That Houserocking Slide Guitarist Lil Ed Williams

This is the text of an article I wrote about Lil Ed that appeared in the August 1998 DC Blues Calendar, the the newsletter of the DC Blues Society. Ed was one of the featured artists at the 1998 DC BLues Festival, and this article was to promote that appearance. I believe I interviewed Ed when he was appearing at Bethesda Maryland's Twist & Shout, a club memorialized in a Mary Chapin Carpenter song. Twist & Shout unfortunately closed many years ago. All the photos are from the 2009 Pocono Blues Festival at Big Boulder Ski Area in Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania. © Ron Weinstock.

There are certain sounds that characterize the blues, and slide guitar is one of them. particularly in the vein of the legendary Elmore James who made a number of pioneering recordings in the fifties and early sixties including Dust My Broom, The Sky Is Crying, and Shake Your Moneymaker. James’ houserocking style has been emulated by countless blues players including Hound Dog Taylor, J.B. Hutto, and Homesick James. One of the modern masters of this tradition is Lil' Ed Williams, nephew of the late J.B. Hutto, who tears into his blues with the ferocious joy that marked his uncle's music. Williams will bring his houserocking music to this year’s D.C. Blues Festival.

A Chicago native, Ed is 42 years old, and he takes great pride in playing in the vein of his uncle. “My uncle was J.B. Hutto. He taught me basically everything |know. He'd come around and play for the family.”Growing up, Ed remembers listening to a lot of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and a lot of the older guys on records. “My uncle introduced me to his first album, which the one I know of, “Hawk Squat. That really fascinated me. We sat down and we played it over and over and over. He laughed about it.“

He remembered parties in the yard where J.B. and his band would come by and play. "My family, my aunts, my uncles. We had a really big backyard, and they would get out there and Uncle J.B. came over with his band. ° They would barbecue and just have cases of beer, and whiskey, and they'd be out there. It was all dirt yard. And they'd be out there — kicking that dirt up.

... He'd be playing so loud everybody in the neighborhood came aon by. Everybody coming in and we stayed. like our house was this side of big yard. And right by us was a big, they call it a honeymoon building then, but it was a big project, and there was an alley between us. And people would line up in this alley coming up to the fence shaky their bodies. It was so wonderful and you know I was real young then. I think I was about 8 or 9 years old. And I thought it was  the most wonderful thing in the world. | wish I could do this."

Too young to get into the clubs his uncle played (Wise Fool or Biddy Milligan’s), the he name often would sneak him in. "Paing a mustache on me, put a big wide hat on me , sneak me in." At the time was playing with Lee Jackson on second guitar, J.D, Buckner on drums and Bombay Carter on bass. It was fascinating to see him play, step on a stage with 100 foot chords. ... A lot easier without a child, but the chord is much more because people get involved, make sure you don’t trip."

When 17, Ed played in a soul group, displaying an unusual chording technique he learned from from Hutto. “This one guy used to play a lot of Temptations, Aretha Franklin, stuff like that. | wind up trying to do chords for him, but by me (being) an unorthodox player, my chords for him was not the same as his and he got upset with me. But it was the same chord, but I wouldn't do it the way (he wanted). He told me I was playing right, he couldn’t understand that when I do the chord, it sounded like his but I was doing like him, but doing a different motion.”

Ed started playing blues around 19. “I started forming my own band. I was going with a girl and her brother. I teached him to play drums ‘cause I knew how to play drums. That was my first instrument, was drums." As a drummer he was self-taught. “I did not look to anybody, I just used to listen to J.B.’s drummer when they came over to play. That’s where I got me feel from.”

Ed writes a lot of material but leaves a lot of room for his band members to develop their parts. He may add a bass part “and my brother, he'll take it (and from it). I like them to improvise themselves. I like them to take control of what they want to do and that way it all blends together. When you have to real deal with a person all you have to a special run, then it gets to be more work, but when they can improvise it and play it the way they feel it, then it’s fun.”

He also doesn't spend too much time rehearsing tunes. “The way I do me it, I kinda surprise my guys. I'll come up with something and I'll let them hear it one time and before they know it, I'll lay it on them.”

