Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials

Born on April 8, 1955, on Chicago’s tough West Side, Ed Williams, along with his half brother James “Pookie” Young, eagerly learned to play the blues from their legendary uncle, iconic bluesman J.B. Hutto. Hutto taught the youngsters how to feel the music and how to play from the heart. Ed was fascinated with J.B.’s slide, how it looked and the sounds it made. Ed and Pookie spent their teen years making music together, and in 1975 formed the first incarnation of The Blues Imperials. They soon played their first gig at Big Duke’s Blue Flame club on the city’s West Side, splitting the $6 take four ways. Over the next few years Ed and the band performed at every club in the neighborhood while still holding down day jobs. Ed worked ten hours a day as a buffer at the Red Carpet Car Wash. Pookie drove a school bus. Undaunted, the band played night after night, and eventually the word reached Alligator president Bruce Iglauer.


At the time, Iglauer was looking for local talent for The New Bluebloods, an anthology of some of Chicago’s younger blues musicians. The band—never having seen a recording studio before—treated the studio like a club, playing live to all the people on the other side of the control room glass. After Ed quickly recorded his two rehearsed songs, there was still plenty of studio time left, so they just kept playing. After 10 songs were recorded, Iglauer offered the band a full album contract. The end result of the session was 30 songs cut in three hours with no overdubs and only one second take. Ten of those songs became the band’s debut album, Roughhousin’, released in September 1986.


The national press reacted with amazement to the blues world’s new discovery. Feature stories ran in Spin, Musician, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune and dozens of other publications. The New York Times raved, “Raw-boned, old-fashioned Chicago blues has a new young master—Lil’ Ed Williams.” 


But it wasn’t until 1987, when guitarist Mike Garrett joined the band, and a year later, when Garrett recruited his Detroit hometown friend Kelly Littleton to play drums, that things really began to take off. Garrett’s risk-taking rhythm guitar work and Littleton’s unpredictable, old-school drumming were the perfect complement to Lil’ Ed’s and Pookie’s rambunctious playing. With their 1989 album Chicken, Gravy & Biscuits, doors opened and audiences poured in. Through relentless touring, the group crystallized, becoming tighter with each performance, more adept in their abilities to read each other’s musical moves. Their spontaneous and unpredictable live show became legendary among blues fans worldwide. 


With each new release, the band’s national and international stature continued to grow as their fan base continued to expand. Die-hard “Ed Head” Conan O’Brien brought Lil’ Ed before millions of television viewers on three separate occasions. In 2025, Ed appeared on PBS Television’s Austin City Limits, bringing his natural Chicago blues to another enormous audience. The Washington Post called him, “a houserockin’ Chicago slide guitar master.”


Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials have performed live all over the world, their show as visually captivating as their music is irresistible. They have played the Chicago Blues Festival multiple times, and have appeared at The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Portland’s Waterfront Blues Festival, The Tampa Bay Blues Festival, The San Diego Blues Festival and dozens of other festivals around the country. Satisfying worldwide demand, they have performed in Canada, Great Britain, France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Japan, Australia, India, Turkey and Panama. 


The group has won just about every award the blues world has to offer. They took home the Living Blues Award for Best Live Performer in 2011, 2012, and 2013. They won the prestigious Blues Music Award for Band Of The Year in both 2007 and 2009. In 2024, Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials were inducted into the Blues Hall Of Fame. 


According to Iglauer (not just label owner and producer, but also among the band’s biggest fans), “If you want to hear—and feel—raw, rough, red hot Chicago blues, full of true emotion, you need to experience Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials. With 38 years together, they deliver slide guitar-driven, hard-rocking, real deal blues like no other band on earth.”