Christian music news: Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials at Red Miles Blues Festival

Latest christian music: The spot-checking of artistic influences was abundant in the music that Chicago guitarist Lil' Ed Williams summoned to close the inaugural Red Mile Blues Festival. The syncopated groove to Housekeeping Job was coated with Peter Green-style Brit blues, and Woman, Take a Bow suggested Carlos Santana with a melodic hook that sounded — improbable as this might seem — like a light-funk interpretation of the 1973 Edgar Winter instrumental hit Frankenstein. But the lightning electric-blues jolt of Hound Dog Taylor, Elmore James and Williams' esteemed uncle, J. B. Hutto, really fueled the performance. When Williams leaned heavily into the roadhouse cheer of those elders during the sly blues shuffles Pride and Joy (not the Stevie Ray Vaughan tune of the same name) and Take Out Some Insurance, or the densely patterned grind of Hold That Train, the Blues Imperials summoned a roaring juke-joint fire. The music sounded like the work of an honest-to-goodness blues band instead of the usual tired blues outfit siphoning rock 'n' roll for cheap, accessible thrills. Especially impressive was how keen, clean and mean Williams' slow blues excursions sounded. Even the semi-novelty tune Check My Baby's Oil, with all its cheesy lyrical innuendo, sounded quietly urgent. Like the entire show, this slice of underplayed Chicago blues served with playful menace sounded very sweet indeed.
Uncle Woody Sullender at Land of Tomorrow: The brittle passages at the core of this brief 40-minute set by Brooklyn banjoist Sullender possessed a stark, ancient air that seemed to predate bluegrass. Of course, this was in no way a traditional music program. Pedal effects and laptop-guided electronic enhancements created progressive, often otherworldly harmony. At times, the electric accents rose like voices in another room. Or mounting waves of static chatter. Or chimed bells at a dance. Or chattering insects. Or a lone, chirping bird. None of this made the performance seem like a novelty act, though. What was continually absorbing was how the natural timbre of the banjo would dissolve even as the electronics would continue to react against — or, more often than not, harmonize with — the tense strums and plucks pronounced on the strings. On Violence of Volk, especially, the electronics entered like a squall that rode shotgun to Sullender's more agitated playing. Of course, the real ingenuity of this music came not from the rise or fade of the electronics but with the cunning Sullender displayed as a soloist. On Where the Flowers on the River's Green Margin May Blow, the effects took a breather so he could experiment with the banjo's given tone and temperament. At times contemplative, at others exquisitely giddy, Sullender's music was just as progressive when surrounded by pure acoustic solitude as it was when all the dizzy electric gremlins crashed the party.

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