Funny thing about the blues — if a cold is making your voice sound raw, the music just gets rougher and tougher.
So though Billy Branch was ailing Thursday night, his show with Lurrie Bell at SPACE in Evanston lost none of its anticipated power and picked up some grit.
"As luck would have it, the bug bit me last night," Branch told a full house, through quite a rasp.
Then he cleared his throat — or attempted to — and threw down the gauntlet for the night.
"As we always ask in Chicago: Are you ready for the blues?"
The roar that came back at him suggested the crowd was primed, the audience soon to hear Chicago blues at its essence: two veterans delivering classic material without drums, bass, horns, electronic keyboards, digital samples, backup vocalists or any concession to contemporary musical expectations.
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Instead, a couple of admired Chicago bluesmen who began collaborating four decades ago dug deeply into their repertoire, Branch’s gravelly tenor and searing harmonica work dovetailing with Bell’s rumbling baritone and stripped-to-the-basics guitar playing.
"This is Lurrie’s unofficial going-away party for the Grammys," Branch said, referring to Bell’s nominated album, "Can’t Shake This Feeling" (Delmark Records).
Responded Bell: "I’ve got a good feeling I might make it."
Performance of this caliber, however, needs no such validation, the music speaking urgently for itself.
Branch and Bell opened with Little Walter’s hit "Juke," Branch’s harmonica exhortations referencing Little Walter’s famous solo but quickly heading off into other directions. Long-held notes that sounded like words and a touch of vibrato at the ends of phrases were just two of Branch’s signatures. So was his tendency to tap his harp with his cupped hand, then throw the sound out into the room, like a jazz trumpeter working a plunger mute.
Bell’s rolling accompaniment on guitar — unhurried and understated — gave Branch just the right backdrop: ample sound without interference. The guitarist chose his notes carefully.
To hear these musicians in tandem was to understand that they approach rhythm with a single sensibility. Perhaps only artists who have performed together so often could telegraph a downbeat with this degree of synchronicity.
Then they tore into Sonny Boy Williamson’s "Don’t Start Me Talkin’," Branch growling the lyrics with fire and fervor. Bell’s guitar riffs answered in kind, the two men dialoguing for a while before Branch turned to his harmonica. Now three musical lines extended the conversation, one phrase piling atop the next.
By the time the musicians got to Eddie Boyd’s "Five Long Years," Branch’s voice sounded rather torn up, like a man uttering his last words but determined to get them out. Bell ratcheted up the emotion by playing guitar tremolos and leaning on sharp dissonances.
Listeners tend to think of Bell as guitarist and vocalist, but sometimes he takes out his harmonica and sets to work, as he did on this night. So when Branch left the stage to rest his ailing throat, guitarist Dan Carelli accompanied Bell in Little Walter’s "Last Night." The dips and swoops, wailing pitches and staccato repeated notes Bell produced reminded listeners that he does not take the harmonica lightly.
When all three musicians shared the stage, the audience encountered a torrent of sound. How Branch summoned the energy to play as much harmonica as he did toward the end of the evening, in an encore performance of "Got My Mojo Working," remains a mystery.
But perhaps Bell’s snarling guitar, Carelli’s fat chords, the audience singalong and the spirit of Muddy Waters — who made the tune famous — had something to do with it.
Howard Reich is a Tribune critic.
hreich@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @howardreich
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