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 [

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