It`s a typical Chicago winter evening-cold, windy and snowy. Inside B.L.U.E.S. Etcetera on the North Side, though, Willie Kent and the Gents are heating things up onstage for the handful of people braving the elements.
While playing the same battered Fender bass guitar he has been using for four decades, Kent, 55, is singing the blues standard ”As the Years Go Passing By.” His eyes closed, Kent is passionately declaring his love for his baby, pleading with her to come home. ”Someday my darling, sooner or later you`re gonna come running back to me,” he affirms, bringing the song to a powerful conclusion.
The 30 or so patrons cheer loudly, and an affable grin splits Kent`s face.
After nearly 40 years, Willie Kent may still not be one of the biggest names on the local blues circuit, but his brand of unadulterated Chicago blues is about as faithful to the classic style of Muddy Waters, Howlin` Wolf and Little Walter as you`ll find. Kent and his band perform every Monday at B.L.U.E.S. Etcetera, 1224 W. Belmont Ave., and this Friday at FitzGerald`s in Berwyn.
Kent, who has just released a fine album for Chicago`s Delmark Records,
”Ain`t It Nice,” says the classic Chicago blues style is in danger of disappearing. He worries that not enough young black musicians are interested in the form.
”A lot of younger players today, they don`t want to play blues-they want to play rock or rap or anything-but-blues,” he says. ”It`s a shame, because since guys like Muddy Waters and Howlin` Wolf have passed on, there`s hardly anybody doing traditional blues. They should get into it, because it`s part of their heritage and it`s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Kent came to Chicago from Mississippi as a teen in the early `50s and immediately gravitated to the thriving blues club scene on the West Side. Although still underage, he used to sneak into the legendary Sylvio`s blues clubs to see superstars Elmore James, Waters and Wolf perform.
Soon he began working with local groups, first as a singer and later as a bass player. He also occasionally worked with some of his heroes, which he found could be a humbling experience.
”Playing with (blues harpist) Little Walter for the first time scared me to death,” Kent says. ”He was too good for me to be playing with. I told him that I didn`t know but one song on the bass, and he said, `Well, just play that.` The only thing I knew how to play was a Jimmy Reed pattern. But by the weekend I had confidence-I thought I was the baddest guy on the street!”
Before forming the Gents in 1985, Kent played with a virtual Who`s Who of Chicago blues stalwarts, including Eddie C. Campbell, Jimmy Dawkins, Johnny B. Moore, Jimmy Rogers and Fenton Robinson. For much of the `70s, he led the house band at Ma Bea`s on the West Side, Sugar Bear and the Beehive. ”I was
`Sugar Bear,` ” Kent noted with a laugh.
Today Kent is one of the most accomplished blues bassists in the city, and his powerful baritone vocals and first-rate original material are showcased on ”Ain`t It Nice.” Among the album`s highlights are a tough shuffle, ”Memory of You”; the uptempo ”I`m Good,” featuring regular Gents guest vocalist Bonnie Lee; and a slow blues, ”Come Home.”
”In blues the lyrics have to say something and have a meaning for people,” Kent says of his approach to songwriting. ”You have to come up with lyrics that will touch everybody. My songs are about things that I feel-they`re not just words but things that have happened to me.”
While Kent has played recent club dates in Philadelphia and New York, he and his band are one of the more ubiquitous names playing the North Side clubs. To him, the blues is universal.
”Everybody at one time or another has the blues, even if they call it something else,” he says. ”But any way you look at it, it`s still the blues. ”People think that you have to be feeling down to listen to blues. But it`s not that way, because blues is just about life itself. It tells a story. It`s not sad to me. In fact, I`m happiest when I`m playing the blues.”
