We stood awkwardly at the hostess’s stand.

“Look again,” we urged the slim blond to review the guest list on her computer screen.  “We won the tickets in a WDCB giveaway.”

The claim happened to have been true.  And, after having won other pairs of concert tickets before where we couldn’t attend because of schedule conflicts, we had a hard time believing we were really going to cash in on the freebie.

John, who actually won the tickets, almost apologized when he asked me if I’d like to go.  Lil’ Ed has been around for years and years. The set would probably be pretty predictable stuff. But I liked the venue, which was smallish, and I love seeing LIVE music and – what can I say – FREE is always good. There was a good pizza place I wanted to try next to the venue, so it was pretty much a no-brainer.

For a few moments, a little anxiety swept over me.  What if they didn’t find our name on the guest list? I saw John was mentally preparing some sort of leveraging argument like name-dropping the person at the radio station who confirmed the prize tickets, but the hostess just said, “I believe you. It’s not that full anyway,” and led us to our choice of tables near the back.

Lil’ Ed Willams, who stood maybe five foot four not counting his iconic colorful cap (sort of like a fez without fringe) was accompanied by his half brother Pookie Young on bass, Mike Garrett on rhythm guitar, and Kelly Littleton on drums -– the Blues Imperials.  They had been playing together about 25 years.  Anyone who went to summer music festivals about town must have seen the act at least a few times.

I had seen them before, but the specifics eluded me. I must have been more interested in the event than their musicianship.  Here, between the brick walls of this small, suburban club, I found myself very conscious of EVERYTHING.

I guessed them to be about my age. (I later Googled Lil’ Ed’s bio and saw that he was, in fact, only one year older.) I studied their outfits and tried to think of a word for their look, but each band member had such a distinctive appearance. Pookie, a gentle giant of a man, wore a sort of dark brown leisure suit, which created an unusually spacious background for watching the small and precise movements his thumb made along his bass’s strings. The drummer wore a bowling shirt.  He could have been sent by central casting to play a small time loan shark from Gotti’s neighborhood in Queens.

And they dazzled!

They performed a two-hour set, mixing blues standards with their own compositions. Lil’ Ed did not take up time chatting with the audience.  Yet, finely decked out in his Sunday going to meeting suit and shimmering cap, he gave quite a show!  He rolled his eyes theatrically and managed to get the most soulful sounds out of his slide covered pinky finger. Mike Garrett’s right hand, at times, became a blur. Pookie shuffled his weight from side to side, his eyes closed. He was in a zone. And through his steady beat and perfect touch with the high hat, I never forgot about Littleton, whose face I couldn’t even see from Table 33.

I have been feeling sort of blue lately.  Too much snow.  Too much time spent indoors. Too aware that I am in between different phases in my life. Going to hear a night of live blues was just the thing.

Why does it seem that wallowing in the minor chords and steady rhythms of the blues feels so right?

There is so much room to improvise within such a steady, reliable structure. Isn’t that a little like life? I wondered what it was like for The Imperials to play the same songs so often, the same chords, the same notes, looking for the same cues from each other.

Each performance is different while our longing to hear our own heartbeat within the music doesn’t change – and that’s no small thing.

Photo: Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials Press Kit, 2012