Last updated 11:23, Thursday, 20 November 2008

Stuffed shirts. That’s what Sherman Robertson had been warned might be waiting for him before he first strode onto a Cumbrian stage. Growing up in Louisiana, Robertson was influenced by zydeco and legends like Albert Collins, Hank Williams, Lightnin’ Hopkins and BB King.

Sherman Robertson, playing on Saturday at 11pm

The chuckle in his voice carries down the phone line from Houston, Texas, halfway across America and clear across the Atlantic.

“It was very interesting,” he recalls. “When I first went there [Cumbria] I was told they were stuffed shirts. When I started playing, they moved.”

They usually do. The organisers of Carlisle Blues Fest should really be handing out antibiotics at the door on Saturday night to counter the infectiousness of headliner Robertson’s sound.

It’s a brew which could have crawled from the swamps of his native Louisiana. Critics have struggled to define Roberston’s music while uniting in praise of it.

“A master of zydeco, hard-swinging Texas electric blues, R&B and swampy Louisiana blues.”

“A Texan tornado with energy, great guitar and a wonderful soulful voice. One of the most important artists in blues.”

The reference to zydeco brings us to the American’s biggest claim to fame: his part in Paul Simon’s classic 1986 album Graceland.

Zydeco is an upbeat strand of accordion-based American folk. While making his masterpiece Simon needed a guitar player for the zydeco shuffle of track 10, That Was Your Mother, and he asked Robertson to oblige. The guitarist has since played live with Simon many times.

“It was one of my greatest experiences,” says Robertson of Graceland. “It did a lot for me. It was heaven sent, just my destiny.”

Attempts to extract further information are frustratingly ineffective; you get the impression he has been asked about this brief interlude more than any other aspect of his long career.

“I guess I had the usual influences but I’ve always dabbled. I never had what you’d call a straight blues upbringing. I cast my horizons wider than that. It wasn’t until I got to Houston that the Texas blues thing became more of a strong influence.”

During the 1970s Robertson played mainly at weekends while raising a family and holding down a “regular” job. Then Clifton Chenier – “the king of the zydeco” as namechecked by Paul Simon on That Was Your Mother – came calling.

Robertson toured Europe and the US with Chenier and word of his talent spread, to Paul Simon and the wider music world.

He signed to Atlantic Records and released three albums but found it difficult to retain his musical identity, caught between the radio-friendly records and blues-hungry audiences.

“I felt I had got to the point where my blues wasn’t good enough for the blues fans and I wasn’t rocky enough for the rock fans. So I headed home and rediscovered my Texas thing.”

Such dilemmas are long behind him. Now in his 50s, Robertson simply plays what he loves and has learned that audiences share his enthusiasm, even in “stuffed shirt” Cumbria.

He has played Penrith and Maryport blues festivals and is at Carlisle in the midst of a three-week UK tour.

“Music is the same all over the world,” he says. “People are people wherever you are. People want to have fun.”

After 40 years Roberston claims to be more determined than ever to help them on their mission. “A lot of artists have lost their hunger. I have MORE energy now because the music is more precious to me now.

“I love just making people happy. I can go from place to place and people are happy to see me. They come up to me when I finish and say ‘When are you coming back’, and I haven’t even left.

“People come along to have a good time and they know I’ll take them somewhere good. Just get in and let Sherman do the driving. Tell them to get their dancing shoes on. Sherman’s on his way.”