A & E

It might seem that Ed Williams had no choice growing up. Being in a family that sang gospel music in church on Sundays, then went home and sang the blues would point him inexorably to a career in music. Especially because his uncle was the legendary bluesman J.B. Hutto, and Williams was an eager student of the guitar.

Except that 's not quite right.

"I did have a choice, actually," says Williams, who performs tonight with his band Lil' Ed & the Blues Imperials at Moondog's, Blawnox. "I worked car washes for 10 years, and that was part of me, too. Even though I had been into the blues and I loved playing it, it wasn't really my plan. I was at the car wash and making good dough and coming up in that area."

Conflicted, Williams approached his employer at the Red Carpet Car Wash, Chicago, who made a deal with him: If his venture into music did not succeed, he could have his old job back.

"That gave me that a little push," Williams says.

Twenty-five years later, he's hardly looked back. Williams, with the Blues Imperials, has crafted a comfortable niche on the blues circuit. His new album, "Rattleshake," illustrates his versatility, from the blistering pace of "Leaving Here" to the soulful cover of Billy Joe Shaver's "Tramp on Your Street."

Williams' versatility, especially on the slide guitar, was learned from Hutto, who was a student of the legendary Elmore James. Hutto, Williams recalls, would teach him one of James' licks on the guitar, go out on the road, then come back weeks later to see what his nephews -- Williams and his half-brother James "Pookie" Young -- had learned.

"I'd tell him, 'I got this, I got it down,' and I'd be so excited," Williams says, laughing. "He'd look at me and give me a little smirky laugh and he'd say, 'Yeah, you got that, but can you do this?' Then he'd pop his eyes out at me and go into the next change that I didn't know. And he knew, he knew, that I was going to learn that."

Williams was just a kid at the time, and was not aware that his uncle was one of the major players and talents of Chicago blues. When they got a bit older, Hutto would take his nephews to "little bitty" blues clubs where people where "hollering and whooping" in response to the music.

"Me and Pookie, we'd be in the middle of it all, and it was so fantastic to see," Williams says of those days backing Hutto. "We wanted that same thing."

Adding to the family aspect of the music -- Young plays bass with the Imperials -- is Williams' wife, Pam, one of the band's songwriters. On "Rattleshake" she contributes three songs, including "You Just Weren't There," a sexy, slow-to-burn blues that is one of the album's best songs.

That makes Williams one of the few guys on the planet who doesn't mind his wife putting words in his mouth.

"It is comforting, knowing that when I get frustrated I can call her in and say, 'Baby, what do you think of this?'" he says, noting that Pam Williams has a background as gospel singer. "She'll give me a good ideaI can use. ... She's a smart young lady, and it's good to have a companion that you can learn from. She learns from me, and I learn from her."

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