Junior Wells – Live At Theresa’s 1975

In a sense, blues harpist Junior Wells wanted across-the-board stardom so bad after he left Muddy Waters to go solo that it undermined his music, which along with his acute showmanship evolved into a triumph of style over substance.

So it’s a large charge to find an album on which the music and showmanship both come across with such power and passion. Here, he’s not out to impress a bunch of giddy white collegians. Theresa’s Lounge, capacity about 40, was his home base in Chicago, and this has to be one of the most effectively you-are-there live albums ever recorded.

Junior and band, featuring the guitar tandems of Phil Guy and Sammy Lawhorn or Guy and Byther Smith, play “Happy Birthday” to a fan between songs. Junior invites everyone to a going-away party before he leaves on tour, debates the Jewishness of himself and others, and talks trash with familiar faces in the crowd.

The performances, meanwhile, are loose and raw — though not lacking in chops, especially from Guy and Junior. Considering he’s the star, Wells doesn’t step out as often as you’d expect, but when he does, as on the long jam “What My Mama Told Me”, he dazzles with throbbing, liquid tones, staccato wails and fiery jabs. He shows off his gritty funk-blues side on “Snatch It Back And Hold It”, camps it up a bit on “Scratch My Back” while Guy does the dirty work, and puts his own hard, contemporary stamp on Little Walter’s calling-card “Juke”.

Sure, Junior Wells did some great work in his heyday –but you’ve never heard him, or probably anyone else, quite like this before.