Tough Enough : The Fabulous T-Birds, to appear at the Oxnard Strawberry Festival, are a blues band that plays rock ‘n’ roll.

Ready for some truth in advertising? The Fabulous T-Birds--and the adjective doesn’t come from Cal Worthington--are still fabulous after all these years. Their rockin’ blues is the musical equivalent of blue skies, green lights and no cops.

Everybody loves the T-Birds except their record label, Epic, which is going to dump them later this summer. The T-Birds probably won’t stay unsigned for long. They just returned from a three-month tour of Europe and Russia and seem to be playing somewhere every day.

For local purposes, the band will play at the Strawberry Festival in Oxnard at 3 p.m. Saturday.

The T-Birds started in Austin, Tex., in 1974 when guitar whiz Jimmie Vaughan (Stevie Ray’s older brother) hooked up with a West Coast singer/harmonica player from the 805 area code named Kim Wilson. A few years ago, Vaughan bailed out and was replaced by another star blues guitarist, Duke Robillard, and the rockin’ R & B sounds have remained as dance-inducing as ever.

With 10 albums, the band has, at times, achieved a rarity for blues bands--airplay, particularly on 1986’s “Tuff Enuff,” engineered by guitar whiz and roots rocker Dave Edmunds. The band has also been produced by pop rock guru Nick Lowe and recorded songs for such films as “Porky’s,” “Tough Guys” and “Bull Durham.” The T-Birds’ favorite adjective gained a stamp of authenticity when they earned a prestigious W. C. Handy award for “Best Blues Band” in 1986.

In a recent phoner from the road, Wilson discussed his favorite blues band:

So, after more than a decade, are the T-Birds still fabulous?

Oh yeah, it’s better than ever, and the tour is going really good.

So, do they have the blues in Russia?

They’ve got the blues real bad in Russia. We were in Estonia and it’s worse over there than it was before. The people seemed to enjoy our music and they really treated us like big stars over there.

Was “Walk That Walk, Talk That Talk” the last album?

Yeah, it was. We’re going to put out a “Best of” album this summer and we’re going to add a couple of new cuts.

How can a person possibly get the blues living in Santa Barbara?

I lived in Goleta, not Santa Barbara, and I went to Dos Pueblos High School. My folks still live there. In the ‘60s, there was a lot of action and a lot of bands coming through, and I just fell in love with the blues. I used to play at a place in Goleta called the Headband, then a couple of years at a place called Fergie’s. This place called the Spigot, which is now Art’s Bar, was sort of a jazz place. Those were good days.

Why do bluesmen play so much?

That’s just the nature of the business. We’ve been pretty lucky because sometimes we don’t get a lot of airplay and people gotta know what you sound like. Playing live is where it’s at; that’s how you hone your craft. It’s just the nature of roots music to play all the time. You keep growing musically no matter how long you’ve been playing. And our music is fun to do. It’s a gas. We don’t want a vacation. In 1986, we did 340 gigs. B. B. King works more than that. All those guys stay on the road. We just like to play; that’s it.

So you guys know where all the cool junk food is?

Yeah, we sure do. We know where all the good food is, but whether it’s good for you is another story. My favorite place is La Tolteca in Santa Barbara. I played football for Dos Pueblos and one time we played Santa Barbara at their stadium. Anyway, the next day, we cleaned up the stadium for 10 bucks each or something and we all went to La Tolteca, which is right there on Milpas. We bought something like 60 taquitos.

How would you describe T-Birds’ music?

We’re a blues band that plays rock ‘n’ roll.

What’s Jimmie Vaughan doing now?

I couldn’t tell you. I’m never home anymore.

What was it like working with Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe?

It was a lot of fun--those guys are great producers. They have a lot of respect for the tradition of American music. Of course, you want everything to be new, but you still need the foundation.

Do most people think the blues is some sort of really serious music?

I think that a lot of people think that, but blues is music to have a good time to. It’s just dance music.

So what’s next?

We gotta go into the studio in May. Hopefully, we’ll have some more movie things happening. You know, we’re in that Joe Pesci movie, “My Cousin Vinny.” We’ve got several labels interested in us, and we’ll probably stay on the road.