Tuesday, August 9, 2005

THE NIGHT DETROIT DIED: Bluesman (and is there really a cooler job title than that?) Emery "Detroit Junior" Williams Jr. has died. He was 73.

During breaks from college and in the first few years back home, a group of us would make weekly pilgrimages to the Earle on Lincoln Ave. back when the neighborhood still was a little fun (the bar has since become a Tapas restaurant) to drink beer from a can and be enjoy sets from Detroit Junior. The highlight of the evening always was his rendition of his minor novelty hit "If I Hadn't Been High," with its spoken word interlude about the fact that for a fella there ain't no such thing as an ugly woman when you're all doped up on the liquor and the weed. It was always kind of bittersweet when some drunken sorority girl would wander in a song or two after he had poured his soul into "High," put a few shekels in his tip jar, and ask him to play it, oblivious to the fact that the notes from it were still reverberating. Detroit never seemed to mind though, he'd play it again as if it he was debuting it anew, especially if the girl was cute and the tip was generous. I probably last saw him play a decade ago, but still checked the listings from time to time, vowing to get back down to the city for a night out. Alas...

His label, Alligator Records, has an extended obit here.

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