Eddy Clearwater

March 14 - 21, 1 9 9 6

*** Eddy Clearwater

BOOGIE MY BLUES AWAY

(Delmark)

Producer Ralph Bass recorded Chicago blues with clarity and zeal, getting great club-like performances down with accuracy and concert-level heat. So journeyman Clearwater's licks on this just-issued 1977 session snap out of the mix like a viper hitting its victim -- bright, brittle, and sharp, sharp, sharp. Whether he's imitating Chuck Berry with a clutch of sliding licks, as he does on "Real Fine Woman," or reaching down for the deep sting on "Came Up the Hard Way," a story about working his picking fingers to the bone before he became established as a musician, his crackling lines always have an edge.

His singing is more varied. He goes for pathos on "Hard Way," wringing tears from his throat. He shouts through "Mayor Daley's Blues," lamenting the lack of blues and good times in the Windy City. And there's some honky-tonk in "I Don't Know Why," where he draws out syllables as he laments his lover's two-timing. This is the kind of stuff 1001 nights in Chicago clubs have been made of since Muddy first plugged in at Chess Studios.

-- Ted Drozdowski

(Eddy Clearwater plays Johnny D's in Somerville's Davis Square Saturday, March 16. Call 776-2004.)