Chick Willis - Let The Blues Speak For Itself (2011)

Chick Willis' signature song, "Stoop Down Baby," which he cut originally in 1972 for a tiny Kalamazoo, Michigan independent label called La Val Records, was based around the dozens game, and Willis' carnival barker's ability to be risqué and ribald right up to the very point where public prosecution was possible, but not beyond, makes him sort of the Redd Foxx of Chicago blues, a master of the soft porn blues lyric. He's been doing this for a long time - he cut his first track, "You're Mine," in 1956 for Lee Rupe's Ebb Records -- but since his most popular songs are so blue that they have no chance for radio airplay, he's remained an underground artist, even though he is a good draw on the club circuit and has plenty of fans. This release, in some ways, seems to address that disparity, and there are tracks here, like the closing "Let Me Play My Blues" (which could almost be called a gospel sermon filtered through electric Chicago blues), that feature Willis free of his trademark ribald gestures, and they reveal an artist who isn't trying to reinvent much but is very good at what he does, which is play straight-ahead electric Chicago blues, this time out with harp player Louisiana Dan and guitarist Travis Haddix sitting in with his regular touring band. There are songs that do fit Willis' good-humored but risqué style here, too, like "Picture on the Wall," but as an album, Let the Blues Speak for Itself is easily the most balanced one Willis has ever done. When he's not following his normal leering template, though, his lyrics fall to the generic side of the blues spectrum, but this is the blues, after all, which never met a rhymed line it couldn't fit into a thousand songs, so it's hardly a glaring problem, and most of this album is Willis at his most radio-friendly. The playing is sharp, tight, and has a live-in-the-studio feel. Willis doesn't reinvent classic Chicago blues here, but he shows that he definitely knows how to deliver it. (by Steve Leggett)