Lil’ Ed is a guitar player and singer with an explosive, incendiary and greasy style, who plays with a wild intensity the most aggressive Chicago West Side ‘house rockin’ blues, as can be discovered listening in the album that Alligator Records has just released.

Born on April 8^th. 1955, on the West Side, he and his half-brother James “Pookie” Young learned to play the blues thanks to their uncle, legendary J.B. Hutto, who taught them how to perform it from the bottom of their souls. Ed was fascinated by his uncle’s mastery skills on slide, and he learned all the secrets of this style. Ed and Young started to play together, and in 1975, they created The Blues Imperials. At that time, Bruce Iglauer, owner of Alligator Records, was looking for young musicians to include them in his anthology “The New Blueblood”, gathering Chicago blues new promises, so he signed them to record two songs. The band had never been in a recording studio and played as if they were in a club. As they had enough time, they didn’t stop playing and about thirty songs were collected. From those songs ten of them were chosen, that rounded up their first album, “Roughhousin'” for Alligator Records, that was released in September 1986

It’s been a long time since then. A wide amazing career built up by a lot of success and tours on the five continents, but Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials still keep the same feeling as in their beginnings, developing the most passionate and genuine West Side blues. Thirteen songs, twelve of them own compositions, give shape to an album that becomes a good example of Ed’s sound.

Lil’ Ed Williams on guitar and vocals, Michel Garrett on guitar, his faithful brother James “Pookie” Young on bass and Kelly Littleton on drums, plus the collaboration of Ben Levin on piano and organ, manage to catch listeners with their genuineness, their infectious energy, the special groove and their faultless performance, that mixes smoky slide guitar with the powerful rhythms of roadhouse boogie and shuffles, getting those blues get deep in your hearts. According to Iglauer’s own words “If you want to hear and feel raw, rough, red hot Chicago blues, full of true emotion, you need to experience Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials. With thirty-eight together, they deliver slide guitar-driven, hard-rocking, real deal blues like no other band on earth”. And, certainly, Bruce Iglauer is right. ESSENTIAL