Junior.
They didn’t break the mold when they made him; he broke it himself. This was an era when being street-smart actually involved streets and a type of smarts that weren’t measurable by credit cards or computers. Guys like Junior Wells didn’t need bodyguards; they were bodyguards. They were also geniuses: of the blues and of life. You have to feel it to know it and they knew it (Knew what? Who knows, just understand that they knew things you don’t know and could never understand. Are you okay with that? I am.)
Junior was the real deal and then some. Look at him. Listen to him. He could coo like a kitten, but you could strike a match on his chin. His voice could reduce a grown-ass man to tears, and he could put his fist through a cinder block. He played that harp like he was hustling it, he sang the words like he wanted to steal your woman while you were dancing with her. At times his voice glowered with so much pain and scarcely-suppressed anger it is downright frightening. But it’s art, and that voice isn’t going to jump through the speakers to strangle you (even though it sounds like it).
No matter what I accomplish in my life, and whatever I’m able to do on my best day, I recognize that I could never hope to be one-quarter as cool as this dude. And I’m perfectly okay with that. Are you?
“The Hoodoo Man”:
“It’s So Sad To Be Lonely”:
“Country Girl” (with his partner-in-crime, the great Buddy Guy…let’s make sure we’re one-thousand percent clear: it doesn’t get any better than this, ever):
“It Hurts Me Too” (a scorching take on the Elmore James masterpiece; vocals don’t get grittier or more emotional than this: listen to him on those verses; he sounds like he is choking to get the words out: this is a punctured heart on dusty gravel):
“Baby What You Want Me To Do?” (along with Buddy, again, offering up a slow burn of the immortal Jimmy Reed classic, acoustic-style):
