Eddie King & Mae Bee Mae - The Blues Has Got Me (2010)

The appearance of this first album by the brother and sister headed band of Eddie King / Mae Bee Mae is compelling evidence of the musical riches that can still be found in dozens of small bars in the heart of working class black areas on Chicago s South and west sides. There, innumerable acts toil year after year in obscurity and rarely if ever get recorded, but many possess the talent that merit having their music being saved for posterity. King and Mae have that talent. Eddie King with his engaging vocals and B.B. King-style guitar and sister Mae with her powerful gospelized-blues vocals are veteran West Siders who perform a kind of music that blends striking blues licks, soul emoting, and gospel testifying and make all these varying approaches seem like one marvelous blues tradition. That they will jump from the urban blues of Albert King, to the hard southern soul of Ann Peebles, to the nitty gritty blues of their original "He ll drain you up" reflects the interests of their audiences who in their listening do not make (and never have made) genre-separating distinctions. On this album, produced by Chicago blues authority Steve wisner, Eddie King and Mae Bee Mae take the listener to a dimly-lit smoke-filled tavern on the West Side with a vigorous exuberant style of blues and blues-based music that captures the very essence of Chicago bar-band blues today.