Riverbend 2015 online
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Tonight is the Bessie Smith Strut so blues is heavy on the menu, but sometimes we forget that "strut" is also part of the event's title. Of course, the beer and barbecue are also pretty darn good.
Lil' Ed & the Blues Imperials are the band to see tonight, though guitarist Jarekus Singleton is also very good. Really good, actually, so do a little strutting on over and check him out as well.
Lil' Ed Williams plays a smooth, Chicago-style slide guitar, and Guitar Player magazine has called the group a "snarling boogie-blues machine." They've been nominated eight times for Band of the Year in the Blues Music Awards and won the award in 2007 and 2009, while also taking home the Living Blues Award for Best Live Performer in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
When Williams and the band first auditioned for Bruce Iglauer, the president of blues-based Alligator Records back in the 1980s, they'd never been in a studio before so they just tore into the music like it was a live show. It worked and Iglauer offered them a contract right then and there.
In that single session, the band cut 30 songs in three hours; 12 of them were used for "Roughhousin'," the 1986 record debut of Lil' Ed & the Blues Imperials.
Since then the band has released seven more records on Alligator, the latest being 2012's "Jump Start." The group disbanded in the early '90s, giving Williams the chance to release solo records in the 1996 and 1998, but the Blues Imperials got back together in 1999 and have kept playing together ever since.