And if you suddenly find yourself on the dance floor, it's likely that Li'l Ed duckwalked the invitation to your table himself. Perfectly personified in his own highly extroverted presence, Williams's stripped-down brand of blues, frequently compared to that of late slide-primitivist Hound Dog Taylor, is charged with an energy more often associated with rock and roll and edged with a bite that does its Windy City roots proud.
Nephew of the late Chicago slide-guitar master J.B. Hutto, Williams established himself, under his uncle's guidance, as a regular in the city's West Side blues clubs during the '70s and '80s -- a period during which Alligator Records prez Bruce Iglauer mined that same scene for his growing roster. The two connected, resulting in Li'l Ed's 1986 debut disc, Roughhousin'. His fifth for the label, 2002's Head's Up!, is stacked with driving tracks that are likely to power-up exponentially live. This is party blues.