Chicago Blues Stars Hit Ann Arbor Next Friday

How many people out there remember the Sun's Radio King-Mojo Boogie Band dance last month at the Union Ballroom? All right, how many remember the Blues & Jazz Festival when it used to happen here? Or the blues jams at the Primo Showbar? The way the walls struggle to stand up when the players are really jammin' in the basement of the Blind Pig (which is one of the things that happily still goes on in town)? Or for you oldtimers, do you remember Lucille Spann at the People's Ballroom over on Washington Street? Well, you can get a little taste of each of those dynamite memories, or your first exposure to a stomp-down Ann Arbor dance-concert blues revue, if such is the case, next Friday at the Union Ballroom when Willie "Winehead" Williams and his STARS OF STARS Chicago Blues Revue hits town for a glorious night of boogie-ing and partyin' down with the folks in town. The dance, sponsored by the Friends of the Ann Arbor Sun as part of the campus group's cultural awareness program, will go from 9:00 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Friday, January 24; admission is S3.00, in advance or at the door, and tickets can be obtained at the Michigan Union, Discount Records on State St., Wherehouse Records in Ypsi, Recordland at Briarwood, the Blind Pig and the SUN office. THE STARS OF STARS The band featured at this second Sun Dance, Willie Williams' STARS OF STARS Chicago Blues Revue, is truly an all-star aggregation from the blues precincts of the Windy City. Led by drummer Willie "Winehead" Williams, a veteran of the Howlin' Wolf band among many others in his long career, the STARS OF STARS Revue features the dynamic vocalist LUCILLE SPANN, a two-year favorite at the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festivals; young harmonica star CAREY BELL, who works steadily now with the Willie Dixon All-Stars band and is widely acclaimed as the finest young harp man on the scene; pioneer Chicago R & B pianist Albert "SUNNYLAND SLIM" Luandrew, whose recording and working credits are so vast as to approach legendary status; the relatively unknown Chicago guitarist EDDIE C. CAMPBELL; and bass guitar stalwart ODELL CAMPBELL, who has backed up just about everybody you dig from the Windy City. Although each of the four "stars of stars" in the band (a reference to the esteem with which these particular musicians are regarded in the blues community based in Chicago) has played in Ann Arbor before- some on a number of happy occasions- this will be the first time the present aggregation has appeared here. In fact, the band was put together especially for the Union Ballroom gig, as a way to bring back to this community a number of the Chicago people who are favorites here in town. Lucille Spann, whose album Cry Before I Go was released last year on ABC-Bluesway Records, is best known both locally and around the world for her dynamite appearances at the 1972 and 1973 Blues & Jazz Festivals and her recording made, at the '72 event, of her testimonial to her late husband Otis Spann called "Dedicated to Otis." She's also recorded for Vanguard and Bluesway singing with various of Otis Spann's recording groups before the legendary pianist's death n 1970. Lucille has sung here before in a variety of venues, each one marked with great joy and happy dancing as a result of her presence and her powerful blues belting in front of a cooking band of players. She's played the old People's Ballroom and the Primo Showbar with Mighty Joe Young's hot little band from Chicago, she's played the Blind Pig at least once I believe, and now she'll be back on the set ready to do it to death! The virtuoso young harmonica master Cary Bell Harrington, known most widely as just Carey Bell, has likewise played the Primo (With Willie Dixon's Chicago Blues All Stars), the Blind Pig, the Blues & Jazz Festival in 1973 (as a featured guest of Mighty Joe Young's band backing up Eddie Taylor, Lucille Spann, Otis Rush and Homesick James Williamson), and maybe even somewhere else in the double A before next Friday's Union Ballroom engagement. He has recorded as a leader for Delmark Records and as a sideman with many players and labels; he was co-featured with his mentor Big Walter Horton on Big Walter's excellent 1973 release on Alligator Records, which you should get at the store tomorrow.  Sunnyland Slim, or Albert Luandrew as he was called at his birth years and years ago down in Mississippi, has been associated with the post-1945 Chicago Blues scene since its beginnings, right around the time he and Muddy Waters came up from Mississippi to work for the Chess Brothers. Sunnyland and Muddy cut the first two sides for the Chess Bros.' Aristocrat label, which soon became CHESS RECORDS, the home of the Chicago R & B sound of the '50's. Sunnyland has played with almost everyone you can think of in his almost seventy years on the planet, recording countless times and only recently featured as a leader on an ABC Bluesway album. He spent some time touring and recording with Canned Heat back in their salad days, circa 1968-69, and was featured (with his Blue Spirit Band) at the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival in Exile last September. The rhythm section-guitarist Eddie C. Campbell, bassist Odell Campbell (no relation), and drummer Willie "Winehead" Williams- is your basic rock solid Chicago blues band bottom, seasoned in whiskey and wine and years of playing that funky south-side time. Willie writes songs and does some singing as well as driving the drums, and the whole band can ride on his solid groove. Taken together, the STARS OF STARS Chicago Blues Revue should provide some good kicks for you, especially when you think about DANCING TO THE MUSIC and what a delightful proposition that presents. And after all, these people represent the original strain in the modern dancing music we all know; they'll kick out the boogie music as straight as if comes, and all you have to do is let it move you. LET IT MOVE YOU!