Feelgood Factor As Sunderland Star Releases New Solo Album
A celebrated singer songwriter who bounced back from a string of setbacks in the mid 80s before going on to conquer the world has released his first solo record — at the age off 70!
North East rock and roll royalty Robert Kane has just returned home from a tour of Spain as the voice of legendary R&B band Dr Feelgood — and he's off to Switzerland for more live dates later this month.
But the founder of regional favourites The Showbiz Kids and The Alligators is back home in Sunderland this week celebrating the release of debut solo album Blues Is Blues.
It's been 70 years in the making and Robert explains: “I’m always writing down words here and there — just in case they could come in handy for a song some time.
“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.”
Robert's first brush with fame came in the mid 80s when Sunderland-based new wave band Well Well Well clinched a two-album deal with Arista Records — home to Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin and more.
But disaster struck... three times. First a new Scottish band called Wet Wet Wet burst onto the scene at the same time as Well Well Well were readying their debut album — causing confusion across the rock and pop world.
Then Robert was sidelined for six months by a serious bout of pneumonia. And Well Well Well's luck finally ran out when the band released their £30,000 make of break video for new single Revolution — set on an oil rig — in the same week that the Piper Alpha disaster made headlines across the globe.
"That's the kind of luck we had with Well Well Well," he adds. "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.
“I thought ‘that's it, I'm done now’. By then I was 33, 34 and with two small kids. I’d had my shot at the big time… and missed. I felt absolutely lost.
"The image I use is as if somebody is standing in the desert and looking 360 degrees and there’s absolutely nothing to see for miles around. That's how my life felt at that point.”
Fast forward 35 years and Robert couldn’t be in a better place. A full-time member of British R&B royalty Dr Feelgood, devoted grandfather and vocal supporter of Sunderland’s resurgence as a nationally recognised creative hub, the 70-year-old singer-songwriter’s enjoying a richly-deserved Indian summer.
"When I was a kid growing up in Roker and then Whitburn I was incredibly shy and didn't make friends easily," he admits. "But I loved music and always wanted to be a performer.
“I always knew I could do it — I just didn't know how. 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 play Barnard Castle on October 8. The band’s final live date of 2025 is at Newcastle’s Cluny on December 19.