Ed’s first recording was for an Alligator anthology Roughousin' that came out in the 1980's, but the session led to a release of a full album. He recalled how it happened. "| used to see Bruce (Iglauer) come in. We used to play at BLUES on Halstead. And he used to come in.He just come in and walk out. But I didn't know who this guy was. My old rhythm player, Dave Weld, know who he was. Dave would grab me by the arm, 'There’s Bruce, There’s Bruce from Alligator records.' I said 'So what man. You know just a man.’

One day Bruce came in real late that night. We were finishing off the last song. He came up, walked up to me. "How ya doing?' 'Yeah, how ya doing?' He introduced himself. I shook his hand.He said, 'How do you guys feel about coming down to the studio and do a collection song.' 'Sure.' Dave was having a fit. Dave knew what was going on. We knew we wanted to make a record. We were going to save our money and go into one of those studios and own the collection. That was me Dave was talking about. I had no construction, no idea what this was all about.

So the next morning we had to get up real early that morning.  | never forget it. I had to go to work. I was working at the car wash and I had to leave the car wash I think at about 10 or 11 o'clock. Pookie was working the car wash, he had to leave and Dave and our drummer met us at the studio. We walked in with our car wash suits on and Bruce laughed and we said we looked funny and we all laughed.

I was kinda shaky. I was kinda scared. so we got in and we started warming up. Bruce said, 'Well, do something.' I had already been writing songs at that point and I started playing some of the old-time stuff that I learned from B.B., Muddy, all then guys. He said, 'That's good. What about some of your stuff.' And I started playing my stuff and everybody that was in the studio started clapping, having a good time and I got excited ‘cause it was like I was in a club. And I started to doing my club antics walking around, walking on my toes, crawling on my knees ‘cause we were all having fun.

“I had never heard studio sound. That’s what really got to me, ‘cause I never heard it coming from. the headphones sounding so good. Sounded really good. Bruce came out after we did 5 or 6 songs. 'You know it sounds real good. Let’s do an album. OK.' Right then, I freaked out. That was the happiest day of my life. ... We cut 30 songs in 3 hours.”

When I mentioned some acts do 4 songs in 3 hours Ed told me about someone once asked him about artists who do a lot of overdubbing and whatever. “I said well that’s their thing, if that's what they want to do. But to me, for me, Number one, time is money. Number two by me working in the car wash I've got that fecling of getting my job done. “Cause I was buffer. So I had to finish, I had to buff cars in 15 minutes. I had to buff it, and detail it In 30 minutes, So that’s the way I work even in the studio, get it done.” If a take is not right they'll try it again not overdub it. However, if they do it three times and still  can't get it right, they drop that song. “Cause you're going to lose it. Not gonna sound no better, it's only gonna get worse. The more you play it, the more you get tired of it.”

Ed has recorded four albums, three for Alligator, and when we spoke in June, was getting ready  to do another album for Alligator. Musically he continues to grow. "I'm improvising more, more different lyrics cause I'm listening to everybody. Then I was just  listening to Muddy Waters. John Lee Hooker, Elmore James. But I'm a music type of guy and I listen to all types. … I've got some stuff I'm working on in [a reggae] groove. When I do songs like that, put those types of tunes. I want to make my own so I have to really improvise, feel it out, You know I got into Chuck Berry about two months ago and I already came up with a couple songs in his style. I've got into Ruth Brown. I see her on the boat when I was on the boat going to the Bahamas. It amazed to see this woman,'cause I never hear her before. However, my wife know who this was. All I knew was about Etta James, Koko Taylor, Billie Holiday. How did I miss Ruth Brown. She is fantastic. I do one of her songs, 'If you want to live happy, don't listen to your so-called friends.' | do that."

While J.B. Hutto is Ed's biggest influence, he only has recorded Hutto's 20% Alcohol. "What I really want to do is make a tribute album to him, because I  know all his songs." J.B. influenced Ed not simply as a guitarist but also as a singer. He mentioned others, "I like Muddy Waters. That's why I hit those deep tones. And stuff like thal.”

Ed got the opportunity to play with J.B. once before his uncle passed at a club Vegetable Biddies in Indiana, "It was so wonderful. he was walking on tables and he gave me a long chord too and he made me jump off the stage. It was just great. I said then. I told him I wanted to play. One thing he told me, ‘You promise me your gonna keep the blues alive then I'll teach you.’ He did. I promised him that and he said 'You keep my tradition going, cause you’re the next one In line' He knew that."

Here is Lil Ed Williams and the Blues Imperials in performance from a Blues Festival in 2008.