Product Description
RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 27, 2026 - LIL' ED & THE BLUES IMPERIALS
Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials are the reigning champions of raucous, slide-stoked Chicago blues. They’ve achieved legendary status with over 40 years of critically acclaimed recordings and raucous foot-stomping gigs on club, theatre and festival stages all over the world. Slideways is a tour-de-force of old-school Chicago blues played with contemporary urgenc
Shows in support begin on street date in Chicago, followed by Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, New York and Syracuse amongst others. Touring will continue throughout Spring and Summer.
Press, radio and social media focus on album and tour dates, pitching stories and reviews to over 1000 print and internet media contacts around the world. Over 1400 radio programmers worldwide will be serviced and solicited for blues specialty show and selected Triple A and Americana rotation airplay. The album is certain to be welcomed with open arms by the blues media.
Slideways is bursting with Lil’ Ed’s rollicking slide-work and rough-hewn vocals on a joyous blend of smoking slide guitar boogies, raw-boned shuffles, and heart-stopping slow blues. As always, The Blues Imperials supply rock-solid, road-tested and gloriously riotous backing.
LIL’ ED & THE BLUES IMPERIALS
Slideways
Alligator
Lil’ Ed Williams knows how to shake, rattle, and roll. With his band the Blues Imperials, Lil’ Ed tears up the joint every time he straps on his Airline Res-0-Glass J.B. Hutto model guitar. Mentored by Uncle Hutto, Lil’ Ed developed a style he called gutbucket blues, “because it gets down in your gut and makes you move around.”
His slide work is a little cleaner than Hound Dog Taylor’s, as chilling as Elmore James’, and as stark as Albert King’s. “I’m not a picker, I’m a slider,” the guitarist told Spin Magazine. “That sound just kills me. It makes my body rumble.”
He used to enhance his performances with backbends and knee walking, but these days, the 70-year-old guitarist sticks to his patented gutbucket shuffle. He’s still got plenty of energy, and his slide playing is as ferocious as ever.
For his latest outing, Slideways, the guitarist is still as slippery as he was on his ‘86 Alligator debut Roughhouisin’. The opener, “Bad All By Myself,” has Ed vacillating between Elmore and Hound Dog as he comes home whiskey-breathed and is promptly left by his former beloved to do what he likes to his own bad self. Ed’s blues have always revealed a quirky sense of humor on compositions like 2006’s “Icicles In My Meatloaf, when his mother in-law didn’t thoroughly defrost a meal, or 2012’s “I Don’t Eat No Fast Food” when his doctor told him to lose some weight: “Why go out for hamburgers/When at home I can eat prime steak?”All but one of the 13 songs on his newest outing were written by Ed, or co-written with wife/manager Pam.
“The Flirt In The Car Wash Skirt” is a sly reference to Ed’s former occupation as a car wash buffer who is stunned by a dancing car wash queenie: “As she danced across the floor my heart started to hurt/ I was mesmerized by the girl in the car wash skirt.” Ed’s Elmore/Hound Dog collaboration lights up the fretboard with Ben Levin’s Johnnie Johnson-style piano licks flickering around the edges.
“Cold Side Of The Bed” shows off Ed’s stinging Albert King side in this chilly, my-baby-done-left-me saga. Ed shows off his gutbucket shuffle with a John Lee Hooker underpinning on “You Can’t Strike Gold In A Sliver Mine.” Once again, Lil’ Ed proves he’s as much fun to listen to as he is to look at.
– Grant Britt