instrumental Picks & Sticks in 1997. Over the decades he shared stages with Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, George Thorogood, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and John Fogerty; the latter was impressed enough to produce the 1988 live set I Like My Job! for Warner Bros. Tumatoe moved to the J-Bird label in 1999, resulting in that year’s A Ejukatid Man. Two 2001 titles followed—Pompous & Overrated and the bawdy holiday collection It’s Christmas (Let’s Have Sex)—before Duke Tumatoe & the Power Trio appeared on Sweetfinger Records in 2003 and You’ve Got the Problem! surfaced on Blind Pig Records in 2006.