Archive Review: Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials’ Roughhousin’ (1986)

The creation of Roughhousin’ was one of those happy mistakes that sometimes occur in blues music. Invited into the studio to record just a couple of cuts for an upcoming Alligator Records’ compilation of young blues bands, Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials cut loose with the same sort of energy and electricity that they brought to their frequent Chicago-area live performances.

While they might have been studio neophytes facing down the daunting recording process for the very first time, Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials were seasoned veterans of the competitive Chicago blues scene. With better than a decade of performing under their collective belts, Lil’ Ed Williams and crew had forged their houserockin’ sound in the same West Side blues cauldron as such musical idols and influences as Hound Dog Taylor, Elmore James, Magic Sam, and Williams’ uncle, bluesman J.B. Hutto. They may not have known studio etiquette, but they knew how to grab a stage and squeeze out sparks, and that’s exactly what they did one cold January night in 1986. 

Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials’ Roughhousin’

Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials’ Roughhousin’ was born out of a free-for-all studio jam, and it sounds like it. “Old Oak Tree” leaps from your speakers like a saber-rattling buccaneer with plunder on his mind. Lil’ Ed’s rattletrap fretwork is met by a shambling, rambling rhythm that drives away any pretense while Ed’s vocals are almost an afterthought, pleasant but overshadowed by the intense back porch swing of the song. If “Old Oak Tree” sways with the wind, “Midnight Rider” tramples like a runaway freight train. Ed’s rapid-fire vocals are paced by scraps of white-hot guitar, and a locomotive rhythm that is as reckless as it is invigorating. Ed achieves a great guitar tone here, sounding like Hound Dog Taylor mixed with Chuck Berry, and the song could have just as easily heralded from the 1950s rather than the mid-1980s.

The first couple of songs on Roughhousin’ are just a warm-up for the machinegun staccato to follow… “She’s Fine, She’s Mine” is pure swaggering blues Sturm und Drang, a meaty Bo Diddley backbeat married to a dark Delta undertow, Ed’s malevolent vocals complimented by flurries of scrapyard guitar and the meanest drumkit tango you’ll ever hear, courtesy of Louis Henderson. While Henderson smacks the skins like a World War III bombing run, bassist James Young lays down a steel-beam rhythm and rhythm guitarist Dave Weld provides tactical support for Ed’s soaring notes. By contrast, “Everything I Do Brings Me Closer To the Blues” stomps and stammers at a snail’s pace, a potent blues dirge with Ed’s mournful vocals creeping into your ears and down your spine like an icy, windy Chicago morning. While Young and Henderson lay the smackdown on a solid houserockin’ rhythm, Ed lights a fire with some of the smokiest, greasiest, sharp-stick solos that will ever grace your eardrums with their presence.

Mean Old Frisco

“You Don’t Exist Any More” is a modified blues boogie with rock ‘n’ roll undertones, Ed’s vocals taking on a blustery tack, the rhythm section duckwalkin’ recklessly through the performance. Ed’s guitar is somewhat subdued here, a few nasty slide licks thrown in now and then above the fray, but when he cuts loose with a slam-bang solo, he does so with authority, and even second gitman Weld is invited in for a short, sharp shock. A pair of well-worn but inspired covers help round out Roughhousin’, the first being a bluesy, forceful take on Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s R&B rave-up “Mean Old Frisco.” Ed’s heartbreak vocals are accompanied by a wall of sound, scraps of Henderson’s shuffling drumbeats and rattling cymbals heard in the thick mix alongside Young’s throbbing bass line. Ed’s slide-guitar mangle here is simply stunning, cutting like the knives you see for sale on late-nite TV, imbuing the song with some non-verbal emotion. 

Memphis soul giant Rufus Thomas’s signature song “Walking the Dog” is provided an appropriately raucous interpretation, the Imperials’ sly, funky rhythms peppered with Ed’s hot guitar licks like a shotgun blast. Young throws in a walking bass solo that kicks serious tushie, Henderson kicks the cans for a short solo, and the band altogether sounds like they’re having as much fun as a Friday night club gig. Nearly hidden in-between the two aforementioned covers is Ed’s original and excellent “Car Wash Blues.” Opening with a bluesy intro that channels every hard-workin’, hard-times Chicago bluesman from Muddy Waters and Elmore James back to Tampa Red and Big Bill Broonzy, not to mention Uncle J.B., Ed’s autobiographical tale of woe is a true streetlife serenade, hardcore West Side blues from a man and a band that have lived them. Ed’s vocals are dramatically anguished, his slippery slide-work sounding as world-weary and defeated as every man and woman who has ever had to get up before the crack of dawn to make a dollar. The band mostly stays out of the way, providing a sturdy foundation for Ed’s powerful performance.   

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials’ Roughhousin’ lives up to the hype, a career-building debut album that would launch a longstanding career. Lil’ Ed and his crew still crank out righteous, houserockin’ jams on stage and in the studio, but while they’ve made some good-to-great records in the 25 years since the release of Roughhousin’, they’ve never been able to match the sheer electricity of these unfettered performances. Serving as a bridge between the Chicago blues of the 1950s and ‘60s and the contemporary blues scene of the 1980s, Roughhousin’ was the album that proved that blues music knows how to party. (Alligator Records, released 1986)