“Rough and ready blues played with unmitigated intensity. Swirling, snarling, riveting slide. The Blues Imperials pound out riffs and rhythms like they’re overdosing on boogie juice. Scorching and soulful, joyous and stomping.” –Living Blues

Alligator recording artists Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials, touring in support of their latest Alligator Records CD, THE BIG SOUND OF LIL’ ED & THE BLUES IMPERIALS, will perform at the Campbell Steele Gallery in Marion on Saturday, April 29, 2017. MOJO magazine included the new CD in their influential Top Ten Best Blues Albums Of 2016. Currently celebrating 27 history-making years together, Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials ply their musical talents with skills that have been honed to a razor’s edge. Mixing smoking slide guitar boogies and raw-boned shuffles with the deepest slow-burners, Lil’ Ed Williams and his Blues Imperials — bassist (and Ed’s half-brother) James “Pookie” Young, guitarist Mike Garrett and drummer Kelly Littleton — deliver gloriously riotous, rollicking and intensely emotional blues. The band received the Living Blues Award for Best Live Performer three times in five

years. They won the coveted 2009 Blues Music Award for Band Of The Year, the same honor they received in 2007, and in 2016 were named Blues Band Of The Year by Blues Blast Magazine. Ed recently guested on TBS Television’s CONAN, with Conan O’Brien proclaiming Lil’ Ed as “the man who taught me to play the blues.”

Ticket price: $25 advance / $30 week of show.